Cinnabar City

í rom bcnbuer s Montuly. You stand in the rond looking up and west. Before you stretches the gorge between the stark mouutains that towor inhospitably on either hand, above the two Unes of buildings that have to burrow into the crowding feet of the opposite heights to inake room i'or the road between them. At the upper end a sharp mountain face wedges down and splits the gorge into two, and on a shelf of this face are perched the school and the newly-built ohurch. This is Cinuabar Ciiy. lithind you the road winds out of sight down toward the lonely foot-hills, and already you can hear the echoing rumble of tbe coach from bolow, and will presently catch the rattie of wheel and jingle of harness. On the box of that coach sits a tall, travel-worn, not haudsome passenger, whom the driver has carried before and to whom he shows respect. The driver is telling him about the mines and the growth of the city in the mouths he has been away, in which Cinnabar has doubled itself once or twicc. JJefore tlie coach stops at the " Quicksilver hotel," I must teil you the history of the man on the box-seat. His uame is Garrett Colyer. He was born in an eastern country town, studied law there and went away to the city to seek his fortune, went back at an hour's notice to deiend a scape-grace whose friendshad nomoney to pay the counsel, got bim off by the skin of his teeth and out of reach of other warrant none too soon. The scape-grace was tu reform, having already repented, and await his father and sister in the far west, and provide for them when they caine out to him. They had no money to go with ; Colyer spent his last cent on their passage and his owu. Arriving in Cinnabar, wheuce the scape-grace had written a glowing letter, they found no scape-grace, but auother letter, less glowing, and explaining the superior inducements of Quartz City, and his intention of writing to them as soon as he had things comf'ortable. Pather, daughter, and friend -were forced to go to work for very subsistence at anything they could find ; but they prospered, and after awhile Colyer eet out farther west in search of the scapegrace, and after montha in the wild country returned alone. He formed a partnership with a young attorney named llidley, and becoming engaged in a suit, involving the titlo of the greater part of the land the town occupied, he went to Washington and gained hia cause. Now he was coming back. ■ What had led him this roundabout tramp of years ? He did not love the scape-grace nor admire his ne'er-do-well father, wlio had been dead now for nearly a year. No, he did not love old man Middlebrook nor his good-for-nothing son, but he did love their sister and daughter. AU that and more ho had done for Maggy Middlebrook's sake Before he went east ho introduced his partner to her and asked him to see that she came to no harm. Now he is coming back, and as he talks with tiie driver of of ores and titles and changes, his beart goes forward with a great yearniug to the one thing he praysmay never change. And, locking out from her eyrie upon the nose of the mountain, alone at her sehoolroom window, and turning wearily from the exercise she is correcting, Maggy Middlebrook soes him getting down at the hotel, shaking hands right and left, receiving welcoine and congratularon all along the street, but pushing on past all with only a smile and a word, and coming - coming to her. Now he came near and turned to cross toward the foot-path that zigzaeged up to her perch through scraggy piñes, and he atopped in the road and looked up and eaw her. He waved his hand and passed out of sight, and when he had mounted the steep und emerged on the shelf of the mouiitiiiij, she was waiting for him at the school-bouse dosr. Ho came close and took both her hands, and she smiled with a touch of soberness, and said : " Oh, Garry, I'm very glad you've come." He held her off, and looked at her, and answered : "Aro you in trouble, Maggy? Has anyttiing happened ? ís thero any diflterence between us?" But she answerod steaclily : " No, I believe thero's no dift'erence." " I mu glad of that," he said, drawing her closer. " You look tired ; you must find teaching the líttle Pikes very wearying. But I'm going to be famous now, and you won't havo todoit much more." " You're very good," she said ; " you've always been good to me. But, indeed, I like teaching here very much, and am only a littlo tired. I'll give it up whenever you say so ; but don't be in any hurry on my account. You'll be here now, and I shall do very well, 1'ni sure." So they talked -together a good while, more gravely than ono would have expocted, and then carne down the steep path and along the only street. He was watcbing her and talking to her when, glancing up, his eyes caught his own Lame : Colyer & Eidi.ey, Law Office. " Oh, I almost forgot Eidley," he said. " He didn't come to meet me. How is he? Have you seen him lately ?" " Yes," she answered, " I saw him yesterday. He is not quite well now, I believe. He has been very kind while you were away." He left her at her door and went in search of Bidley, and found him at the office. "Oh, helio, Colyer!" he said, "Got back 'i Glad to see you." And he shook hands with great show of heartiness ; but looked hard, and not so glad as his words. "Why, Eidley," said his partner, " what's the matter P You don't look well." " No, I'in sick," Ilidley answered, speaking in a reckloss way, new to Colyer. " This cursed hole don't agree with me, and I've got to get out of it. I want you to come in and get thiugs in hand, and square up accounts. 111 see you in the morning." He was going out, but Colyer stopped him. "Oh, hold on, Eidley," he said. " What's the matter with you 'i What the devil is it all about '(" " I'm sick, I teil you," Eidley answered roughly. " I'tn going to bed. I don't know what it is ; may be it's the mercury in the air. I've got a bad turn, and I'm going to bed. Don't come with me ; I'm as ugly as Satan, and not fit to be spoken to." Colyer sat alone in the office thinking till the day went out. Then he locked the door and went along the dark road bevond the flaring lights of the town, and turned to the east up the transversa gorge. The moon got in between the buigt ts, and lighted up the road and one of the walls of rock, while the otber towered in the shadow. A few houses straggled along tho forlorn suburb of the ' city," and Colyer stopped before one of ;h'em on the dark side, and while he stood a moment in the moonlit road somebody came out of the shadow by tho doorway, and approached and spoke his name. " Come, Maggy," he said, " I want to speak to you." On the lighted side of the gulch, and a little üigher up, a small clump ot pines grew on a shelf of the mountain, not hard to gain, and he led the way thither. When they stood aiuoug the trees he said : " Maggy, y ou said you.believed Eidley was not very well. He eays he is sick, and I don't think he was glad to have ma back. He is much chauged and acts very strungely. He left me to go to bed, and I saw him ou the street just now. Do you kuow what's the mattr with him 't" He spoke steadily and gravely, and she turned Dale visibly with the white nioonlight ou upturned face. And she answered : " Yes, I suppose I do." Her voice was steady, though very low ; but she put her arm about the trunk of a pine tree, and hugged it ever so tightly to keep him i'rom sueing that she shook trom head to foot. " And how long have you knowu 't" he asked. " Only since yesterday." His eager ear caught the faintest tremor in her voice now, and. it shook him like a great wind. He turned bis face away and looked at the moon without saying or soeing anything tor a little while. Then she said : " You ought uot to be so offended with ïiui. If any one's to blume, it is I, and not he. I don't know what I was thinkng of not to see it beforo. He did not mow about us, and is very much hurt. Ie is going away directly, and I think 'ou ought to be sorry for him. 1 am very sorry." He looked at her without any apparnt emotion, and only asked : " What did you say to him 't" She flushed up, and began to answer uickly, "Itold him the truth, do you oubt'r1" But when she saw him more )lainly her voice broke up suddenly, and he sat down where she was, and began o sob and bemoan heself. And Colyer at down ner, but not touching or speakng to her ; and his hands tinding the ocks beneath him strewn with loose hingle, he began idioticaliy tossing ng bits of Btone over the ledge, and remembered having sat in the gravel so nee when a child, and tossed pebbles nto the water. And when her passionte sobbiog was somewhat abated, he poke again quite calmly ; it seeiued as if ás heart and nerves were asleep or dead, nd he could feel neither pain nor comjassion, and his yoius souuded strange to ïimself : " Did you teil him the whole truth, Maggy T' And she auswered passionately : " Oh, 'ou have no right to ask me that. I do ïot doaerve it. I have done you no wrong. I sent him away as soon as I cnew of it. I was so sorry, and told him o ; but 1 told him 1 could never think of nybody but you, and I thought he knew 11 the time. I told him how good you ïad always been to me, and how easily 'ou were hurt, and he promised to go iway as soon as you canie. Pon't be unrind ; it's not liko you." And she reaohd out both hands to him appealingly. He looked at her, and down at her outtretched hands, but did not move toward ïer ; and he asked just as beforc - "Is there nothing moro r" She drew back her hands, and lifted ïor head, spoakiug rapidly, and unsteady with passiou. " You have no right to ask what I would not let him ask ; what I would not ask ïnyself, nor let myself think of. I am true to you, and that is all I can do, and all you havp a right to expect. You are cruel, and if you keep on you will " She stopped short in her rapid speech, and Colyer spoke slowly : " I have a right to kuow the truth. I do know it. Iknewit when I met you to-day." The girl began to rock herself, and to cry again, discousolately now, and with fear. "Oh, I can't help it,'' she sobbed, "I don't know how it carne about. I don't think wo were to blame. It's a forsaken place, and 1 had no fiiends wEen you had gone, and you know you iutroduced us and told me to bo kind to him. And he was very pleasant, and helped me not to be lonely ; and I know X nieant no harin, nor thought any could come of it, any more than you." " But it is nono the loss true," he i tinued slowly. " When you look bac over what has passed between us, it seem a little pitiful, doesn't it ?" They were silent, and seemed to listen for souie intimation of au escape frou their dismal quandary. But only th breezo sang under its breath in the pin boughs of the sea so hopelessly far away and a stoue, looosened i'rom the frownin, heights, clattered down the Bteeps aim iessly." Colyer stood up, and looked down on her, lingering. "I'in going away now, he said. " Good night." She stood np, and took hold of his arm " No, don't go," she said, and lookec down. " Why not r1" he asked. " Is there an; more ?" " Uh, don't speak like that," she saii with a sudden hoarseness. " You're no going to hurt him f Promise rne you won't hurt him." " Oh, indeed !" he answered with a laugh. " So you don't want me to hur him V Did you ask him not to hurt me Maybe ho's on the watch for me now down the hollow here. But don't trouble yourself on my account. I'm not mucl scared." Then, with a swift change o manner, he turned facing her, and tooi hold of her arms. " Look here, Maggy,' he said, " he might a great deal bette have lain in wait for me, and shot me than have done what he has." Then he turned froin her abruptly, and left he aloneamong the whispering pines. He went straight to Ridley's room which was also his own, but found no one there. Then he went out and hunted the stores and hotels, but did not find him Coming out of one of these places, he was met by a man named Bruce, editor of the Cinnabar Meixury, and a prominent citi zen, who fastened on him and told him something abDut a committee of arrange ments for a proposed reception of the city's distinguished counsel, and celebration of the happy termination of the lawsuit fraught with such important results to the mountain metropolis, as he was confident Cinuabar was sooh to be. Colyer bade him roughly to let go of him, and consigned him toperdition with his celebrations. Many other hands and voices greeted him, but he pushed past without heeding, and answered no one a word. He came out of the " Suburban" hotel, and the town was behind him. He looked up to the dark outlines of the heights, and saw above him the tower of the little church, tipped by the moonlight, and dim, lower down in the shadow, the school-house, perched, like a bird-house on the cliff. He climbed the break-nèck path, and came out beside the silent building. Here, on the point of tho ledge, where a pine or two made a littlo shade in the daytime, he had sat with her that happy afternoon before he went away. It had seemed so hard to go then, and now he looked back to the parting as to a great and unattainable happiness. All the months he was away he had seen her sitting there, with the sunlight slantiug down from the peaks, and flickering through the pine needles on her face; and he had hungered for the meeting her there again! He wished he 'had never come back, that he had died with that thought of her in hia heart. He lay down on his face on the bare rock where she had sat, and did not move for a long while. In the saloons and hotels of more towns than one, the news spread that Colyer of Cinnabar had come back ; and many a man envied his good luck, or praised his well-earned sucoess, and prophesied a golden future for him. And the rock feit the pressure of his face, and the wanton wind played with his hair, and the only thing that pitied hiin was the heights that cast their shadows over him, and hid him from sight. By and by he got up and went slowly down the path and through the town. The saloons and hotels were the only places open now. He went up to Kidley's room, and found him there asleep . His disordered head was over the edge of the bed, and the bed-clothes half on the flooi. The moon had got round by this time, and lighted this upper room. All Oolyer's movements were slow and heavy like the motions of an old man. Hisfirst tiercé passion had been hatrod, blind unreasoning, overpowering ; but even in the unresisted sway of it, his habitual koen perception had seen the futility of it, and while he had hunted Ridley eagerly, he had been glad as a by-stander inight that ho had not found him. An immense pity for himself, a feêling of astonishment that such a tremendous hurt was possible, and that he, of all the thousands, should suffer it, took possession of him, and pushed away petty jealousy almost out of sight. The unendurable paiu that must yet be endured, the awful sense of loss, the loss of the worth of everything in life, and yet the burden of the empty, intolerable life still to be borne ! Nowhere to turn - everything futile - no help or understanding. It was so terrible, and it might so easily not have been ; yet it was irremediable. He wanted nothing but what he had lost, and that was gone ; and neither hate norrevenge, nor death could bring it back. That was the intolerable part of it - the futility of everything. The only possible solace was the thing lost, and that was- lost ! He did not love Ridley, but the sting of it was that that made no diflerence, and that nothing made any difference. His overwhelming was the pity of it, the pity of himself. He lifted the disordered head, and laid it on the pillow ; sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked at him with introverted eyes and a face full of wriukles. And Kidley opened his cyes and stared at bim. " What are you at now ?" he asked, roughly. " What do you want?" A sudden flash shot into Colyer's face, and he cursed him and took him by the throat. "Don't speak to roe like that," he said ; " I'U kill you if you do. I want what you have stolen from me. tiive it back to me, will you ï " Then his look changed as suddenly to the old one, and he lay down on his face boside Itidley, Kidley sat up and looked down at him, scowling and woudering a little while, then stopped over him softly and pulled on some clothing, watching the motioniess form that lay dark in the shadow. Thon he stood over him a minuto, turned away, and wheeled about two or three times, put his head out of the window, and looked up and down the street ; finally came back abruptly, and bent down and lifted Colyer bodiiy and set him down heavily in a large chair by the window. He took two pipes from the shelf and tilled aud lighted one, and put into Colyer's hand ; iilled the otber and lighted it, and drew a cbair and sat right in front of his partner, so that their kuees touched. Kidley puffed hard a minute or two, staring squarely into Colyer's face, who, for his part, held hÍB pipe between his teeth and let it go out. Eidley leaned forward and looked into the bowl of Colyer's pipe, and knocked it roughly with his own. ' Why don't you smoke ? " he said harshly, and he tipped the fire into it out of his own, and in so doing put them both out. Then ho got up and laughed, and went about the room shaken and doubled, and startling the night with i doop-toned, tumultuous laughter. And he stood still and cursed himself and Co' yer for a couple of babies and fools. " I'in condumned," be continued fierce ly, " if I know myself or you. Here ar two great hulking fellows wbo have facet wild beasts and wild men, wbo have tas ted famine aud loneliness, and cold anc heat, and conquered thcm ; who hav shared good and evil fortune, and risket life togother, and we come and sit down here as if the whole world were one littl 8chool-teacher and there was only room enough for one of us two to walk in, ant the only path for either of us was ove the other. Look here ! it's fate that tiet us up ; let fate settle it." He took up a backgammon boarc threw himself down in bis chair again and set the board on theïr knees between them. He took the dice-box then, ant pushed it at Colyer. 11 Throw," he said. And Colyer said, "You first." '.'Idon't want any odds," Ridley an swered. " I'U toss up for fiist. I sa; heads." He threw up a cent, and it feil on the board head up. Hu took up the dice ant threw. Colyer bent forward and looked " That's it," he said. " 1 might as wel not throw." The cast was a double-six. Ridley had picked up the dice ant thrown thein into the box, and he sa holding it for a minute as if for Colyer to take it, staring at him with a dark doubtful tace. Then he threw the box on the floor and got up upsetting the board. " D - n the dice ! " he said. He drew up a table before Colyer anc brought out nis chess-board, and rapidly spread the board and set up the men. " You taught me the game," he said " You can't complain of your chance Will you play 'i " And Colyer sat forward, with a sudden resolute iight in his face, and moved his queen's bishop's pawn two squares. " Hold on a minute," Ridley said. He unlocked a drawer and took out a tin box, opened it and took out a bundie of papers and threw them on the table. Colyer knew what they wore - government bonds - the proceeds of a legacy which had justcome into Ridley's hands. Ridley took his watch and chain from under the pillow. and laid them on the bonds. " I play them," he said ; " I play my horse, my gun, my books, my share and good will in the business ; and if I have anything else, I stake it on this game." Ko they feil to and played pawn against pawn, knight and castle, and bishop, aud queen, keenly and grimly, with heads bent over the board, the muonlight falling white on the stern, intent faces, and darkening them with blank shadows. They played long, not relaxing an instant, novv and then removing a piece from the board, or muttering the few low words that were part of the game. By and by Ridley paused longer than usual jefore moving and then moved slowly and heavily ; and then, without haste or ïesitation, Colyer put out his hand and moved also. Thn both leaned back and stood up ; but Ridley did not stand traight. They stood opposite one another for a minute and then Ridley lifted lis head with a motion as if it hurt him, and said harshly : " Let me alone now ; I want to sleep. '11 go in the morning." He took a small bottle from the shelf, and drank a small mouthful of it, and hrew himself into the bed, making it creak alarmingly. Presently Colyer ïeard him breathing heavily inadrugged lumber. Colyer sat facing the window, watchng the ghaatly square of moonlight creep across the floor and up the legs of he little table ; and, sitting there alone n the still tiight, a fierce conflict of pasion wagfcd within him. The overpowring longing within him to have things as he never doubted they were, to have what he had lived for, and was all that ie cared for, possessed him entirely. He ïad played no man false ; he had bonest y won his prize, and no man could gainay it. Why should he question, then? Why was he troubled or divided ? But lis hurt pride, wounded and in the dust s it was, stood up and asserted itself. iad he torgotten or grown cold through bsence, or let another creep into her )lace ? Had she not made him second '{ )idhe want a mended faith '{ Then his ïalf-drowned reason took her part in op)osition to his pride and pain. Had he not her esteem, her strong friendship, her onfidence, her unfeigned gratitude? iad she power to give him more t Could ebt, or duty, or willinguess give more 'i )id he owe her anything, that he gave ïer all that he had ? Yes, he owed to ïer, or to his thought of her, all that was )est in himself - all that was pure, or trong, or true. And had he been altoetber unselfish, after all 'i Had he, ineed, done all for her sake only 'i Behind hat had he not hidden his own immense jain - his soul's one desire 'i Was not she -oo, in trouble to-night, and Jiad he not jut her pain aside as not comparable to lis own r How did he know his was the greater ? And, was she to blame ? Who was to blame 'r1 Honestly, he could not ell. And all the while thathe wasquestionng and combating with himself, his biterness and awful sense of loss were none lie less above all that. The waters of esolation went over him, nd swept him o and fro, yet would not the brave man within him suffer him to be borne altoether from his foothold. Some words laid by Robertson of Brighton carne to ïim, vaguely, to the effect that, though a man should lose everything, even to his 'aith in God, yet would it still iemain to ïiin to do justice, and love mercy and ;ruth. In sumí: grim way there was a ertain satisfaction in the thought of his till being able to trample himself under bot, like the pang of pleasure one feels n the crushing grasp of the fórceps on an ching tooth. But this counter current f self-assertion lay deep beneath the ood of niisery that overwhelmed him. Yet, though his breath came hot and )iting with pain and anger toward her nd Ridley, in his deeper and more abidng self he was forcing himsolf to be just nd to acknowledge that neither was eslecially to blame, and that both were in rouble as well as he. His heart swelied gainst the inscrutable fate that had wrought it, as Ridley said. And yet even n that dark passage he held fast to hin biding taith in the right and justice of ie Hand that guides the world, whose jrasp upon our hearts becomes in times ike that so palpable and awful a reality. [e knew it was right ; not that be undertood or comprehended any sense of the word in which it could be right, but he 'olt that he and those others and their roubles were parts, as were the stars and ie dark heights before his eyes, and the whole struggling, suffering, laughing, useeing race of men, of one infinite whole, that finite thought or wordB could o more comprehend than a foot-rule ;auge the waters of the sea. A great mmility overéame him, and his heart went out with a deep pity for all his jlind, stumbling, foolish brothers, and a ;rong yearning to understand. Hurt as ïo was, almost unendurably, he yet cluug rO what he had left - to truth, and hones■y, and mercy. At any other time he 'ould have said to courage, also, but he elt no great bravery then. i He got up slowly, as if a great weight pressed him down, and moved about in the samo way. Tho square of moonlight had clinibed upon the table, and lighted up the chess board and the game they had played. He now first noticed that Eidley had pushed the bonds and the watoh aoross the table at the eud of the game, and it hurt biiu and made him ashamed. He pushed them back and went over the closing moves. Yes, he had played the better hand, and the checkmate was complete, and yet he had lost the game. He took up the dice trom the floor, and cast them over and over, but the highest count he could make was a double-five. He changed the arrangement of things a little, ruoving about silöntly, then went out, and shut the door Boftly behind him. He went down to the street, and his steps turned instinctively toward the house up the canon. He stopped at the fence, where shadow and moonlight met and lookedup ata certain window. When he had stood there a minute or two, there was a stir of drapery at the window, and then a face appeared for a moment, white in the moonshine. It disappeared, and quickly afterward somo one carne out of tho door and timidly down toward the gate. She stopped a little way off, still and as if in doubt. " It's me, Maggy," Colyer said. She came near and looked up at him with an anxious, distressed face and, seeming not to know what to say, put up her hands deprecatingly, and he took them in hig. " So you are up, too, Maggy," he said gently, and smiled in a pitiful fashion. " Oh, yes," she answered with a thickness in her throat at first. " Do you think I could sleep while you are in trouble ? Indeed, I am not so ungrateful. I am very, very sorry ! " He turned a way his head ; he thought she might have lold him it was not true, that it was all a horrible dream. But no, she was sorry, very, very sorry- because it was all true. He turned to her again and spoke with an apparent coldnoss. " I've been pretty faithful to you, Maggy ; don 't you think I tmve ? " And she answered : " Yes, you have indeed." " I think I would have died for you any time these four years. I have made you my first thought in everything ; I have sut y our good and happiness before every;hing else, or have meant to at any rate, [ am quite sure. I thought I was unselnsh, but I don't know now; I don'tknow whether there's any such thing. But there's only one thing to do now." " And do you think I can do and enlure nothing?" she answered passionatey. " Oh, do not go. I will show you I am not forgetful or ungrateful." He leaned back in the shadow and said nothing. Her last word stung him agsin. He had hoped against hope that she would prove his resolve unnecessary, but everything she said oiily confirmed his conclusions. He did not want her gratitude. " No, it's no good, Maggy," he said. " I am not finding fault with you, and do not mean to blame you. It's a mistak e, that's all; and nowwe've found it out, I'm sorry if I've pained you ; I'm sure I never thought I should. God bless vou, Masgy. Good-bye." While she was striving to gather her senses to answer him, he turned about and she saw hira move away and pass out of her sight, walking slowly and with the motions of one long sick. He feit faint ; the shadow of the height weighed him down. He got his hurse 'rom the atable ; his hands fumbled weaky with the saddle and bridle. He took uo provisión, no weapon of defense. He had no conscious thought or care which way he went; ouly these stark, )lack gorges were a horror to him, and .he thought of the boundless plain drew lim somehow. Out of the fitfully-sleepng, God-forsaken settlemeut, and into ;he awful loneliness of the lower defilós, ie rode to meet tho morning coming up .he eastern slopes. When Eidley awoke f'rom that drugged lumber Colyer was gone. He found the watch and chain pushed partly under his illow, and the bonds in their case lay in ;he open drawer The chessmen had een replaced in their box and set away. n their stead on the table stood the ice-box ad a penny lay beside it with ;he head turned up. The dice lay togethr aa if thrown, and the count was a ouble-six.