In a Hollow of the Hills

h continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden o

f saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. T

he devil have we got to, anyway? It

g," returned a second voice. "Look where you'r

ds and shoulders of three horsemen, framed within a nebulous ring of light, that still left their horses and even their lower figures in impenetrable shadow. Then the

last time. With this wind and the leaves like tinder

t we'd see wh

eat out the last fallen spark. Complete darkness and sile

ll the next squall clears away the s

ut perfectly defined square of radiance,-which, however, did not

a light in a window,"

"A house with a window on Galloper's Ridge

hat followed, they seemed to be moving in the directio

re a house couldn't stand, and we're off the t

here it

seemed to be in a different direction. But it was more distinct, and as they gazed a shadow appeared upon its

s some one behind it," said t

s face," said th

m, so that we can get our bea

pleasant voice was sustained. But there was no response from the darkness beyond. The shouting

rily; "house or no house, man or woman, we're not w

e second voice.

fronds of the taller ferns into their faces, and laid the thin, lithe whips of alder over thei

yfully. "Another blow like that and we're all right. And

the huge shoulder of the mountain along whose flanks they had been journeying to be distinctly

" said the pleasant voice deliberately. "It's c

fied accents. "We're all right now; and the wind's lifting the sky ahead there

there was no thinning of the obscurity on either side of them. Nevertheless the profile of the horsema

ain!" he said. "Look!

d-d!" returned the

lower, thick-set shrubs, which in turn yielded to a velvety moss, with long quiet intervals of netted and tangled grasses. The regular fall of t

I don't mind saying that I didn't take no stock in that blamed corpse light down there. If there ever was a will

ty one," said the pleas

tisfy yourself with looking. Gosh! I feel creepy yet, thinking of it! What are ye l

ire you started," returned the ot

if you

whether it could

g, and go two better every time! Why, I don't believe there was any fire; it was all a

ndividuality more distinctly. The man who had first spoken, and who seemed to be their leader, wore the virgin unshaven beard, mustache, and flowing hair of the Californian pioneer, and might have been the eldest; the second speaker was close shaven, thin, and energetic; the third, with the pleasant voice, in height, litheness, and suppleness of figure appeared to be the

" He was pointing into the darkness below the already descending trail. Only a pioneer's eye could have detected the few pin-pricks of light in the impenetrable distance, and it was a signal proof

than ten minutes, Uncle Dick,

Endor, but as for me, I'm going to throw myself the other side of Collinso

es and slippery ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight, and made a stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an actual collision, almost impossible. Closing together they avoided the latter, and holding each other well up, became one irresistible wedge-shaped mass. At times they yelled, not from consciousness nor bravado, but from the purely animal instinct of warning and to combat the breat

," and prepared to lead the horses towards the water tank. He had parted with them over twelve hours before, but his air of simply renewing a recently interrupted conversation was too common a circumstance to attract their notice. They knew, and he knew, that no one else

ter they were watered, he reentered the house. His guests had evidently not waited for his ministration. They had already taken one or two bottles from the shelves behind a wide bar and helped themselves, and, glasses in hand, were now satisfying the more imminent cravings of hunger

el

kle of his belt, but with his eyes also on the fire,-"well! we've prospected every yard

e close-shaven guest, w

nfidence. Collinson also addressed himself to the blaze as he said presently: "It allus seemed to me th

e's got sabe and experience." As he spoke he looked towards the man with a pleasant voice. The fire shining full upon him revealed the singular fact that while his face w

d any silver i

The wind tore round the house and r

p who collected leaves and vegetables all over the Divide, all the while he scientifically knew that the range was solid silver, only he wouldn't soil his fingers with God-forsaken lucre. I ain't saying anything agin that fine-spun theory tha

tempt to combat the opinions of their leader; possibly the same sense of disappointed hopes w

up and half drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves, kicked by mules and played with by grizzlies. We've had a heap o' fun, boys, fo

do, Uncle Dick?" said his clos

me violet-scented soap. Civilization's good enough for me! I even reckon I wouldn't mind 'the sound of the

in six months, Uncle Dick,

companionship they had already exhausted discussion and argument. A silence followe

lives in the hollow this side of the Divide, about

y so

you s

ut me betwixt Bald Top and S

one had come there lately?"

hat I tramped the whole distance

d castle or cabin that goes waltzing round the road with r

trap or pitfall in it, moved away from the fireplace without a word, and r

with jerked beef, potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye see, thar

self back in his chair, "I reckon to turn in as soon as I've rastled

d walked to the kitchen door. Collinson was sitting before a small kitchen stove, with a fork in his hand, gazing abstractedly before him. At the sound of his guest's footsteps

s off

ha

of that wi

e?" asked Key, lowe

s heads were c

." He paused and nudged his chair still closer-the heads were almost touching. "They say, over in the Bar"-his voice had sunk to a complete whisper-"that it was a lie! That she ran away with the man that was fetchin' her out. Three thousand miles and thre

entlemen; sit

tainties of prospecting only accented the other pauses. In ten minutes they were out again by the

nd get at sun-up, we might as well tell you now that we're dead broke. We've been living for the last few wee

, without, however, altering his gen

reckoned on goin' over to Skinner's to-morrow, to fill up the pork bar'l and vote for Mesick and the wa

ain man as low flung and mean as t

you see, they won't send him goods from Sacramento

ARE mean-in Sacramento," said

t to this general proposition. Sud

's off my route! Well, then, we'll fix it this way. Key will go there and tell Ski

of the difficulty seemed to satisfy eve

"and give Collinson a sight dra

Collinson, with a sudden

e of ac

nson, with a dark look of suspi

et it," said the close-

it that I'd have anything to do with your d-d paper

ckly; "that's all Jim Parker means; he's a business man, don'

" growled

heirs, our relations-to get yo

! Lemme git out o' this. You're makin' me tired." He stalked to the door, lit his pipe, and began to walk up and down the gravelly river-bed. Uncle Dick followed him. From tim

ick saying casually to Parker, "You can leave that draft on the bar when you're ready to go to-morrow;" and the incident was presumed to have ended. But Collinson did not glance in the direction of

near, increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine gravel of the river-bed against the sides of the house, and then passed in a gust of wind that shook the roof and roared in t

d Uncle Dick, turning to Col

patiently, without mo

d's name wa

ver was there and never went by. Then it got kinder monotonous, and I'd lie still and let 'em slide. Why, one night I'd a' sworn that some one pulled up with a yell and shook the door. But I sort of allowed to myself that wha

ained looking

r Big Canyon," he said, with a

woods afire just round the bend above the canyon. Whoe

t seemed to possess the whole house. There was no light but that of the fire in the front room, which threw flickering and gigantic shadows on the walls of the three empty chairs before it. An hour later it seemed as if one of the chairs were occupied, and a grotesque profile of Collinson's slumbering-or meditating-face and figure was projected grimly on the rafters as though it were the hovering guardian spirit of the house. But even that passed presently and faded out, and the beleaguering darkn

reminded him of his woodland vision of the night before, and he lay and watched them until they brightened and began to outline the figures of his still sleeping companions. But there were faint stirrings elsewhere,-the soft br

bearing, with cheerful philosophy and the hopefulness of a future unfettered by their past, the final disappointment of their quest. If they ever met again, they would laugh and remember; if they did not, they would forget

e of the vanished river lost itself in sluggish pools, discolored with the dyes of redwood. But on the other side of the rocky ledge dropped the whole length of the valley, alternately bathed in sunshine or hidden in drifts of white and clinging smoke. The upper end of the long canyon, and the crests of the ridge abo

ness embarrassed his parting with his patient host. He himself was going to Skinner's to plead for him; he knew that Parker had left the draft,-he had seen it lying in the bar,-but a new sense of delicacy kept him from alluding to it now. It was better to leave Collinson with his own peculiar ideas of the responsibilities of hospitality unchanged. Key shook his hand warmly,

gesture with his hand, and something like snow fluttered in the air above his head. It was only the torn fragments of Parker