"If it ain't presuming, madam," he said confidentially, "I'd like to ask your advice. I take it you're from the city, now?"

"Yes," I answered, with preternatural gravity; "what makes you think so?"

"Well, I knew it by your gait, mostly. A woman that's raised in the country walks as if she was used to havin' the road to herself; city women are generally good steppers. But that ain't the point. I'm engaged to be married!"

My composure under this announcement was a good deal heightened by the fact that Esculapius, who had sauntered out after us, whistling to himself, became suddenly quiet, and disappeared tumultuously.

"Engaged to be married!" I said. "Let me congratulate you, Colonel. May I hope to see the fortunate young lady?"

"That depends. You see, I'm in a row,--the biggest kind of a row, by--a good deal; and I thought you might give me a lift. She's a 'Frisco lady, you know; one of your regular high-flyers; black eyes, bangs, no end o'

spirit. You see, she was visitin' over at Los Nietos, and we made it up, and when she went back to 'Frisco I thought I'd send her a ring; so I bought this," fumbling in his pocket, and producing the most astounding combination of red gla.s.s and pinchbeck; "and, by G.o.dfrey! she sent it back to me. Now, I don't see anything wrong about that ring; do you?"

"It is certainly a little--well, peculiar, at least, for an engagement ring; perhaps she would like something a trifle less showy. Ladies have a great many whims about jewelry, you know."

"Exactly. That is just what I reflected. So I went and bought _this_"

(triumphantly displaying a narrow band); "now that's what I call genteel; don't you? Well, if you'll believe it, she sent that back, too, by--return mail. I wish I'd fetched you the letter she wrote; if it wasn't the spiciest piece of literature I ever read by--anybody. 'She'd have me understand she wasn't a barmaid nor a Quaker; and if I didn't know what was due a lady in her position, I'd better find out before I aspired to her hand,' _et cetery_. Oh, I tell you, she's grit; no end o'

mettle. So, you see, I've struck a boulder, and it gets me bad, because I meant to see the parson through with his well here, and then go on to 'Frisco and get married. Now, if you'll help me through, and get me into sand and gravel again, and your man decides to settle in these parts, I'll guarantee you a number one well, good, even two-inch flow, and no expense but pipe and boardin' hands. I'll do it, by--some means."

"Oh, no, Colonel," I said, struggling with a laugh; "I couldn't allow that. It gives me great pleasure to advise you, only it's a very delicate matter, you know--and--really" (I was casting about wildly for an inspiration) "wouldn't it be better to go on to the city, as you intended, and ask the lady to go with you and exercise her own taste in selecting a ring?"

My companion took a step backward, folded his arms, and looked at me admiringly.

"Well, if it don't beat all how a woman walks through a millstone! Now that's what I call neat. Why, G.o.d bless you, madam, I've been boring at that thing for a week steady, night and day, by--myself, and making no headway. It makes me think of my mother. 'Robert,' she used to say (and she had a very small, trembly voice),--'Robert, a woman's little finger weighs more than a man's whole carca.s.s;' and she was right. I'll be--destroyed if she wasn't right!"

Esculapius laughed rather unnecessarily when I repeated this conversation to him.

"I am willing to allow that it's funny," I said; "but after all there is a rude pathos in the man, an untutored chivalry. Nearly every man loves and reverences a woman; but this man loves and reverences women. It is old-fashioned, I know, but it has a breezy sweetness of its own, like the lavender and rosemary of our grandmothers; don't you think so?"

There was no reply. I imagine that Esculapius is sensible at times of his want of ideality, and feels a delicacy in conversing with me. So I went on musingly:--

"With such natures love is an instinct; and it is to instinct, after all, that we must look for everything that is fresh and poetic in humanity. We have all made this sacrifice to culture,--a sacrifice of force to expression. Isn't it so, my love?"

Still no reply.

"I like to picture to myself the affection of which such a man is capable, for no doubt he loves this girl of whom he speaks; not, of course, as you--as you _ought_ to love me, but with a rude, wild sincerity, a sort of rugged grandeur. Imagine him betrayed by her. A man of the world might grow white about the lips and sick at heart, but he would find relief in cynicism and bitter words. This man would _act_,--some wild, strange act of vengeance. The cultured nature is a honeycomb: his is a solid ma.s.s; and ma.s.ses give us our most picturesque effects. Don't you think so, my dear?"

And still no reply.

"Esculapius!"

"Well, my love?"

"Isn't it barbarous of you not to answer when I speak to you?"

"Possibly; at least it has that appearance, but there are mitigating circ.u.mstances, my dear. I was asleep."

II.

Two weeks later the colonel brought his wife to call upon me. She was a showy, loud-voiced blonde, resplendently over-dressed. At the first opportunity her husband motioned me aside.

"Isn't she about the gayest piece of calico you ever saw?" he asked, with proud confidence. "Doesn't she lay over anything around here by a large majority?"

"She is certainly a very striking woman," I said gravely, "and one who does you great credit. But I am a little surprised, Colonel. No doubt it was a mistake, but I got the impression in some way that the lady was a brunette."

The colonel's countenance fell. "Now, look here," he said, after a little reflection; "I don't mind telling you, because you're up to the city ways and you'll understand. The fact is, this _isn't the one_. You see, I went on to 'Frisco as you advised, and planked down a check for five hundred dollars the minute I got there. 'Now,' said I, 'Bob Jarvis don't do things by halves; just you take that money, my girl, and get yourself a ring that's equal to the occasion. I don't care if it's a cl.u.s.ter of solitary diamonds as big as a section of well-pipe.' Now, I call that square, don't you? Well, G.o.d bless your soul, madam, if she didn't take that money and skip out with another fellow! Some white-livered city sneak--beggin' your husband's pardon--who'd been hangin' around for a year or more. Of course I was stuck when I heard of it. It was this one told me. She's her sister. I could see that she felt bad about it. 'It was a nasty, dirty trick,' she said; and I'll be--demoralized if I don't think so myself, and said so at the time.

But, after all, it turned out a lucky thing for me. Now look at that, will you?"

I followed his gaze of admiring fondness to where Mrs. Jarvis was, bridling and simpering under Esculapius's compliments.

"Isn't she a nosegay? But don't you be jealous, madam; she's just wrapped up in me, and constant," he added, shaking his head reflectively; "why, bless your soul, she's as constant as sin."

When I told Esculapius of this he sighed deeply.

"What is the matter?" I asked, with some anxiety.

He threw back his head and sent a little dreamy cloud of smoke up through the acacias.

"I was thinking," he said, pensively, "what a 'wild, strange act of vengeance' it was!"

I looked him sternly in the eye. "My dear," I said, "I don't think you ought to distress yourself about that. I never should have reminded you of it. You were dreaming, you know, and you are not responsible for what you dream. Besides, dreams are like human nature, they always go by contraries."

BRICE.

I.

He came up the mountain road at nightfall, urging his lean mustang forward wearily, and coughing now and then--a heavy, hollow cough that told its own story.

There were only two houses on the mesa stretching s.h.a.ggy and sombre with greasewood from the base of the mountains to the valley below,--two unpainted redwood dwellings, with their clumps of trailing pepper-trees and tattered bananas,--mere specks of civilization against a stern background of mountain-side. The traveler halted before one of them, bowing awkwardly as the master of the house came out.

"Mr. Brandt, I reckon."

Joel Brandt looked up into the stranger's face. Not a bad face, certainly: sallow and drawn with suffering,--one of those hopelessly pathetic faces, barely saved from the grotesque by a pair of dull, wistful eyes. Not that Joel Brandt saw anything either grotesque or pathetic about the man.

"Another sickly looking stranger outside, Barbara, wants to try the air up here. Can you keep him? Or maybe the Fox's'll give him a berth."

Mrs. Brandt shook her head in a house-wifely meditation.

"No; Mrs. Fox can't, that's certain. She has an asthma and two bronchitises there now. What's the matter with him, Joel?"

The stranger's harsh, resonant cough answered.

"Keep him?--to be sure. You might know I'd keep him, Joel; the night air's no place for a man to cough like that. Bring him into the kitchen right away."