Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 3, Number 17, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 26 October 1872 — Page 6

.1, THE OLD BARS.

jBk-kHy. old am! crnzy, Hhiugtel -w, lacking"ome uoora, Bad in ihe upper »tor\

WatuiuK I wards In il»e floor* Br rn» Mrung thick with cobwebs, l'.Wc"|K vwllow anl limy. Will m#iuR helpless Innocence uv«r tue rauw» of hay.

IIow the wind* turned around it— Wimitt of stormy day— tB« nttcrinK the fragrant hay seed,

Wniskliig the straws away 8l'raining »n at the crannies, Hpn-ariiuK the clover smell, duingiii^ ih- dark old.graucry into a Howvry dell. .»*

how I loved the shadows,

5 5

That clung to the silent roof, Day «ir--tm* wove with the quiet,

*•5

Many a Klltttrlng woof .1

climbed

to the highest rafter*,

Anl walciu-d the *wallows ut plav, Admired this knots in the boaidlng, And rolled In the billows of hay. Palace oi king could'ut match it,

Th« Vatican IOMSSilw charm Y/jit-n placed In my memories' balance, BMilo the old gray barn A'nd I'd ratherseent the clover,

Piled In the burn's roomy mows, Than Ml In the breath of the highlands JL'ouredfrom Apponine brows!

.Kansas Magazl ne— October.

oe's Pockct.

DKAN'K MuNAIIAN.

"Drunk agi'n, I sw'ar. Joo Biggs, you are the oncrvest an' meanest human of lives. I~rat yes, say nuthin' to me, for I can't stand it. Tknr'slhn bed, you missable hog!'' And tbe maligned Joe Bi*gs blindly flung himself upon khe creaking eorusof a not-very-luxu-rious couch, aided thereto by a movement on tbe part ot the speaker which wu.i too sudden to be regarded us a ca-*-S9.

Tbe people outside laughed a littlo as they heard this Iterating, and began a basty retreat us tbe tumbled flaxen bead oftho woman »mmodi«tcly after appeared at the doorway. Moonlight is Kind to beauty, but bouilineas, as embodied in a face fairly chalked in untienUhy whiteness, a hay-colored mass ®f nnkempt hair, a scowl which t-oded HO kindness, and ovor all a shabby nt«ht-dress, has no friend in the beams Which seem to cover all except such deformities as these. Tbe woman turned aw»v again and retired into the darkness" ot the shanty, the retreating foolsteps of tho roysterers died aw:y in the distance, and soon, tinder th«) placid light it was us though thoro w. re no drunken men or cross women iu "11 tbe world.

It WHS a cabin by the side of a mountain roid. Tho lingo pine logs of wliicli it was constructed had been cui from tho stumps hard by

Hint

so far

as ruile skill and main strengih could make it so, the place was comfortable enough, jt was tho ancient pattern of tho "cabin." There was one door and one window, a chimney of mud and stow*, »nd a small yard was enclosed wifli an apology for a feiico. If wusthe bill country, and log homos, trees, gr* uruss and a general mountain eoolucso and freedom, formed a gr.iteful contrast to tho tiresome adobo villages and low fields which lay in the valley a few miles away Nor was the eabiu entirely alone. A quarter the larue quadrangle of ureen grass, in tlie ccnlre of which uroso a slender fl igstaff, surrounded by houses littlo belter thin Joe's, but in which w. lt men and women so fur removed lrom him that he saw tliem only from afar. Then there were glimpses of white canvas, hiries neighed from tho long rough •'teds, and, as if to guard ths ban- standard of authority, a -ntim I paced back and lorth butoruthu (lag-si It, and two brans guns «tiod open-mouthed aid glittering «ither side. In word, it was the universal concumit int ot settlement and safety throughout l'ie land, a military post. A tput than which it would bo hard to lind one more green and boautiml, was enlivened all the year by t' irade ol aims, and tho incense* of military d-votion arose each mornlna and evening in the sullen growl and lingering blue smoke of a gun at wb»«« sound tho

Joe liiggs was that kind ot man who needs

particular description to t*:ose

Kcqualnted with liis species in a mining country, lie was a Tentie»set»ui, so long absent from the land or his nativity that he himself bad nearly forgotirn the fact. Though still a robust, inlddk-aged man, ho had leen for manv vears a mountalnwr, and a vie tim of all tho thousand vicissitudes .which here, as elsewhere, lefall man \»liose principal characteristlo is rfck 1«ssnoss. "It would soeiu a poor pl*ce f.r domestic troubles, and that any Xlnd ofprtuloncc might enablo a man "Ho leave them out of his calendar oi rVirrovvs. Hut Joe tt.i4 not th it pru deuce, attid in the ap Xar«no0 and tern -"*er of his last wift'.W wnsthe »»ost unit.rumate man In those diggings. Joe just that kind man that is nl*WMVS married—married without any irnrd to place, cinm instances, sppear3,n% or compatibility. I here are ^inany like Joe. The world would Ix Idelugeii with domestic dol fuln«*s

Mie story-tellera ouly knew who they

Years before, when the mounUineer ^•sll figure was very straight, and nis (tw»v beard knew uo thread of gray. a\ his sauntering* in and about the vilY*W»gp, he one dav canto upon ft maid of ^rtie nut-brown variety, whose eye* wero very black bor wro abouluMB •erv shapely, and as she milked goat* *n vard, ho leaned upou tho wall ami tried tn t\ i*t bis Tennessoean dla into so» a uut.g like Spanish, It Is useless to tell the r*t. Tu« dead and gone besnly had long b«*en among the cueuiories and regrets which men and women everywhere are apt to carry in ihflr hearts. We can not tell what thoughts were at work in Joe's heart he delved in tho mountain side, whlh tbe daughter she bad left him sat neai and watched tbe work, or how swew --toe water tasted which she brought him from the #pring, or -what weight* %mad Important thing* were discussed a* her livclv cbaUcr weut continuous

Iv on through all tbe work, and Jm'i

and daughters are plenty enough, #nd all the world knows their proverbial Intimacy, and how in this perfect equality of June and December, June is generally tbe wiser and stronger of th« two.

But Joe's last matrimonial venture was of a different kind. She was a long and awkward Texan, one of the kind that are constantly wandering westward, and are ever ready to be married upou a day's acquaintance, to almo»t any one. Joe roust have been demented. He afterwards

for he cuine, saw,

bride

history^

was still another person in the cabin, who, more than auy of the three, was a Bullerer iu

the

its

last to

tfecr

start

ed and llstoned, and tho rabbit bounded away to Ills cover in tho copse. Hut if you fallowed tho road which straggled in indis'.ineiticss past Jon's Oabln, you would find yourself soon »mong glades burdened with balsamic Odors, among rocks which had been rolled fro:ii their original beds and (limpled down the hlil, mid sleep hillHides whose red earth showed sUns of ourious work. It was a lmd of wild scenes and wilder uion, protected only by force from the Apache, where the dwellers even In their best estate could dream of nothing bolter. Hut It was also tho land of gold. Where ran the stream in the valley a mile below, the aiuledrew in an endless.circle the rndo Hhnft of the primitive artuitra. The Mexican patiently worked hi* cradle with dirt uarrled tluthvr upon a don key's back, and over ail brooded the restless spirit ol American enterprise, "Wandering, prospecting, speculating and gambling nmith, vindictive, generous, and evei attiirst lor wild adventure and wealth.

small

dew and

lady

fre^"en' ,y

thought of tbe circumstance with that extenuating possibility as ^n

ex®u*®{

conquered,

his angular

and led

away from the c°tto°_

wood beneath which theceremony had been performed, all within three days from his ti rst sight of her foj^s Then the mountaineer's troubles began, and after about a year, he homo from tbe traders store three night's out of the week, in manner and form, and meeting with same rocepUon as set forth in the beginning of this

wornan

comforted her

wakefulness with muttered which were only a compromise. with profanity, and Joe snored in fortunate

rineon«c*ousness

of the storm, there

habitual

drunkenness and domestic stnfe. daughter was fifteen years oW. which, with such as she, means all the softness, tenderness and beauty of yout together with the perfect maturity of womanhood. That her traunng had been thus far peculiar and »P«r^ctwas not

her

fault, nor that

couth tutor. He was rough and coarse as his kind ever are, but years of nesmnd coarseness sometimes

fail

blot out in a man's heart the memory of the time when he was innocent. As he went to delve in the hillside, ever saarehirnr lor the yellow dust, ana

ev^r

ffiij"iuly efioifh to feed liO|)e, th« child went with hiin. grasping his big linger with her tender childish clasp. IS lav asleep on his ragged coat in •be nine shadows, while the noon heats baked the bare red hills, tbe loug lashes trailing her flushed cbe°k, aud tbe withering wild flowers in her little pudgv, tired hand, Joe's heart warmed toward her with a feeling which brought back everything which was ijoodin the youth of a wild Ule. The mountaineer was not utterly bad, noi entirely weak, and as

dav

by day her

tinr'-W twined in his beard, and her love crept into his heart, a consciousness of be greatness of bis trust grew ",lOII And then the litjone ,d the blood Ot a generation ol East T-nr.csseo mountain v,rtu®

1"ll^lt

vein-. Hut Joo thought ot that. The rough miners occasionally saw Liitrirneighbor engaged in strange oc eu pat ions, us

they

passed by. As lor

instance, leaning on his pick,the child bright eyes studying bis face, and torgftful in his earnestness that niountains and tre^s have ears,

h®

the country and the PeoPl0 ,w£® ,, was born of

coon-hunts

and log-ioll-

i,ius a few months in which he nl

all

fie knew of the hardness of tho benches of a primitive school house, and more than all of his.m0.tb£rtried to mako tho wondering infant understand that he could have a

»otb«r-

N iv, more, he ventured to try to teach her again, some of the tilings that his mother had taught him. Perhaps there were other listeners than the passing miners or

tho

wondering child as in

his blundering way he to Id her of the iker of all things, and the ChriNtnias ot so many hundred years ago. But the end he alwavs came unconsciously buck to the beginning of his story.-his mother, lie seemed to Mncy that she might be living yet. "W hen yer «i-td-dy finds a pocket we'll go back there little 'un," he said.

Joe's bad ways had begun but lately, and his daughter, still his companion, but longer a child, began to have the dawn of trouble in her fair Now, when the woman's tongue had «bated

vigor, as she too seotued a*,

have forgotten her husbands

HIIUS in slumber, the girl arose and glided through tho opeu

door

into Ihe

brilliant night. The conveiuloualittes of the world had little placedu ber lUV, ami as she leaned upon tho broken fenco and looked down tho niountaiu road, her

foot were baro in the

her

round arms lay listlessly

upon the topmost rail. She was not conscious 6t bersolf as she stood think

intr, of

that tho beautiful light which

was so unkind to her step-mothers features, made her face a Madonna as she looked up into the

blue

depths

with the tears oti her lashes. By and by. In the vague unhappiness wh eh she could hardly define, and for which she know no remedy, Bhe laid her fore head upon her arms, and did what wo man in all times and races is apt to do —just cried. It was past midnight Site hoard dimly tbe sentinels Chal lenge, as the nightly POtnp of tb "gr »ud rounds" camo anu passed tbe faint clink of arms and the small comtnntim'at the guard-house, as the surlv crew fell into line to be counted and lastly the retreating footsteps and set tied silenco which proclaimed the un timelv ceremony doue. She had heard lion©"sounils hundreds oC they were not curious, and she straightway forgot then in her girlish tears.

Presently the sound ot' a quick foot step came nearer and nearer up the road. It was jaunty 'figure that c^ne rapltllr towards her as she looked. Tbe crimson snsh npou his shoulder proclaimed him only "offloer of the day, but it was worn like the baldric of! an earl. The moonlight played upon button and epaulet, and kissed the sombre plume in his hat, and flashed up and down the bright scabbard he carried upon his arm. But all this was not so much the fault of Lieutenant Thurston as of the moonlight. He was ,0«ly

the lieutenant knew very well and her prominent characteristics had long since so thoroughly memorised that the thought with a pang of the pain he might inflict by an alliance with anything which lacked the grand essential of "respectable associations.' That there was another side to the question was also true. He was far away irom anything which touched family respectability. He was literally owned, and all bis hours and movements were directed by the groat republic whose uniform he wore. His lome was his quarters, his profession his sword. Long years would probably pass before he wonld even see the home or tbe people which, little as they suspected it, had now almost passed out ot his life.

Joe's daughter was not in tho habit of waiting for him by tbe fence. Not by any means. But the young soldier had reached that Stage in which ho came so far merely to pass and see the homely house in which lived and slept the creature who wasoftenest in his mind. He had often seen her and spent an hour in listening to her lisping English, watchingthe flushes on her cheek, weighing her tact and evident intelligence, and falling still more deeply in love. But it had always been on casual occasions, and by daylight.

As he espied her, he stopped suddenly in his soug, and said as usual, '"By Jove!"'

She, after hesitating a moment between inclination and a natural sense of propriety, stayed where she was, and the flush on her cheek as he came near was strangely at variance with the tearmarks which were also there.

This rash young man could not have felt more intense pleasure iu meeting any of the queens of society than he did then. That was argument enough tor him, as it would be to most of us under similar circumstances, as he came near and held out his hand. Then he also leaned upon the lence and looked steadily at the oval face, red and brown, glorified in the moonlight, and stained with tears.

You've been crying," said he.Si Senor—yes." And then, grateful for a listening ear, she began to tell of the cause of ber unhapplness. And in the attempt, the sense of her sorrows overcame her again, and she laid her head down upon her arms and sobbed louder than ever.

There was indeed but little use for her to do aught but cry. The soldier knew, or guessed the story before. But the efl'eet was such as might have been expected under the circumstances The pretence of comforting, coupled with a secret desire to have the pretty troubles go on, came to the lieutenant on this occasion as :ia'urally as it does to all men.

Don't cry," ho said. "It will all come right in the morning Such miserable platitudes are not ex pected to amount to anything, and they did not in this case.

The—tho woman beats me," she said, and the sobs became almost hys terical.

Thm the platitudes were at an end. Boats you Did you sav—do yon mean that yon miserable harridan has ever struck vow and his lace grew white with indignation.

Look here," he coutinued, as she made no reply, why don't you and the old—I mean your father—cut loose from this sort of thing? You and he can live together, can't you? Go somewhere—do somethiug, but, he added, "don't go far."

Then he came a little nearer—so near that a tress of the girl's loose and luxuriant hair lay beneath his hand. "You must not imagine that because your miserable father gets c^ruuk and tho other creatura strikes you that you have no friends. If this kind of thing occurs again we'll make it warm, for •em," and then the lieutenant placed his hand caressingly upon a white shoulder.

Perhaps he meant well—we will suppose ho could hardly help it, but it was a mistake. The girl arose irom her reclining posture, and turning toward him a haughty and indignant face, and eyes that tdowed with sudden fire, without a word went in tho house.

As Lieutenant Thurston walked slowly homeward, he did not thuik so much of his mother's aristocratic no tions. His mind was intensely occupied with anew idea of the woman he had just seen. Our military friend was just now learning that womanliness, and tho virtue that clothes it, regardless of associations or education, is ar indistinct and an inheritance. Old Joe's beautiful child was not a mero Spanish girl. On this night at least, if never again, her free Saxon blood and her father's homely teachings have served her woll. The soldier poifclered those things. He was deeply stung, and his face bnrned with mortification. But he was not an ignoble creature, and his unspoiled manhood and his SoldiqprfeSfphor came to his aid. "If (hat is thojeirfd Ot, woman it is," he mused, ''by Jove, I pan't see what 1amily respectabMffcjr'bWs to do with it." And he was mor& deeply in love than over.

soldier but ho was young, and had tbe dash which is characteristic of every man who follows tho flag and the drum

ror

love of arms. As he came h»tlined hia footsteps to the tune he hum med—something that had in ita airii Munrestion of lifo and dev 11-may-cared-nnss which was strangely at variance with Ihe sleepy boar at which be marched.

Tbe bHthe»on»e »on of Mars had nn ished his round as required in regula •ions, and under the

influence

of wake

fulness and stimulated by the balmy air and the night's silvery splendor, had continued his walk no the mountain road. Was that all Young men's action* sometimes find unconscious excuse* in their hearts.

been here before—«o often that avery •aunt cactus and every stone in tbe nijued wood was a f*collar thing. As be came blithely, he always returned •houBhtfully. About the hardest hiuklng the Lieutenant did was when turned from Joe's cabin. Then ae remembrance of a house two tho a sand miles away Into his mind with a tinge of bltteroowu

two, and a circle of acquaint

mm. But tbe crowniog reflection

iLiadly came iu between, l-'aibe ff«s, what would mother, think Tbis

In the morning -Joe's spouse awoke sullen and sour, and berated him more than ever. The girl went about with a sad ice, over which came at intervals, a red flush, which betrayed her remembrance of last night. The miner went away, and the girl stood in the morning sunshine again by the broken fence aud watcbed. the guard-mount afar off, and thought she discerned a till figure there, aod almost wishM bo wduid come again. How small her world was and how large a figuie one man could make in it, she never reflected. It is ever so. A woman's world may be filled with the tiniest dotp so she but loves it.

When Joe Biggs came again at noon, he talked to bis daughter. We can't stand this much longer, km we, Sis?" As she only answered by a look, he continned:

I've done made up my mind. We'll quit. It wus a mistake mine, Aointiiiif over his shoulder toward tbe bouse with his thumft **bat meant it well. Do you mind the place over the mountain I showed ye once when we wus tbar? Well, there's a jfekct thar. How do 1 know? Well, I don't jest knotc, but this kind o' thing can't last alius—luck'll oome to a man sometime and I'm a mind to go and try fur it tbar. Olt ready Sis we'll go fur it now—to-night and mind, now, den't

16When

bad fcften

ilieatenant Thurston passed

tbe miner's oabin, shortly alter sunset, he thought be saw a laden donkey, whom rider was a woman, far up among tbe pine abadows on tbe moun tain road. It was indistinct Ilk tbe vloamlng, but the man who plodded behind reminded him of Joe. The mat

ter passed

thought

of the starchy respectability, the gold «pertacled and proclse propriety of the middle-aged gentleman who hiMl«lguated aa "govenor." Then there was sister

from his mind, and he forgot

it in thinking of something he did not «•«, for the only living thing at tbe cabin was the woman who sat upon the step, ber cbm in her bony hands, him as be sauntered past with the vindictivenesa of all her kind towards anything which looks like respectable humanity.

Tbe days passed, and tbe weeks, and nobody seemed able answer

question, "where is Joe?" The woman camo to the oommandant for bread, and declared herself cruelly deserted, and very badly wounded as to her feelings and finally eke departed, unregretled, with a party of her countrymen for a land where men were more faithful. As for Lieutenant Thurston, be kept his thoughts, whatever they were, to himself. He was supected. of a careless weakness for "Joers daughter." and rallied upon that point by his companions. But he seemed to fail to perceive any pleasantry iu their careless remarks about the absent girl, and they desisted. It would not be strange if he thought bis advice to her that/ night was connected somehow with her and and her father's unexplained departure, and that the character of his last interview with her was such as to render him rather odious to her recollection than otherwise.

The summer months, with their glory of air

and

,u~

the

sunshine and balm, passed

away, and when the earliest snowflakes of the mountain winter were sifted over the land, Joe and his daugb ter seemed wellnigh forgotten. But the dames and gentlemen of the garrison would have been much surprised* had they known that the gayest and brightest man of them all—the life of their limited and exclusive gatherings —had a greater regard for the mere recollection of the old miner and his beautilul child than ho had for all of them, or anv of tho names or faces in the far-away land where he had spent his boyhood and which he still called "home." The lieutenant, his fellowofficers thought, was growing "odd." H&borrowed the topographical charts from the adjutant's oihee and studied the geography of the wild mountain ranges. He questioned the wandering hunters and miners, with the hope that they might tell him something of the persons he was thinking of. But all were ignorant. Joe and his daughter had strangely dropped out of the or

The young soldier began to think that he had reached that problematical part of life in which a man seems no longer to have any use for himself. He had grown tired of his daily life and his routine of duties. His pleasures had become very tame and insipid, and the winter's inactivity, though only begun, seemed endless and irksome. His» constant thought of the miner's daughter, which was the real sccret ol all this, he excused under the plea of cuiiosity. More and more, as he thought of it, it seemed possible that by some rare chance he might find her bidden among the hills of that almost unknown stream whose waters ran toward the Pacific thirty miles to the westward. All that men knew of the valley of tho Gila then were stories toid by returning explorers of a stream from whose undisturbed current the trout leapt in the tameness of unhunted nuture of uplands smiling in tbe greenness of almost perpetual summer and valieys in which the traveller seemed to have entered upon a new world The hills were full of precious thiugs and tho game which started from eyery brake mado it a kind of hunter's paradise. Lieutenant Thurston had heard much of this current geography. For a long time he bad heard carelessly but of late it had seemed to otter a fair excuse lor getting rid of himself. When he asked the commandant to or ganizu a scout to march in these re gions, and had been refused, he be thought himself of a liuuting-tour and asked for a leave-of-absenceand au escort. These he managed to obtain and after three days of careful prepara tion, with eight men and laden mules he wended his way through tbe slush of melting snow up the mountain, where Joe and his daughter bad gone before. The man upon whom depended bis safety and his future return, was a Mexican guide, whoconlirmed all tho stories of the Gila country, and who had led explorers there,'he said, before Thurston was born.

Were this a journal of a traveller' adventures, the frosty solitudes of mountains where, pprhaps, a white man had never trod before, might well furnish a page. Men toll of the Adirondacks, and the strange wildness of regions which every summer are the tramping-ground of tourists but those experiences iu which man becomes a companion of the silenco which has been unbroken since time was young aro seldom told. The slant winter suu light lingered along the aisles ot pine and tinged with melancholy glory whito peaks, uuseen and unnamed before. They drank of snow-born streams which passed in cold and tasteless pu rity away to unknown depths and dm tance. The holly hung its drapery of green and crimson upou the hoary ledges, and the greonbriar and bramble lay in matted impenetrability across the cavern's moutn. Immense boulders sat perilously perched on the edges of abysmal depths, seeming as thougl the mountain wind, or the grey-eagle'i nest, or tho linger of a child, might burl them headlong. The hanging creepers and the gray moss clung with tenacious fingers to dizzy acres of perpendicular granite. Here and there the cold blue depths of a mountain tarn lay silent between gray peaks that had been mirrored there lor ten thousand years, and on its oozy edges were the sharp indentures made by the hoofs ol the mountain sheep, the round imprint of tho wild-cat's cusbioued tread, the dog-track of the fox, and hardening in the crust, the curious marks which seem to have been made by some wandering barefoot child, where the stupid bear's cub had couie to lap before nis winter's slumber. And all was brooded over by a magnificeut silence, which seemed tho fitting respite to the volcanic thunders which, when the world was new, had strewn the valley with its fire scarred rocks and thrust the bold peaks into the smoky air. The gray bird of solitude sat upon the crag and plumed bis feathers so near that they could see the yellow ring in bis relentless eye, and winged his way to his un kuown eyry without a sound of awing or voice, and save him there seemed to be no inhabitant ol earth or air. In glens so deep and sheltered that only the sun at midday looked into their recesses, tbe bardy mountain flowersstill bloomed and tbe coarse grass was green and brilliant. Tbe ledges dripped with the ooze of melting snow, and the slender icicles which grew each night fell tinkling into the rocky depths in tho morning'ssun. Only on the far summits where the foot of man shall never rest, winter held unbroken sway. The gathering snow which propped itself against tbe pines on the mountain-side broke loose from its fastenings, and tumbled Into the valley a fleecy cataract which Huns' its spray Into their faces, and buried an acre iu its test.

And then the muffled echoes died away, and the wanderers turned aside to wonder when tbe hour would come tbat should wrap them in cold suflocation and chill their faculties Into drowsy death.

Lineal distance is not to be measured by mountain wanderings. After many days of devious journeying, the ant knew that the warm fire® J"® post were biasing scarce fifty miles awav. He knew too tbat somewhere among the rocks, perhaps not a hun

dred vards away, were tho dim trails, tbe bla&Hl trees, and the remembered landmarks by which men bad come and gone before, and which shortened distances and made Intricasles plain. Bnt to be lost In the mountains is to be dazed, bewildered, insane. Men loso the faculty ol observation, and wander in an endless round. They sit down to final deSpair, when only a ledge shuts out the sight ot home, and tbe voices of friends might almost reach their ears. The lieutenant was lost. He knew it, and grimly bit hi* lips. The guide was lost, and while he pretended a familiarity with each shadowy glen, and claimed old friendship with each grim leak's imperturbable face, the leader tnew tbat too. With a contempt lor unwarranted pretences, which men do uot cease to feel even in despair, headdressed tho Mexican no word, and himself quietly took the lead. The party rode in silence. The knowlodge of the situation was in every man's face except the master's. lie gave his orders with the bluff distinctness of the pa-rade-ground. For himself ho did not think he cared. He had in bis heart the high courage which, regardless of physical strength, is tho result of early training in the family, the school and tho traditions of a courageous race.

He was one of that throng of gladiators whose strength the world is beginning to understand, and in whom is illustrated tho difference between him who saluted Nero in the arena, and him whose keen blade is given him first by his mother, and sharpened afterward at Harvard or West Point, or mayhap only in the common school. Yet this young soldier was not a remarkable man. He was oqly one of those who are carving out the destinies of a brilliant century, through the difficulties of daily life. He knew that beyond there was an open country, a river, a plain, or some change which could give vision and hope, and as ho rode silently at the head of tbe party, he fixed his eye upon some distant object which might keep them from waudering in the endless circle of bewildered men, and help them to the end at lasSt, whatever that end might be.

So long as tbe nightly snow melted In the morning sun, they need not thirst. So long as the startled hare sprang up before them, they need not want for meat, and so the commandant led his party on. At night, in some sheltered spot, the blaze of the cedarboughs threw its ruddy glare into the night's brooding darkness. The fox drew near to wonder at tho illumination, and the green light ot the deer's bright eye flashed up then irom bevoitd the illuminated circle. It was a wilderness where even the Indian seemed never to have come, and, in tho tameness "of astonishment, the beasts came near to them in seeming friendship.

Then the soldier would leave his companions in the silence of slumber or thought, and wander away amoug the rocks and shadows. lie did not go to brood and think alone. It seemed to him, as it does always to men in such circumstances, thnt He whoso hand had reared these pinnacles, came near and filled with His unseen being, the sinless solitudes of the primeval world. In his utter helplessness and despair, he looked upward through the mighty shadows to the sailing clouds and calm stars, and prayed. Was he then a Christian? No, but ho who asks the question may not know that when men uitorly lose faith in any power of their own to savo, they may reach upward and almost touch the mighty hand. There are hours when no man is an Atheist.

And one night, as he walked in the gloom, he looked back and iw tho slleut group painted in striking coiprs by the brilliant light. A faint giow went before him into the darkness, and ho seemed to seo the outline of a path. A little further and that was again lost, but he thought he detected the ui.ni odor of new-delved earth. Hero and there a hugo boulder lay in his way and as he touched them with his hand, he could feel tho slimy dampness ot that side which had lately rcsied In the earth of the liill-side." Something white and soft caught up.ui his tool, and as ho stooped and took it up, it seemed to be—a handkerchief. He held it before his eyes, and spread it out in the darkness to verily, if possible, the tremendous truth that it was indeed a liuk with the world, and then with a new hope, placed it in his pocket. Then he sat down upon the dry, dead pine fringes, beneath an ovorhanging rock to think. How had a white hamlker chief, the very index, not only ot civilization, but of refinement, come to be lost here? There was a name in ihe corner—the faint lines upon the wbiti could be distinguished. But whwse? He longed for light to see that human name. He had almost started up toreturn to the fire, when a strange sound fell upon his ear, and ho stopped to listen. It was as a whirlwind heard from far. "It is the wind iu the pines,'' he said to himself, and still1 listened as it drew nearer and nearer. Then crackling sound mingled with tho io ir and presently a great bulk In the darkness leaped with a dull thump into the valley before bim, and rolled along the ground. Then another fell with a mighty vrash almost at his feet, and lie crept still nearer the protecting rock. And while the great roar gathered in sound, and the foaming white sea above him cainoifown like a relentless doom, the pallid face and drawn lips of the one frail man who slood in its path wero turned away, and as tho while pall settled at tbe mountain's base, its cold folds shut in a figure poor and weak as compared with the mighty force which overwhelmed it, but grander, indeed, than all in the capacity for a heroic struggle with death.

In the morning, the soldiers and the guide looked upon a great heap of snow, whose outer edge reached nearly to their camp-fire. "Ho is dead,"siid tbev, as they communed among themselves. At noon, they loaded their beasts again, and started backward towards homo. Was it indeed back ward? The eagles which watched their wanderings, and the grey wolves which jgnawed and scattered their bones, will never tell.

But

be was not dead. The shelving rock was upon one side, and tbe white wall of snow upon the other, and between lay bis bed of dry pine leaves. As the hours psssed, a blue light came through upon bim, and showed bim the crystal outline of his hopeless house, ne called, and tbe dull sound be beard

mocked

his own voice. But

he did not lack air neither was he wanting in energy and hope. He couid touch the gray rock and tbe earth, and they seemed of the world, and friendly. He was hungry, and the blue-white light smote upon bis eyes and numbed bis brain. As be reflected, be would have given all his knowledge of geography in general—nay, all he knew beslues—for the topography of the snowy worid in which be was burried. so that he might tell upon which side tne white barrier was thinnest.

Then, as the gnawing*, and weakness of bnnger came upon him, he began to delve. He knew that strength would fell in experiments, and wheie be began he mu*t contlnne. As his fingers grew numb and stiff in his work, be

wished he might barter all his hopes in life for a despised spade. But his prison was not cold. The snow was a thousand blankets, and the radiant beat of the earth became a steam. As he worked, he took the handkerchief he had almost forgotten, to wipe his hrow, and as it met his eye, lolln the corner stood tbe familiar name, "R. Thurston, U. S. A." Fate seemed now doubly in league with mystery, and as the poor man field tho cloth in his cold fingers, his haggard eyes looked amazement.

And after hours, the opaline mass grew slowly dark again, and he crawled backward through his narrow tunnel, to warm his hands and rest. Rest $ came with sleep. "Ho giveth his beloved sleep," and the angels must have looked kindly upon the spot where, beneath his tapestry of snow, one lonely pilgrim lay like a play-wearied child, with his head upou liis arm in tired slumber.

When he awoke ho knew from his watch that he had slept five hours. He was frightened to think how the time was slipping a.way and he not saved. Hunger waits riot upon effort, and already the enemy was insidiously gnawing at his vitals. But he did not immediately set to work again. Ou the contrary, he did somothiug, wliicli to the uninitiated, would seem the very opposite. He was not utterly without a solace and comforter, and this comforter is one which has accompanied men in much toil and weariness in this world. It comes to every camp-fire, and stills like a balm tho cry of hunger and cold. It was a brown pipe. Ho leaned against tho rock, and ilio incense of the Virginia weed ascended and was absorbed in the roof of virgin snow. After awhile a calmer light cauie into his eyes, and he arose and crept into tho narrow tunnel. Lying prone, he gathered tho soft know from above and pressed it beneath him. Wearily the hours passed. Sixty feet—seventy—ninety—a hundred. He looked backward through the lorg, white passage, aud thought of the unknown distance yet^ to go, and his strong heart almost failed him. Ag hundred and ten—twenty. His head was dizzy, and tho bl»««i rom his numbed fingers stained th.. suuu, But ho found something which was not cold and white, and drew it forth. It was a dead bird. Kven as ho lay, ho tore it. limb from limb and ate its very heart, and then in thankfulnoss and courage delved again. Ten feet more, and lns| lingers were as sensitive sticks, and re-V5 l'usod their office. Then he crept slowly backward again, and crawling to his couch, tried to chafe his stiffened limbs into new lifo. Darkness had como again, and he again slept. Ho did not wake until morning, and then his raw|f hands were swollen until in regarding them he almost smiled. IJe crept again into the long tunnel, and wilh pain at every stroke, worked at his task lor life. A huge boulder intervened, and with infinito pains he delvod around it.

Tho slow hours uassed and ho was still another hundred feet nearer tho far-ott|| world, llo ate the snow from thirst,| and tho thirst grow as ho ate. and now his throat was soro aud swollen, until the act of deglutiou was a torture. Ho was chilled, and drowsiness nearly overpowered bim. lie was afraid to sleep, for he knew that sleep was death, lie was weary with a laugour which he" could not understand, and the narrow back wurd track seemed loo long to bo traversed again. Woaritiess had overcome hunger, and all feelings had given place to utter exhaustion. And still with weary steps he plied his task. He knew that light must soon come—or death. He could not afford to wasto strength in crawling backward to his bed.

Uo could not wind his watch with those swollen and senseless fingers, and the long hours of the night passod uncounted, and still with that mechanical, dogged energy, with which strong men lignt death, he delved on. Three hundred feet, and when morning again shone dimly through tho snow, he hardly noticed, aud did not care, that through the snow before him it camo stronger and clearer than before. A mw more strokes, aud then a rest. Then a reviving energy, a little further progress through the icy barrier, and again silence. An hour longer, and the ertwrts aro such as drowning men make when they clutch at ropes which are llung io ibem too late. There is no perceptible progress now, and the poor wretch cannot even seo that through the thin crust the light conies full and strong. A lew more convulsive, useless li'orls, and tho woary head falls upon ilia outstretched arm, and tho last gallant stroke lor life fails in the drowsiness which merges soon into an eternal t,{j ,v i-Vi. -5A.

The January suubhlne lights up tlio littlo valley with a blithesome glitter, which seems strongly at variance with the snow upon the higher peaks. Ihe uir is full ol tho balm and sweetness which is the characteristic of tko southern

mountain

ranges, and on every

hand are tho evidences of that strange mingling of perennial spring and eternal cuid

which

in more levol countries

seems a falne. Strewn along tbe edges of a noisy stream are four or live log houses. The spots of brown earth dot the hill-side, the uprooted boulders lie In tho valley, and on every hand are tho evidences of ihe minor's work. The settlement, in the very heart of the Sierras, is probably very new, and as yot unheard-of in ihe world of stocks and trade. Everything necessary to 'i rude life is carried thither on donkey's backs, and costs almost its weight in the precious dust, of which there is no small quantity hidden in these cabins. All around lie tho peaks aud valleys of an unknown wilderness, through which even the miner has not yet wandered. You might pass aud repaj-s within a few hundred yaids oi Biggs's gulch and never suspect its existence. The old man hlmtelf and his daughter passed around the spur and near me new snow-bank, about tilno o'clock in tho morning, on the twentieth oi January. It was Sunday and bo carried nothing but stick. Tboir errand was not gold tbis time, but wild flowers for her and trout for bun. But after all, there was something in their errand unsuspected by them. As they passed by. tho old man stopped to regard the huge drift which had come so suddenly, and whose outer crust was liuit melting away under the rays ol the yalley sun. As they stood there, bis eyes, ever accustomed to notice tbe small things of nature, discovered a curious cavity in tho snow, fast widening in the sun. Ho stooped to obtain a horizontal view. "Sulhin inside begun that bolo, Sis, an* the meltin' is a-tluUbin* of it," he said, and advanced and inserted his stick. At the very entrance it touched something soft. Then he broke away the crust, and there, before

their

astonished eyes,

lay a blue-clad figure, the face downward and resting upon an outstretched arm. It were useless to note the lations ol astonishment, some of whlcb bad a touch of irreverence, as he drew lorth into the

sunlight

the limp fyjare,

aud tho bright rays kissed the pallid, suffering face of the soldier who had fought death and was almost conquer-tOcmdntu-d on Seventh rage.]