Part 13 (1/2)

”Yes, Miss Maud, you noisy magpie.

I hang ditto and the same.”

_Clifford._--”If you don't keep quiet, I'll--”

(Klutter-terattle-tering.)

_Coffee-mill_, etc.--”Kr-rrrrr-r-rrr (Mollie) r-r-r (dar) rrrr-r-rrrr.”

_Colonel._--”She is the very image of Ivarene; and I am almost converted to Bruce's strange creed when I see them.”

_Maud_ (at the well).--”Ke-pump, ke-pump, ke-pump!”

_Colonel._--”I saw them together to-day. I was perfectly bewildered; for they are the very picture of Bruce and Ivarene on their wedding-day.”

_Maud._--

”Mollie, fairest, sweetest, dearest!

Look up, darling, tell me this--”

_Rob._--

”Miss Maud Warlow, you're a bull-frog, And I'd like to have a hook in your nose.”

But, as his rhyme ended with such an ignominious fizzle, he hurried away with a snort of disgust. Clifford lingered a moment, hoping to hear more; but his parents rose soon after, and entered the house; so, in a thoughtful mood, he went about his farm duties.

Out in the wheat a quail called ”Bob White,” while down in the pasture a flock of prairie-chickens or grouse disturbed the twilight calm with their melancholy ”ku-boom;” but, as the evening faded into night, the quiet of early slumber brooded over the Warlow household.

Chapter XII.

The week which followed brought sad tidings to the Warlow family. A black-bordered letter came, bearing the post-mark of San Francisco; but before it was opened the family knew its import.

Mrs. Warlow's only brother, William, had been in the mines for several years, but since his health had failed he had been making the great coast city his home; and, although grieved at the announcement of his death, they were not unprepared for the sad news.

The lawyer wrote that he held a few thousand dollars of the deceased's money, which was left by the will to Mrs. Warlow, and they were also informed that the ”Redwood” mine was left to Robbie, who was a great favorite with his uncle; but this latter property was as yet unproductive, though the attorney conveyed an intimation that it might some day prove very valuable, as there were mines of fabulous richness near by.

Soon the rumor went flying through the colony that the Warlows had fallen heirs to an immense estate, and as usual the report lost nothing by traveling; so our friends soon found themselves invested by the halo of riches without any of its substantial benefits.

Speculations and conjectures were rife among the neighbors as to the ”best manner of investing their friend Warlow's fortune;” and, in fact, it became impossible for any member of the colonel's family to meet an acquaintance without being informed of some great opening for a judicious investment, that was only waiting capital and enterprise to develop the fact that there was ”millions in it.”

As Clifford paused one day to discuss the state of the weather in a neighborly way with a male member of this well-meaning but misguided cla.s.s, he learned that all the vast tract of vacant land to the north, which still belonged to the government, had been condemned as being, ”unfit for agricultural purposes,” and would be ”offered” at public sale the following August at the local land-office.

When young Warlow parted with his informant the matter was dismissed; but whenever he glanced away to the north or east at the billowy hills and level, rich dales, he would begin planning how he could secure a tract of the land before it pa.s.sed into the hands of relentless speculators; and one day he actually rode out over the fertile, picturesque country for miles, and with a blush found himself dreaming how that long, narrow valley should be sown to grain, and the galloping hills, clothed with rich gra.s.ses, could provide pasturage for his vast, imaginary flocks and herds.

Alas, that the lack of a few handfuls of ”filthy lucre” only, stood between himself and the owners.h.i.+p of the broad acres on every hand! With a dreary sigh he realized, for the first time in his life, how bitter is the lot of the poor but ambitious man, who sees the avenues to wealth barred by his lack of capital.

As he stood on the spot where his father had lost his fortune so many years before, Clifford thought how many hundred thousand acres of that rolling, fertile country the lost wealth represented; and while his horse grazed quietly near, the youth threw himself down in the cool shadow of the ruined wall, dreaming and planning how he might recover the vast wealth that he had long suspected was buried here near the scene of the tragedy.

But when he calmly began to a.n.a.lyze the evidence on which his suspicions were based, he was disappointed to see how visionary it all seemed in the clear light of reason. But it was too dear and cherished a theory to be relinquished without a mental struggle; so again he began to persuade himself that those scheming white men, of whom young Estill had spoken--those inhuman villains--might have secreted the gold from the drunken Indians, and it might have been that the blood-stained, avaricious leaders had died a violent death in those turbulent days, and the great wealth was still sleeping, undisturbed, all these years, while his father was suffering under the heavy load of poverty and fallen fortune. As Clifford still mused, there flashed across his mind the lines of Rokeby:--