Frontier Stories

s own singular species was not entirely preserved, it admitted no inferior trees. Nor was there any diminishing fringe on its outskirts;

freshed itself under lesser sycamores and willows. It was here the newly-born city of Excelsior, still in its cradle, had, like an infant Hercu

rly said to have no "gospel starch" about him. Certain conscious outcasts and transgressors were touched at this apparent unbending of the spiritual authority. The rigid tenets of Father Wynn's faith were lost in the supposed catholicity of his humanity. "A preacher that can jine a man when he's histin' liquor into him, without jawin' about it, ought to be allowed to wrestle with sinners and splash about in as much cold water as he likes," was the criticism of one of his converts. Nevertheless, it was true that Father Wynn was somewhat loud and intolerant in his tolerance. It was true that he was a little more rough, a little more frank, a little more hearty, a little more impulsive, than his disciples. It was true that often the proclamation of his ex

An atmosphere of chaste and proud virginity made itself felt even in the starched integrity of her spotless skirts, in her neatly-gloved finger-tips, in her clear amber eyes, in her imperious red lips, in her sensitive nostrils. Need it be said that the youth and midd

y, and keep in the right path; not up, or down, or round the gulch, you know-ha, ha!-but straight across lots to the shining gate." He had raised his voice under the stimulus of a few admiring spectators, and backed his convert

le under Mr. Wynn's active heartiness and brotherly horse-play before spectators

inued Father Wynn hastily, fearing that the convert might take the illustration literally. "There, there-

now going out to meet the bridegroom, as she was fully dressed and gloved,

f mortar still in the air, and a faint suggestion that at any moment green grass might appear between the interstices of the red-brick hearth. The room, y

im at the door," said her father, drawing one of the new chairs towards him s

interest. "Then he doesn't go with

; w

m girls to come to choir-meeting," replied Miss N

y, the sheriff is much better. I called to cheer him up to-day" (Mr. Wynn had in fact tumultuously accelerated the sick man's pulse), "and he talked of you, as usual. In fact, he said he had

ie coldly

"Don't be a fool," he said dryly. "He

e least trace of coquetry. "Is the wedding or the hanging to

strict judge this fall, he's bound to go to the legislature, any way. I don't think a girl with your advantages and educati

roval of this suggestion, although she replied w

his bed yet, and they

re isn't any pa

You know your young friend of the Carquinez Woods-Dorman, the botani

self a few extra degrees

calls himself Dorman-Low Dorman. That's only Frenc

Eau Dormante,

of them French Canadian trappers translated it into French when he brought him to Cali

" said

njin, I tell you, and you can't of course have an

introduced him to the Bishop and those Eastern clergymen as a magnificent specimen of a young Californian. You forget what an occasion you

d the Rev. Mr.

out of the same book 'Children of our Father's Fold,' an

eed, I am quite convinced that when Brace said 'the only good Indian was a dead one' his expression, though extravagant, perhaps, really voiced the sentim

nd so well," responded the daughter. Mr. Wynn cast a quick glance at her, but there was no tra

her, who generally gave these simple paternal duties t

Watsons', at the foot of the hill, and ask after the baby; so I sha

wever, beaten. He had lost the blissful journey by her side, which would have been his professional right, but-she was going to Indian Spring! could he not anticipate her there? Might they not meet in the most accidental manner? And what might not come from that meeting away from the prying eyes of their own town? Mr. Brace did not hesitate, but saddling his fleet Buckskin, by the time the stagecoach had passed the Crossing in the high-road he had mounted the hill and was dashing along the "cut-off" in the same direction, a full mile in advance. Arriving at Indian Spring, he left his horse at a Mexican posada on the confines of the settlement, and from the piled débris of a tunnel excavation awaited the slow arrival of the coach. On mature reflection he could give no reason why he had not boldly awaited it at the express office, except a certain bashful consciousness of his own folly, and a belief that it might be glaringly apparent to the bystanders. When the coach arrived and he had overcome this consciousness, it was too late. Yuba Bill had discharged his passengers for Indian Spring and driven away. Miss Nellie was in the settlement, but where? As time passed he became more desperate and bolder. He walked recklessly up and down the ma

e lazily called, and looking up found that he was on the

nd the coach got awa

collections." He did not recognize the men, but his own face, name, and

in a long brown duster and half muffled up in a hood, was the daughter of Father Wynn of Excelsior. I did not get a fair look at her, but it stands to reason that

he had left her in Excelsior, and that in his two hours' sojourn in Indian Spring he had not once met her. "But," he added, with a Californian's reverence for the sanctit

te its more sombre and unknown recesses, he kept within sight of the skirting plain. By degrees the sedate influence of the silent vaults seemed to depress him. The ardor of the chase began to flag. Under the calm of their dim roof the fever of his veins began to subside; his pace slackened; he reasoned more deliberately. It was by no means probable that the young woman in a brown duster was Nellie; it was not her habitual traveling dress; it was not like her to walk unattended in the road; there was nothing in her tastes and habits to take her into this gloomy forest, allowing that she had even entered it; and on this absolute question of he

nt direction which she seemed to invariably keep. Nevertheless, he gained upon her breathlessly, and, thanks to the bark-strewn floor, noiselessly. He was near enough to distinguish and recognize the dress she wore, a pale yellow, that he had admired when he first saw her. It was Nellie, unmistakably; if i

ggestion of her mode of escape. He called aloud to her; the vacant Woods let his helpless voice die in their unresponsive depths. He gazed into the air and down at the bark-strewn carpet at his feet. Like most of his vocation, he was sparing of speech, and epigrammatic after

, I'm