Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow (2024)

“Chicago,” said Professor John Thornton, “Chicago,my dear doctor, is the typical American city.New York and San Francisco may be classed as metropolitan.Philadelphia, St. Louis, and New Orleansare local to their surroundings; Boston is—Boston, butChicago is sui generis. Notwithstanding its largepermanent foreign population, and the presence of thethrongs of strangers attracted by the Columbian Exposition,Chicago remains intensely and distinctivelyan American city.”

“I quite believe you, professor,” said Dr. Eustace.“Certainly in all the world elsewhere there is no racetrack for locomotives, no place where iron horses arespeeded, and purses of gold and diamond badgesawarded to the winners.”

“It is an innovation certainly, doctor, but just sucha one as might have been expected in Chicago. Thepeople of this city have not yet passed the noblesseoblige period. You know that in all large cities thereis liable to come a time when the citizens divide intoseparate communities, usually with separate interests,and without any general public spirit. In New York,for instance, Madison Square takes no pride in theEast River bridge, Avenue A does not care whether6the Grant monument shall ever be completed, and theStatue of Liberty on Bedloe’s Island is as strange tomany a resident of Harlem as if she were planted onthe banks of the Neva. But the people of Chicago,though locally divided into Northsiders, and Southsiders,and Westsiders, are joined in interest for Chicagoagainst the world. Any project that promisesglory or profit for the Lake City will cause her citizensto open their pocket books. These Illinois DonQuixotes never tire of sounding the praises of theirDulcinea, and are ever ready to break a lance in herhonor.”

“Is not this race,” said Dr. Eustace, “under theauspices of the National Exposition?”

“Not at all,” replied the professor. “As I am informed,a party of speculators leased a thousand acresof land here, ten miles from the city limits. Theyhave, as you see, inclosed it and provided it with theusual buildings, including seats for one hundred thousandspectators. The race course is circular in form,four miles in length, and seven railroad tracks arelaid around it. The officers of the leading railroadcorporations of the country readily consented to sendlocomotives and engineers here to compete for theprizes offered, and—you witness the result. This isthe third day of the races, and still the interest seemsundiminished.”

It was late in the month of July, 1892, and althoughthe World’s Exposition was not yet formally opened,tens of thousands of strangers thronged the hotels ofChicago and added to the gayety of her streets. Thegreat attraction of the day was the locomotive railroad7race, and about twenty acres of people, representingall nations, filled the benches and spread over theouter circle of the great four-mile track.

Seven of the largest locomotives in America, selectedor constructed for this race, were steaming upand down the tracks, waiting for the signal to rangethemselves under a white cable, which was stretcheddiagonally across the race course at such an angle asto equalize the difference of length of inner and outertracks. Each locomotive was draped with its distinguishingcolors, worn also by its attendant engineerand fireman. The favorite engine in the pool roomswas the Chauncey M. Depew, entered by the New YorkCentral Railroad Company.

The furnishings of this engine were of polishedsilver, with draperies of blue silk, and the engineerand fireman wore shirts and caps of the same color.

The engine which most attracted the admiration ofthe throng was the Collis P. Huntington, entered bythe Southern Pacific Company. All the furnishings aswell as the wheels of this locomotive were gilded andburnished for the occasion. The attendants woreshirts and caps of crimson, and the drapery consistedof ropes of crimson roses, the freshness of which,while coiled around smoke stack and boiler, was accountedfor by the fact that they were cut from asbestoscloth made and tinted for the purpose.

The directors of the railroad corporations centeringin Chicago had readily extended aid and co-operationto the company organized in that city for theconstruction and conduct of a locomotive race track,for it was conceded that no more instructive school8for engineers and firemen could have been devised,and that there was no better field in which to makeexperiments in machinery, tests of fuel consumption,and economical creation and application of dynamicforce. Almost every railroad company in the UnitedStates and Canada entered one or more locomotivesfor the races, which were advertised for the last weekof July, 1892, and, notwithstanding the large sums offeredfor premiums, and the great expense of buildingand maintaining the race course, the enterprise provedexceedingly profitable to its projectors.

Among the one hundred and fifty thousand spectatorsof the contest was Professor John Thornton, ofBoston, who, ten years before, had been the hardworkingprincipal of the Denver public schools, butwho, through the death of an uncle, inherited a fortuneof five millions of dollars, and was now one of the solidmen and social magnates of the Hub.

During the years of poverty and struggle whichantedated Professor Thornton’s introduction to theranks of wealth, he had grown to regard very richmen with aversion and contempt. He was fond ofquoting the aphorism that the Lord expressed hisopinion of money by the kind of men he bestowedit upon, and he was stout in the belief that any manwho, in this world of human misery, could make andkeep five millions of dollars, was too selfish, if not toodishonest, for an associate. He did not carry hisopinions so far as to refuse the estate which fell to him,but he was exceedingly generous with his income, andhe never ceased to criticise the millionaires.

Professor Thornton was generally regarded by his9friends as a Crœsus with the instincts of a Bohemian,a sort of gilded sans-culotte, with very radical opinionsand a very conservative bank account.

The professor was accompanied to the race courseby his family physician and old friend, Dr. Eustace.This gentleman, unlike the professor, was optimistic inhis views of life. Pessimism, according to his belief,might be sometimes necessary for ballast, but asa rule he preferred to throw the sand and rocks overboard,and load up with the silks and spices of Cathay.

“What a country!” ejacul*ted the doctor, as, amidthe cheers of the multitude, one of the locomotivesdashed up the track to try her speed.

“It is a great country,” said Professor Thornton,“but will its peace and prosperity endure?”

“Why not?” sententiously interposed DoctorEustace.

“Are we,” replied the professor, “so much wiserthan the people of the republics which once encircledthe Mediterranean, that we can afford to disregardthe lesson imparted by their history?”

“Do you pretend to compare the ancient civilizationswith ours?” queried the doctor.

“It may not be gainsaid,” rejoined Thornton,“that our civilization is superior to that of the ancientsin control and utilization of the forces of nature,and it is also true that in the relations of the individualto his government the former has gained in freedomand in security of personal rights. But otherwise weseem to be traveling the same round of national lifefrom infancy to decay, which marked the course ofAssyria, of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome.”

10“But conditions were different with them,” remonstratedthe doctor. “Rome, even when a republic,was such only in name. There was never any basisof universal suffrage. The government of Rome wasalways a military despotism, and her prætorian guardsold the imperial purple, and rich men bought it, andshe fell because of her corruption.”

“And we have legislators and bosses who sell offices,and ambitious incapables who buy them,” answeredthe professor. “And we are having now the samevast accumulations of fortune in individual hands thathave ever proven the forerunners of national destructionelsewhere. Wealth, corruption, weakness, decay,the mob, and the despot have been the six stagesof national life with other republics, and I doubtwhether by harnessing steam and electricity to ourchariot we shall do more than expedite the journey.”

“Professor, you should go out as a missionary tomillionaires,” interposed the doctor, “and preach tothem the doctrines of nationalism.”

“Doctor, you are satirical,” replied the professor,“but I am not so sure that events are not fast makingmissionaries of some such doctrine. Certainly thepressing problem of the hour is that of dealing wiselyand justly with the new and unparalleled conditionswhich vast wealth has created throughout the world,and especially in these United States.”

“We shall prove equal to the problem,” said thedoctor cheerfully. “A people who, North and South,were adequate to the achievements and sacrifices ofour Civil War, will never allow their government to beoverturned by a mob, or their politics to be always11ruled by a few thousand wealth owners. And thenthe personnels of the pauper and the capitalist are everchanging. We have no law of entail by which thefounder of a fortune can perpetuate it in his descendants.The vices and the brainlessness of the sons ofrich men will come to our aid, and in the third orfourth generation the boatman’s oar and the peddler’spack will be resumed. Let the millionaires add totheir millions without molestation, say I. They cannottake their gold away with them. It must remainhere, where it will again be distributed.”

“Doctor,” said the professor solemnly.

“Now, John,” interrupted the doctor, laying hishand familiarly on his friend’s shoulder, “possiblythe country may be going to ruin, but we shall havetime to see the race out. They are bringing the locomotivesin line ready to start. If they should comeout close together at the end, how are they going totell which wins?”

“The judge of this race, doctor,” explained theprofessor, “is electrical and automatic and cannotmake a mistake. As soon as the engines are arrangedin line for starting, a wire will be stretched across thetrack behind them. This wire will connect with aregistering apparatus, dial, and clock in front of thegrand stand, and each track is numbered. At the signalbell for starting, the clockwork will be put in motion.The first locomotive that crosses this wire will,in the act of crossing, telegraph the number of itstrack, close the circuit, and stop the clock, thus registeringthe number of minutes, seconds, and quarterseconds consumed in the run.”

12“How clever!” said the doctor. “Well, theresounds the signal bell—they are off!”

With a shrill shriek of challenge from their throatsof steel, like unleashed hounds the giants boundedaway, gaining speed as they ran. In thirty-eightseconds they rounded the curve by the half-mile postwithout much change in their relative positions. Thenext mile was made in fifty-five seconds, with theChauncey M. Depew, which had the inside track,fifty yards ahead of the Collis P. Huntington, and theothers all the way from fifty to one hundred yards behind.At the third mile post the Huntington and theDepew rounded the curve almost side by side, withtrails of fire streaming from their smoke stacks, andmingling in a luminous cloud, which hovered abovetheir distanced competitors.

Then, with thunderous leaps and bounds, they camedown the home stretch, the one a streak of blue andsilver, the other a streak of gold and crimson, and theroar of the multitude fairly drowned the shrieking ofthe whistles as engineer James Flanagan, of the SouthernPacific Company—his crimson cap gone, his blackhair streaming in the wind, and his red flannel shirtopen at the breast and almost blown from his massivewhite shoulders—rode across the signal wire five feetahead of his competitor, winning the first prize of$10,000 for his company and the diamond badge forhimself, making the run of four miles in three minutesnine and one-quarter seconds, or at a rate of overeighty miles an hour.

“It was nothing, sor,” said Flanagan to the vicepresident of the Southern Pacific Company, who13climbed upon the cab of the locomotive to shakehands with his engineer. “If it wasn’t for the timelost in getting under way I’d engage to sind the CollisP. around the four-mile track in two minutes and ahalf. Sure, the machine was never built that couldcatch her on a straight run. She’s a dandy and adarlin’ and a glory to old California,” and he pattedthe throttle valve affectionately.

“Flanagan,” said Vice President Crocker, “theowners of this race track have made one mistakeThey give the diamond badge, worth $1,000, to theengineer, and the purse of $10,000 to the company.Suppose we trade and let the company take thebadge and you take the purse.”

“Oh, more power to you, Misther Crocker,” saidthe delighted engineer. “It’s thrade I will, and mayyou live until I offer to thrade back, and whin youdie may you go straight up, wid never a hot box todelay you on your run to glory. I’ll give twinty-fivehundred dollars of the money to Dan Nilson, thatshoveled the coals unther the boiler, like the goodman he is, and wid the balance I’ll buy a chickenranch in Alameda that will be the makin’ of MissisFlanagan and the kids.”

On the bench behind the professor and the doctortwo men were seated engaged in earnest conversation.

“I am not asserting,” said one, “that the ore is sovery rich. It will average fifteen per cent in coppercarbonates, and that is good enough for anybody.But I do say that the lode is an immense one.”

“How long do you suppose it would last, Bob, witha dozen forty-ton furnaces at work on it?”

14“Last? why, if you had Niagara for a water-power,and the State of Colorado for a dumping-ground, andhades for a smelting furnace, you couldn’t work thatledge out in a million years.”

“Well, Bob,” laughed the other man, “I will goand look at your mine. Can you start to-night?”

“Your time is mine,” was the response.

“Very good; shall we go by the Iron Mountainroute, or by Kansas City?”

“I will have to go by some other route than either,”was the reply. “I cannot cross the State of Missouri;I am honorably dead there.”

“Honorably dead?”

“Yes, sir. It was this way: I lived at Atchison fora while when I was a young fellow, and Abe Simmonsand me were always at outs about something, and atlast we quarreled in dead earnest about a girl, and hesent me a challenge to fight a duel. I always heldthat dueling was a fool way to settle things, but Iwasn’t going to take water for no Missourian, and soI placed myself in the hands of my second, as theycall it among the chivs.

“Well, Abe’s second and my second were goodfriends of both of us, and they were in for a sort of alark, and they fixed it up to paint two life-sized pictures,one of Abe and one of me, on the door of anold stable, and we was each to fire at the picture ofthe other at the word. They had three doctors to examinethe wounds on the paintings, and if they decidedthat the wound was mortal, then the fellow whose picturewas killed had to consider himself honorably dead,and was to leave Missouri and never return. If the15wound was not mortal, he had to lay up and keep hisbed for such time as the doctors agreed would benecessary.

“Well, sir, they made a circus of us, that’s a fact.We both signed a paper agreeing on honor to carryout the arrangement, and we went out one broilingafternoon in August in pursuit of each other’s gore.The boys had passed the word, and we played to abigger audience than was ever at a Democratic barbecue.I was the best shot, but I was getting ashamedof the whole business, and I fired in a hurry, and onlyplugged Abe’s picture through its gambrel joint. Hetook a dead sight and shot my picture plumb throughthe heart. I wanted three days to settle my business,but the doctors decided that the weather was so hot Iwouldn’t keep more than twelve hours, and accordinglyI lit out for Pike’s Peak—as it was then called—thenext morning, and I have never touched the soilof Missouri since.”

“How about Abe?”

“The doctors agreed that he had to go on crutchesfor three months, and the boys laughed at him—so Iheard—so much that at the end of the second week helimped out to his father’s ranch, and stayed there untilhis time was up, when he went to St. Louis.”

“And the girl?”

“Well, of course I was a corpse, and she had nouse for me, and Abe had, before the duel, invited herto a dance, and, naturally, being a cripple, he couldn’tgo, and she allowed that she would neither go to adance or tie herself for life to a man with a lame leg,and she married another fellow altogether. But you16see I cannot honorably go into Missouri unless I cantravel on a corpse ticket.”

“Well, Bob, your remains shall not violate yourpledge. We will keep out of Missouri this trip.”

“All right, Mr. Morning.”

The professor turned at the sound of the name, and,looking his neighbor in the face, exclaimed:—

“David Morning, have you altogether forgotten anold friend? True, it is nearly ten years since I sawyou last, in Denver, but surely I have not changed sovery much since then?”

“Forgotten you, Professor Thornton?” replied theparty addressed, as he shook hands warmly, “forgottenyou? no, indeed. I do not need to ask if youare well—and your wife and daughter? Are they bothwith you?”

“Both are in Boston, and well, thank you. Do youremain long in Chicago?”

“I leave to-night for the West. Pray convey toyour family my remembrances and regards.”

“I will not fail to do so.”

“The crowd seems to be going, professor; I supposewe must say good-by.”

“Good-by, then, and a pleasant journey to you.”

In the early dawn of an August day in the year ofgrace eighteen hundred and ninety-two, David Morningstepped through the French window of his bedroomout upon the broad and sheltered piazza of therailroad station hotel at Tucson, Arizona.

A mass of straight brown hair crowned rather thanshaded a broad, high brow, over the surface of whichthought and time had indented a few lines which gavestrength and meaning to the face. Eyes of sea grayhue, as candid and as translucent as the deeps whichthey resembled, were divided by a nose somewhat toothick at the base for perfect features but running toan aquiline point, with the thin and flexible nostrilsof the racer. A short upper lip was covered with aluxuriant chestnut brown mustache, shading a chinwhich, though long and resolute and firmly upheldagainst the upper lip, was yet divided by a deep dimplewhich quivered with sensitiveness. A thick-setbut graceful and erect figure, clothed in a suit of darkblue flannel, completed the tout ensemble of the subjectof our sketch, who, with thirty-two years of humanexperience behind him, had stepped five hoursbefore from the West-bound Pullman sleeper.

David Morning—the only child of a Connecticut18father and a Knickerbocker mother—was born andpassed the days of his boyhood in the city of NewYork, where he was a pupil of the public schools,and where he was making preparation for enteringupon a course at Yale, when, at sixteen years of age,the sudden death of his father, followed within a fortnightby that of his mother, compelled him to surrenderhis studies and seek a means of livelihood.

A distant relative offered him a place as clerk in ageneral merchandise store in Southern Colorado,whither the lad journeyed. For two years he faithfullyserved his employer. Always of an exploringand adventurous disposition, he had, while “geologizing”—ashe called it—in the neighboring hills, incompany with a prospector who had taken a fancy to“the kid,” discovered a quartz lode, which his companionlocated on joint account, David being underage. This location was soon afterwards sold to anEastern company for the sum of $20,000, of whichthe lad received one-half. Declining several friendlyoffers to invest the money in promising mines, hewisely determined to return East and resume thestudies which had been interrupted by the death ofhis parents; but, guided by his Colorado experience,and having a strong inclination for the vocation of amining engineer, he determined to study in speciallines which were outside of the usual collegiatecourse. He had not deemed it necessary to leave hisown country to obtain the necessary instruction, and,four years later, he found himself with $5,000 left ofhis capital, with no knowledge of the Greek alphabetand but small acquaintance with Latin, yet able to19speak and write fluently French, Spanish, and German,and possessed of a good knowledge of geology,metallurgy, chemistry, and both civil and mechanicalengineering, and with a cultivated as well as a naturaltaste for politico-economic science.

At twenty-two years of age, having completed hisstudies, David Morning located in Denver, adoptedthe profession of a civil and mining engineer, andpromptly proceeded to fall in love with the onlydaughter of Professor John Thornton, the principalof the Denver public schools.

Ellen Thornton at seventeen gave abundant promiseof the splendid womanhood that was to follow.Above the middle height, slender in form, and gracefulin carriage, with a broad, low brow crowned withsilky, lustrous, dark hair, and eyes of chestnut brown,that, in moments of inspiration, grew radiant as stars,she captivated the young engineer and was readilycaptivated by him in turn. An engagement of marriagefollowed, to be fulfilled as soon as the clientageof Morning should be sufficient to warrant the union.

But business comes slowly to young men of twoand twenty, and Ellen’s mother grew impatient of thefetters which she deemed kept her charming daughterfrom more advantageous arrangements. Ellen wasproud-spirited and ambitious, and, although she wasearnest and conscientious, she was not so stable ofpurpose as to be unaffected by the arguments and appealsof her mother. At times she was sure that sheloved David Morning, and at other times she was notso sure that her love was of that enduring and devotedcharacter which a wife should feel for her husband.20Her reading had created in her mind a conception ofan ideal passion which she could not feel had as yetcome into her life. She believed that her affiancedhad undeveloped powers that would some day bringhim fame and fortune, and again she was not so surethat he possessed the tact and persistence to utilizehis powers to the best advantage. This doubt wouldnot have deterred her from fulfilling her engagementof marriage if she had been entirely certain of her lovefor him. But she was divided by doubts as to whetherthe affection she felt was really the ideal and exaltedpassion of her dreams, or only a strong desire for acompanionship which she found to be exceedinglypleasant.

She was not quite certain in all things of her affianced,not quite certain of herself, not quite certain ofanything, and one day, yielding to an irresistibleimpulse of doubt and hesitancy, she asked to be releasedfrom her engagement.

Morning was amazed, indignant, and almost heartbrokenat her request. Had he been of riper age andexperience he would have known how to allow for thedoubts and self-questionings of a young girl in herfirst love affair, but he was as unsophisticated as she,and more secure in his own possession of himself.Frank and proud, he took her at the word, which sheregretted almost as soon as it was uttered. He neithersued nor remonstrated, but with only a “God blessyou” and a “good-by,” and without even a requestfor a parting kiss, which, if given, might have openedthe way to a better understanding, he hurriedly leftthe house.

21The next day he was on his way to Leadville, infulfillment of a professional engagement, and when hereturned two weeks later he found that his formeraffianced had accompanied her parents to Boston,where Professor Thornton had been suddenly calledby the death of a relative, to whose large fortune hesucceeded.

Our hero did not despair, and, having no natural inclinationfor dissipation, did not make his rejection anexcuse and an opportunity for self-indulgence. Hewas of an intense and earnest nature, and he was reallyin love with the girl who had discarded him, but lifewas not dead of duty or achievement to him becauseof her loss, which he looked upon as final, for hernewly-acquired position as a wealthy heiress made itimpossible to his self-respect to seek a reconciliation.He applied himself with assiduity and industry to hisprofession, and soon became an exceedingly skillful andreliable mining expert.

Ability to comprehend the story written upon therocks cannot always be gained by study or experience.At last it is a “faculty,” rather than the result of readingor training. Fire and flood, oxygen and electricity,the tempests of the air and the volcanic throbbingsof the earth, have been busy for ages with the quartzlode, and have left their marks upon it. It is possiblesometimes to decipher these hieroglyphics so as toanswer with a degree of accuracy the ever-recurringquestion, “Will it pay to work?” Yet such possibilitycannot be reduced to a science. Professors ofgeology and metallurgy are often wrong in their conclusions,and even old prospectors are frequently atfault.

22Go across a piece of marsh land on a spring morningaccompanied by a bull-dog and a Gordon setter.The former will flush no snipe save those he mayfairly run over as he trots along. But the fine noseof the dog with the silky auburn coat will catch thescent of the wary bird, and follow it here and therearound tufts of marsh grass and across strips of meadow,until the sagacious canine shall be seen outlined againstearth and sky. It is difficult to be certain of anythingin this world of human deceptions, but one may beabsolutely sure under such circ*mstances that the dogwill not lie, and that he cannot be mistaken. Thereis a snipe within a few yards of that dog in the directionin which his nose is pointed. If the sportsmanfails to secure the bird, the fault will be with his aim orhis fowling-piece—the dog has done his part.

Some men—even among experienced miners—havethe bull-dog’s obtuseness, and some have an eye forquartz equal to the nose of a pointer for snipe. DavidMorning was of this latter class, and to the thoroughtraining which he had received during his four years’studies he speedily added that practical knowledge ofthe rocks which, guided by natural aptitudes and intuitions,will enable the wooer of the hills to gaintheir golden favors. His honesty, good judgment,and fidelity caused his services to be eagerly soughtby the mining companies, which—after the Leadvillediscoveries—abounded in Colorado, and at the dateat which our narrative opens he had acquired a fortuneof about $300,000, which was invested mainly inmortgages upon business property in Denver. Buthe made no attempt at further attendance on Cupid’s23court, and, indeed, gave but little attention tosociety.

Yet, while the physical Ellen Thornton thus passedout of the young man’s life, there came into his soulinstead an ideal, whose influence was ever an inspirationto higher thinking, purer life, gentler judgments,and loftier deeds. Well has the poet said, “’Tisbetter to have loved and lost than never to have lovedat all.” No man can be possessed by love for a goodwoman without being thereby moved upward on allthe lines of existence. Damps cannot dim the diamond;its facets and angles of fire will never permitthe fog to abide with them. From the hour that hisheart is touched with the electric passion, the loveris in harmony with all delights.

The waters tinkle and the lark sings for him withsweeter notes, while the sunlight is more radiant, andthe hills are robed with a softer purple. The womanwho has evoked the one passion of a man’s life maybecome as dead to him as the occupant of an Etruscantomb, but the love itself will abide with him to enrichhis life, and journey with him into the other country.

David Morning found in books the most pleasantand absorbing companionship, and those who gainedadmittance to his library were surprised to learn thatthere was a dreamy, speculative, poetical side to thebusy, practical mining engineer. All the great authorson mental, moral, and political economy were well-thumbedcomrades, and the covers of the leadingEnglish and German poets and essayists were freefrom dust. Especially was he a close and interestedstudent of social science, and he had his theoriesconcerning changes of various natures in society and24governments which might ameliorate the conditionand elevate the lives and purposes of mankind.

In religion Morning was neither an accepter nor anagnostic. His reading taught him that all religionsinculcate the righteousness of truth, honesty, and unselfishness,and that any form of faith in the hereafteris better for the world than no faith at all. The Persianwho bowed devoutly to the highest material signof Deity, the sun, was thereby filled with a spiritwhich made him readier to relieve the misery of hisbrother. The Egyptian who brought tribute to thepriests of Isis and Osiris, was the better for his self-denial.The Greek who believed in Minerva was acloser student. Odin’s followers scorned a lie. Confuciustaught love of home and kindred. Mahometprescribed temperance, and the pure and gentle faithof Buddha in its benefactions to the human race hasbeen exceeded only by the benign power of the religionof Jesus.

Skeptics strengthen their scoffings by recountingthe wars and cruelties—in bygone centuries—of zealotsinsane with fervor. But these are only spots upon thesun. The rusty thumbscrews of the Inquisition, andthe ashes of the fires amid which Servetus perished—firesunkindled and dead for three hundred years—maybe forgotten when one considers the hospitals,and schools, and houses of shelter which now linktheir shadows across continents.

A few days before, while attending the locomotiveraces in Chicago, Morning had met an old miningfriend, at whose earnest insistence he had been inducedto visit and examine, with a view of purchasing, alarge and promising ledge of copper in the Santa25Catalina Mountains. It was the pursuit of this purposethat had brought him to Tucson.

From his seat on the hotel piazza David Morninggazed into the little triangular garden beneath, withits splashing fountain guarded by fragrant honey locusttrees, its close-knit, dark green lawn of Australiangrass, and its collection of weird and ugly cacti,transplanted from their native sand for the edificationof passing tourists.

Then, raising his eyes, he beheld the ancient adobepueblo, with a few belated saloon lights blinkingthrough the murk, which was now slowly changinginto ashen dawn. In the east a pencil line of lightwas beginning to glow, and to the northward theblackish purple of the Santa Catalina Range upreareditself against the night sky.

In yonder mountains, as tenantless, as forbidding,as inaccessible, and almost as unexplored as when theywere first upheaved from the tortured breast of chaos,there reposed the golden power which, in the hands ofDavid Morning, was to change the economic andsocial relations of mankind, and, possibly, the governments,the boundaries, and the history of nations.

Nothing of these ripening purposes of Omnisciencewere then revealed to the soul of our hero; none ofthem even rested in his dreams. Yet the nations,weary of centuries of error, centuries of wrong, centuriesof toil and tears and martyrdom, were waiting,even as he was waiting before commencing his work,for the light which every moment grew brighter in itsscarlet beauty against the eastern horizon—the lightwhich was to guide humanity to its destiny of betterdays.

The Santa Catalina Mountains, although commonlydesignated as a part of the Sierra Madres, are,in truth, a small, isolated range, towering to a heightof seven or eight thousand feet above the surroundingplains. They are steep, rugged, and practicallyinaccessible, except at the eastern end, where they maybe entered through a long, narrow, crooked canyon,which runs from the plain or mesa to within a shortdistance of the summit. This canyon widens at intervalsinto small valleys, few of which exceed a dozenacres in extent, and through it the Rillito, a mountainstream, carrying, ordinarily, about five hundredminer’s inches of water, tumbles and splashes. Alongand above the bed of this stream, at a height of fiftyfeet or more, in order to avoid the freshets created bythe summer rains, runs a very primitive wagon road,which was constructed for the purpose of allowingsupplies to be transported to the miners, who, duringthe era of high prices for copper, were engaged intaking ore from the carbonate lodes which exist inabundance in a range of hills half way to the summitand ten miles from the mouth of the canyon.

The lower hills of the Santa Catalinas are covered27with a scant growth of mesquite and palo verde, alongthe Rillito there is a fringe of willows and cottonwoods,and near the summit is a large body of pine timber,but its practical inaccessibility and distance from anyavailable market have protected it from the woodman’sax. The absence of any extent of agricultural orgrazing land in the Santa Catalinas has proven abar to their occupation by settlers, and their isolation,rugged nature, and unpromising geological formation,have deterred prospectors from thoroughly exploringthem. Such searchers for treasure as visited themalways returned with a verdict of “no good,” until aquasi understanding was reached by the miners andprospectors of Arizona that it was useless to wastetime looking for gold or silver in their fastnesses.

Above the copper belt no prospector was ever ableto find trace or color of any metal, and the low priceof copper and the high charges for railroad freightwhich prevailed in 1883 and succeeding years, causedabandonment of the rude workings for that metal, andat the date of the opening of our narrative it mighthave been truly said that the entire Santa CatalinaRange was without an occupant.

At the western and southern end of the range itssummit and rim consist of a huge basaltic formation,towering perpendicularly one thousand feet, upon theapex of which probably no human footstep was everplaced, for its character excluded all probability ofquartz being found there, even by the Arizona prospector,who will climb to any place that can be reachedby a goat or an eagle, if so be silver and not sceneryentice him.

28In the spring of 1892 Robert Steel, who, in yearsgone, had acted as superintendent of a copper companyoperating in the Santa Catalinas, and was familiarwith the ground, had been inspired by a considerableadvance in the price of copper to visit the sceneof his former labors and relocate the abandoned claims.It was at his solicitation and representations thatDavid Morning, who had known him well in Colorado,was induced to take a trip to Arizona to examine theproperties.

Robert Steel was designated by those who knewhim best as “a true fissure vein.” With hair that wasunmistakably red, and eyes that were blue as the sky,with the upper part of his face covered with tan andfreckles, and the lower part disguised by a heavybrick-red beard, his personal appearance was not entirelyprepossessing to the casual observer. But underthe husk of roughness was a heart both tender andtrue, a loyalty that would never tire, a thoroughknowledge of his business as a miner, and a tried anddauntless courage that, in the performance of duty,would, to quote the vernacular of the Arizonian, “havefought a rattlesnake, and given the snake the firstbite.”

He carried his forty years with the vigor of a boy,and his occasional impecuniosity, which he accountedfor incorrectly by saying that he “had been agin faro,”was in fact the result of continued investments in givingan education to his two young brothers, and furnishinga comfortable home and support for his parentsand sisters in Wisconsin.

There are many Robert Steels to be found among29the prospectors of the far West. They are the brightest,bravest, most generous, enterprising, and energeticmen on earth. They are the Knights Paladin,who challenge the brute forces of nature to combat,the soldiers who, inspired by the aura sacra fames,face the storm and the savage, the desert and disease.They crawl like huge flies upon the bald skulls of loftymountains; they plod across alkaline deserts, whichpulse with deluding mirages under the throbbing light;they smite with pick and hammer the adamantineportals of the earth’s treasure chambers, and at their“open sesame” the doors roll back and reveal theirstores of wealth.

They are readier with rifle or revolver than withscriptural quotation, and readier yet with “coin sack”at the call of distress, and they are not always unaccustomedto the usages of polite society, though theyscorn other than their occasional exercise. Underthe gray shirts may be found sometimes graduatesfrom Yale, and sometimes fugitives from Texas, butalways hearts that pulse to the appeals of friendshipor the cries of distress, even “as deeps answer to themoon.”

Among these pioneers no one man assumes to bebetter than another, and no man concedes his inferiorityto anybody. In the last forty years they havecarried the civilization, the progress, and the powerof the nineteenth century to countries which were beforetimeunexplored. In their efforts some have foundfortune and some have found unmarked graves uponthe hillside. Some with whitened locks but spiritsyet aflame continue the search for wealth, and some,30wearied of the search, patiently await the summons tocross the ridge. Wherever they roam, and whetherthey spin the woof of rainbows upon this or upon theother side, they will be happy, for they will be busyand hopeful, and labor and hope carry their heavenwith them evermore.

Two days after the arrival of David Morning atTucson he left for the Santa Catalinas. The partyconsisted of Morning and Steel and two miners whowere employed for the expedition. A wagon drawnby four serviceable mules was loaded with tools, tents,camp equipages, saddles and bridles, provisions, andgrain for the animals sufficient for a week’s use. Latein the afternoon of the second day the site of thecopper locations was reached, and a camp made uponthe mesa a few hundred feet from and above the bedof the stream.

A cursory examination of the copper locationsmade before nightfall satisfied Morning that beforehe could form any judgment upon which he would bewilling to act in making a purchase, it would be necessaryto clean out one of the old shafts, which had,since the mines were abandoned, been partially filledwith loose rock and earth. This work it was estimatedcould be performed by Robert Steel and histwo miners in about three days, and while it was beingdone Morning proposed to explore, or at leastvisit, the source of the stream, near the summit of therange ten miles away. Assuring Steel that he wasan old mountaineer, and that no apprehensions needbe felt for his safety if he did not return until the endof two or three days, Morning saddled one animal,31and, loading another with blankets, camp equipage,a pick, a fowling-piece, and three days’ provisions, hedeparted next morning, after an early breakfast, forthe trip up the cañon.

Above the old copper camp the wagon road cameto an end, and only a rough trail running along andoften in the creek took its place. Following thetrail, Morning proceeded, driving his pack mule ahead,until, at a point about six miles from where he had lefthis companions, further progress with animals wasfound to be impossible.

One hundred feet above the bed of the stream,which here emerged with a rush from a narrow gorge,was a plateau of probably ten acres in extent, onwhich were a number of large oak trees, and theground of which was at this season covered with aheavy growth of alfilaria, or native clover. HereMorning unloaded and tethered his mules, and madefor himself a temporary camp under a huge live oaktree.

After eating his luncheon, he buckled a pistol abouthis waist, that he might not be altogether unpreparedfor a possible deer, and, using a pole-pick for a walkingstaff, he climbed out of the cañon and commencedthe ascent of the mountain to the southward. It appearedto be about a thousand feet in height, and uponits summit towered, one thousand feet higher, thebasaltic wall which Morning recognized as that whichwas visible from Tucson, and which formed the southernand western rim of the Santa Catalina Mountains.His purpose was to reach at least the base of this wall,and ascertain if there were any means of ascending32it to its summit, from which it might be possible toobtain an extended view of the country.

After half an hour’s hard climbing, our adventurergained this wall and found along its base a naturalroad, with an ascent of probably three hundred feetto the mile. Slowly plodding his way among theloose rock and débris, which had, during many ages,scaled and fallen from the basalt, he soon reached anopening about sixty feet in width.

Supposing that this might be a cañon or gorgethat would furnish a means of ascending the wall, heturned into it. In a little more than a quarter of a mileit came to an abrupt termination. It was a cul de sac,a rift in the wall made in some convulsion of nature.It ascended very slightly, being almost level, and atboth sides and at the end the basalt towered for athousand feet sheer to the summit, without leavinga break upon which even a bird could set its foot.It was now midday, but the rays of the sun did notpenetrate to the bottom of this rift, and the atmosphereand light were those of an autumn twilight.

After ascertaining the nature and extent of the gorge,Morning turned, and, plodding through the sandand loose rock to its entrance, resumed his journeyalong the base of the great wall. The ascent of thelittle ridge or natural road grew steeper and steeper,until at length the top was reached, and our explorerstood upon the summit of the great basaltic formation,a mile in width and ten miles in length, which formsthe southwestern rim or table of the Santa Catalinas.From near the outer edge spread as grand a prospectas was ever vouschafed to the eye of mortal. Tucson,33seven thousand feet below and fifteen miles away,seemed almost at the foot of the mountain. To thesoutheast stretched a narrow, winding ribbon of green,the homes of the Mexicans, who, with their ancestors,have for more than two centuries occupied the valleyof the Santa Cruz. Farther yet to the southward thelofty Huachucas towered. Northward a higher peakof the Catalinas cut off the view, but to the southwestbroad mesas and billowy hills stretched for more thana hundred and fifty miles, until at the horizon the eyerested upon the blue of the Gulf of California, penciledagainst an ashen strip of sky.

As Morning gazed in awe and delight, there appearedin the sky, scudding from the south, flecks ofcloud, chasing each other like gulls upon an ocean,and remembering that this was the rainy season, andfeeling rather than knowing that a storm was about togather, Morning retraced his steps. He had proceededon his return to a point about five hundredyards above the mouth of the rift which he had visitedon his upward journey, when the rapidly-darkeningclouds and big plashes of rain drops warned him thatone of the showers customary in that section in Augustwas about to fall.

Such storms are usually of brief duration, but areliable to be exceedingly violent, the water often descendingliterally in sheets. It would have been impossiblefor Morning to reach the camp where hehad left the animals in time to avoid the storm, anda hollow in the basalt wall—a hollow which almostamounted to a cave—offering just here a completeshelter from the rain, which was approaching from34the south, over the top of the wall, he sought theopening, and was soon seated upon a convenient rock,while his vision swept the slope to the cañon a milebelow, and thence followed the meanderings of theRillito until it vanished from sight.

And the clouds grew and darkened. Like blackbattalions of Afrites summoned by the “thunder drumof heaven,” they trooped from distant mountains andnearer plains to gather upon the summit of the Catalinas.The south wind—now risen to a gale—swoopedup the fogs from the distant gulf, and hurried themupon its mighty pinions, shrieking with delight at theburden it bore up to the summit of the basalt, abovewhich it massed them.

Then the demons of the upper ether reached theirelectric-tipped fingers into the dense black waterymasses, and whirled them into a denser circle, whirledthem into an hour glass, whose tip was in the heavensand whose base was carried by the giant force thusgenerated slowly along and just above the top of thegreat wall.

Whirled in a demon waltz to the music of the shakingcrags, yet touching not those peaks, for to touch themwould have been destruction, the circling ocean in theair sailed, roaring and shrieking, to the eastward, growingdenser and more powerful, and black with theblackness of the nethermost pit, as it journeyed on.At last it reached the blind cañon so lately visited byour explorer. The air—imprisoned between the earthand the clouds—rushed with a tortured yell down therift in the mountain. The wall of water sank as itssupport tumbled from beneath it; its base touched35the ragged rocky edges of the cleft; the compactnessof the fluid mass was broken, and the forces fled andleft to its fate the watery monster they had engendered.

Then, with a roar louder than a thousand peals ofthunder, with throbs and gaspings like the deathrattle of a giant, the waterspout burst, and its vastvolume descended into the gorge, down which itseethed with the power of a cataclysm.

Out of the mouth of the cul de sac a torrent issued,or rather a wall of water hundreds of feet in height.Down the mountain side it sped, tearing a channeldeep and wide, and crumbling into a thousand cataractsof foam, which spread and submerged the slope.A deep depression or basin on the side of the mountainjust southward of the bed of the Rillito deflectedthe torrent for a few hundred yards, and it rushed intothis basin and filled it, and, leaving a small lake as asouvenir of its visit, went roaring down the cañon,which it entered again about a quarter of a mile belowthe spot where Morning had tethered his mules.

Not more than fifteen minutes had elapsed since thebursting of the waterspout when the storm was over,the sun was shining, the water had departed down thecañon, and our awe-stricken witness to this mightysport of elemental forces started to retrace his steps.He had witnessed the deflection of the water wall, andknew that his animals were safe, and he also knew thatno harm would come to his companions down thecañon, for their camp was hundreds of feet above thebed of the ravine.

A few minutes’ walk brought Morning to the mouthof the gorge which he had visited an hour or more36before. From it a small stream of water—the remainsof the waterspout—was yet running, and, being curiousto observe the effects produced upon the spot whichfirst received the fury of the waters, he descended intothe channel which had been torn by the torrent, andagain entered the rift.

The tremendous force of the vast body of waterprecipitated into the gorge had excavated and sweptthrough its opening the fallen and decomposed rockand sand and bowlders which had been accumulatingfor centuries. The channel rent by the waters as theyemerged was quite twenty feet in depth and sixty feetin width, and Morning found that the floor of the boxcañon had been torn away to a similar depth.

The waterspout had accomplished in one minute awork that would have required the industrious laborof one thousand men for a month. The gorge wasswept clean to the bed rock, which showed blue limestone,and in the center of this limestone bed therenow stood erect, to a height of twelve feet, a ledge ofwhite and rose-colored quartz of regular and unbrokenformation, forty feet in width, running from near theentrance of the rift to the end of it, where it disappearedunder the basalt wall.

The experienced eye of Morning taught him at aglance that this was a true fissure vein of quartz, and abrief examination of some pieces which he knockedoff with his pole-pick convinced him that it was richin gold. But for the waterspout which had swept awaythe sand, gravel, and loose rocks which ages of disintegrationof the face of the wall had deposited overthis lode, its existence must ever have remained undiscovered37for there were no exterior evidences of theexistence of quartz, to tempt a prospector to sink ashaft.

The primal instinct of the miner is to locate his“find,” and Morning proceeded forthwith to acquiretitle to “the unoccupied mineral lands of the UnitedStates” so marvelously brought to light. His notebookfurnished paper for location notices, and an hour’swork enabled him to build location monuments ofloose stone, in which his notices were deposited.

It was now more than two hours since the waterspouthad expended its force. Morning conjecturedthat Steel and his miners, after the flood had passedthem, would probably set out in search of him, and hedid not wish his location to be discovered until heshould have perfected it by recording at Tucson, andpossibly not then. But he knew that it would requireat least three hours for the men at the copper-camp toreach him, and, though the light in the cañon was beginningto grow dim, he determined not to leave therewithout further examination of the ledge.

Accordingly, he walked around it and climbed overit. From its summit and its sides at twenty differentplaces he broke off specimens, which he deposited inhis pockets until they were full to bursting. It wasbeginning to grow dark when he emerged from therift and started along the base of the basalt. He hadnot proceeded a hundred yards from the mouth of therift, when he beheld three figures a quarter of a miledistant, rapidly picking their way along the channelwhich had been worn by the torrent in its descent ofthe mountain.

38Five minutes more in the gorge and his secretwould have been discovered.

He shouted to his friends, who responded to his hail,and in a few minutes they met and descended themountain together to the plateau under the trees,where the tethered animals, surfeited with alfilirea, werewhinnying loudly for human companionship.

It was too late to attempt to return to the copper-campthat night, and, indeed, daylight was needed forthe journey, for the trail had been in many placeswashed away by the flood.

After a supper, which made havoc with the threedays’ rations, a large fire was built, more for cheerfulnessthan for warmth, blankets were divided, and allretired.

Morning slept less soundly than his fellows, for hisquick and accurate brain was filled with an idea of thecolossal fortune and the mighty trust that the eventsof that day had placed in his hands.

Morning concluded it would be unwise to make anothertrip to his location, lest suspicion might be excitedand discovery follow, so, breaking camp earlythe next day, he returned with his comrades to thecopper-lodes, which they reached before noon.

Work was resumed by Steel and his two miners inclearing the old shaft, and Morning, taking a fowling-piece,avowed his purpose to look for quail down theravine. Having reached a point where he felt secludedfrom observation, he began a critical examination ofthe quartz specimens, which until now he had notdared to withdraw from his pockets.

As with his microscope he scrutinized piece afterpiece, he grew pale with excitement and astonishment.With the habit of a mining expert, he had sampled theledge as for an average, and the average value of thetwenty different specimens of quartz, taken fromtwenty different localities, enabled him to determinethe true value of the property with great accuracy.He discovered that the amount of gold in each one ofthe twenty specimens would not vary materially fromthe amount of gold in proportion to the quartz in eachand all of the others. In other words, the entire bodyof quartz was uniformly impregnated with gold, and,therefore, of uniform richness and value.

40There was no better judge of quartz in all Coloradothan David Morning. He had been accustomed, aftercareful inspection, to estimate within ten or twenty percentof the value per ton of free milling gold quartz,and his accuracy had often been the subject of amicablewagers among his friends. He was able in thisinstance to say that each one of the ore specimenscarried not less than five hundred ounces of gold tothe ton of quartz, or that the entire lode would yield,under the stamps, an average of $10,000 per ton.

This was marvelous! unprecedented! phenomenal!No such deposit for richness and extent had ever beenfound in the history of the world.

Ten thousand dollars in gold, distributed throughtwo thousand pounds of quartz, may not make muchof a showing in the quartz, for in bulk there is fiftytimes as much quartz as gold; but one hundred tonsof such quartz would yield a million dollars, and theledge uncovered by the waterspout was forty feet inwidth and thirteen hundred and sixty feet in lengthto where it ran under the basalt wall. It croppedtwelve feet above the ground, and extended to unknowndepths below the surface. Thirteen feet of rockin place will weigh a ton. In that rift in the mountainthere was now in sight above the surface, all ready tobe broken down and sent to the stamps, six hundredand fifty thousand cubic feet, or fifty thousand tons, ofquartz, containing gold of the value of $500,000,000.

What was to be done with the vast amount of goldwhich might be extracted from the Morning mine?How was it to be placed in circulation without unsettlingvalues, reducing the worth of all bonds, inaugurating41wild speculation, and revolutionizing the commerceand the finances of the world?

Would not the nations, so soon as they should bemade aware of the existence of this deposit, hasten todemonetize gold, make of it a commodity, change theworld’s standard money to silver exclusively, and solessen the value of the Morning mine to a comparativelysmall amount?

Under the plea that increased production of silvernecessitated a change in relative values, that metalwas demonetized in 1873 in Europe and in the UnitedStates, and its value reduced one-third. Might notgold now be similarly dealt with, and, with such a vastdeposit known to be in existence, be diminished bydemonetization to the value of silver or less?

The entire production of gold in the world for thelast forty years, or since the California and Australiamines began to yield, had been but $5,000,000,000,and as much might be extracted from the first onehundred and twenty feet in depth of the Morningmine. All the gold money of the world was but$7,600,000,000, or less than might be excavated fromthe first two hundred feet in depth of this marvelousdeposit. The total money of the world—gold, silver,and paper—was but $11,500,000,000, and a similarsum might be extracted from the first three hundredfeet in depth of the mine.

If the ledge extended downward a thousand feet, itcontained as much gold as three times the sum totalof all the gold, silver, and paper currency of the world,and its value was equal to the value, in the year eighteenhundred and ninety, of one-half of all the realand personal property in the United States.

42How much of this gold could be added to the circulationof the world with safety? and how could theexistence of the vast quantity held in reserve be keptsecret?

His studies in political economy had taught DavidMorning that gold, like water, if fed to the land inproper proportions, would stimulate its fertility andadd to its power of beneficent production, but if precipitatedin an unregulated and mighty torrent, would,like the waterspout, prove a destructive power.

Knowledge of the existence of the gold, if generallydiffused, would be nearly as injurious to the worldas to extract it and place it in the channels of finance.Yet how could the secret be kept? The ledge as itstood could not be worked without half a hundredmen knowing its extent and value. No guards orbonds of secrecy would be adequate. The birds ofthe air would carry the tale. Even now a vagrantprospector or wandering mountain tourist might revealthe secret to the world.

Not in any spirit of self-seeking did David Morningask himself these questions. All his personal wants,and tastes, and aspirations might be gratified with afew millions, which could easily be mined and investedbefore knowledge of his discovery could destroy orlessen the value of gold. But the purpose now beginningto take possession of him was to use, notmerely millions, but tens and hundreds and thousandsof millions, to bring peace, and progress, and prosperityto the nations, to ameliorate the conditions underwhich humanity suffers, to raise the fallen, to aidthe struggling, to curb the power of oppressors, to43remedy public and private wrongs, to solve social problems,to uplift humanity, and comfort the bodies andsouls of men. To accomplish this work it was necessarythat he should have vast sums at his command,and it was also necessary that his possession of vasterreserves should not be known.

The discoveries in California and Australia by whichin ten years fourteen hundred millions of gold dollarswere added to the world’s stock of the precious metalswas a beneficent discovery. It lifted half the weightfrom the shoulders of every debtor; it made possiblethe payment of every farm mortgage; it deliveredmanhood from the evil embrace of Apathy, andwedded him to fair young Hope; it invigorated commerce,it inspired enterprise, it led the armies of peaceto the conquest of forest and prairie; it caused furnacesto flame and spindles to hum; it brought plenty andprogress to a people.

But this addition to the gold money of civilizationwas gradually made, and the product of forty years ofall the gold mines in the world was not equal to thesum which in less than four years might be taken fromthe Morning mine.

If, as a consequence of Morning’s find, gold shouldnot be demonetized, if it should be permitted to remainas a measurer of all values, and the extent ofthe deposit should be made known to the world, theinevitable result would be to quadruple the prices ofland, labor, and goods, and to reduce to one-fourthof their present proportions the value to the creditorof all existing indebtedness. The farmer whose landwas worth $10,000 would find it worth $40,000, and44the man who had loaned $5,000 upon it would findhis loan worth but $1,250 practically, because the purchasingpower of his $5,000 would be reduced to one-fourthof its present capacity.

All government bonds of the nations, all county,city, and railroad bonds, and all the mortgages andpromissory notes and book accounts in the world,would, if all of Morning’s gold should be poured atonce into circulation, without preparation or warning,be reduced at one blow to one-fourth of their presentvalue, and all the owners of land, and implements,and horses, and cattle, and merchandise would findtheir value at once increased fourfold. The laborerwho had only his hands or his brains would remainunaffected. His wages would be quadrupled, and sowould the cost of his living.

Knowledge of the extent of the Morning minewould immediately enrich the debtors and ruin thecreditors of the world, unless the governments of earthshould demonetize gold, deny it access to the mints,refuse to coin it, and so degrade it to a commodity.

An illustration in a small way of the operations ofthis immutable law of finance may be found in thehistory of San Francisco. The foundations of someof the great fortunes of that city may be traced to thedays of the Civil War, when San Francisco wholesalemerchants paid their Eastern creditors in legal tendercurrency, the while they diligently fostered a publicsentiment which made it discreditable to the honestyand ruinous to the credit of any California retailerwho should attempt to pay his debt to them inthe despised greenbacks. The interior storekeeper45glowed with pride when Ephraim Smooth & Companygathered in his golden twenties, and commendedhis honesty for “paying his debts like a man, in gold,and not availing himself of the dishonest legal tenderlaw.” But Smooth & Company paid their NewYork creditors in greenbacks, and pocketed the difference.

Inflation of the currency, or an increase of themoney of a nation, if it can be gradually made, neednot prove disastrous to the creditors, and must provea benefaction to the debtors of the world. The relationof wages to the cost of living, whether the volumeof money in a country be contracted or inflated, practicallyremains the same. It may be claimed that theworkman who receives an increase of wages, andwhose cost of living is correspondingly increased, isno better off at the end of the year, yet economybrings to him larger apparent accumulations, and heis thereby encouraged to practice frugality.

The American mechanic who wandered to the CanaryIslands, where he received $400 a day in the localcurrency for his wages, was enabled to save $100 aday by denying himself brandy and tobacco, and butfor this dazzling inducement he might have surrenderedto temptations that would have made him a propersubject for the ministrations of the W. C. T. U.

But though an inflation of values which should bebeneficent might follow the discovery and working ofthe Morning mine, clearly the first thing for the discovererto do was to take effectual measures to concealfrom human knowledge the extent of his discovery.

David Morning remained for some time in deep46thought, and then, rising from his seat upon a bowlderbehind the manzanita bushes, he tore into fragmentsthe paper upon which he had been making calculations,and, excavating with his foot a hole in the sand, hedropped into it and covered the specimens of goldquartz which he had taken from the ledge, and, retracinghis steps, was soon at the copper-camp, where, inanswer to the queries of his companions, he repliedtruthfully that during his absence he had not seena single quail.

Two days elapsed, and, the shaft having been cleanedout and the copper lode thoroughly exposed, Morningtook samples of it, and also of croppings of the otherlodes included in the ground located by Steel, and theparty broke camp and started for Tucson, where theyarrived early in the afternoon of the second day.

Making an appointment with Steel for that evening,Morning deposited his copper samples with an assayer,and, walking to the Court House, he filed the notice oflocation of the Morning mine with the county recorder.Two hours later he had the report of the assayer uponthe copper samples, showing an average of twelve percent of carbonate copper in the ore. This was not sorich as had been predicted by Steel, but was of sufficientvalue to warrant the purchase of the copperprospects at the low price which had been fixed uponthem, provided that arrangements could be made foreconomically working them, and Morning had alreadyformulated in his own mind a plan of action by whichthe working of the copper lodes could be made to advancehis project of working the gold lode so as toconceal the extent of its yield.

47Morning calculated that the amount of money neededfor labor, supplies, machinery, and buildings, to workthe mines in accordance with his plans, would be about$300,000, and his first thought was to obtain thismoney by breaking down, and shipping to reductionworks in California or Colorado, about thirty tons ofthe quartz before he should commence the work whichhe projected for the concealment of the ledge.

With his own hands he could mine and sack suchan amount of ore in a fortnight, and with the aid ofhalf a dozen pack animals, managed by himself, transportit a mile or two from the rift, where it might bethrown into the channel cut by the waterspout, and,with a blast or two, be covered with rocks and dirt untilteams should be brought from Tucson for it.

With this idea uppermost, he sought the freightagent of the railroad company of Tucson.

Then he came in contact with the system in vogueon the Pacific Coast—and possibly elsewhere—that ofa one-sided railroad partnership with the producer, onthe basis that the producer furnish all the capital andsuffer all the losses, the railroad company providingneither capital, experience, nor services, but takingthe lion’s share of the profits.

“What,” said Morning, “will your freight chargesbe for three car loads of ore to Pueblo or San Francisco?”

“What kind of ore?”

“Gold-bearing quartz in sacks.”

“What does your ore assay?” inquired the agent.

“What has that got to do with it?” questionedMorning sharply.

48“Everything,” answered the official. “We chargein car-load lots $12 per ton to San Francisco, or $24per ton to Pueblo, and $2.00 per ton in addition foreach $100 per ton of the assay value of the ore.”

“Very well,” said Morning, “I believe I will shipthirty tons to San Francisco.”

“Have you it here?” said the agent.

“It will not be ready for some weeks yet,” repliedMorning.

“You did not mention its value,” said the agent.

“I will state its value at $100 per ton,” said Morning.

“All right,” said the agent, “we will take it at that,subject, of course, to assay according to our rules bythe assayer of the company at your expense.”

“Well, I don’t know that I care to trouble the assayerof your company,” replied Morning. “In fact,the ore is a good deal richer than $100 per ton. ButI will ship it at that valuation, and release the companyfrom all liability for loss or damage beyond that.In brief, I will take all the chances, and if the ore shallbe lost, or stolen, or tumbled off a bridge, or overturnedinto a river, the company will only account to me forit at $100 per ton. I suppose that will be satisfactory?”

The agent shook his head.

“It looks as if it ought to be satisfactory,” said he,“but my orders are imperative. The ore must beassayed, and you will have to pay two per cent of itsvalue.”

“But this,” replied Morning, with some heat, “isunreasonable and outrageous. If the tax of two percent is to be regarded in the light of a charge for insurance,49I am sure there is not a marine or fire insurancecompany in the world that would charge one-fourthof one per cent for such a risk.”

“Company’s orders,” said the agent.

“Suppose you wire headquarters at my cost, and saythat David Morning wishes to ship thirty tons of gold-bearingquartz from Tucson to San Francisco, at a valuationof $100 per ton. Say that he will prepay thefreight, and load and unload the cars himself if permitted.Say that he does not wish the railroad companyto take any of the risks of mining, transporting, or reducingthe ore, nor to share any of the profits of thebusiness. Say that he will release the company fromall liability even for gross negligence or theft, beyond$100 per ton. Say that he does not wish to acquaintthe company’s assayer or the company’s freight agentwith the value of the ore, or permit either of them toform any accurate judgment for speculative or otherpurposes as to the value of the mine from which theore was taken. Say that he wishes the privilege ofconducting his own business in his own way. Saythat if the railroad company will kindly fix a rate atwhich it will consent to carry the freight he offers,without sticking its meddlesome, corporate nose intohis business, he will then consider whether he will paythat rate or refrain from shipping the ore at all.”

“Mr. Morning,” said the agent, “if I were to sendsuch a telegram as that, it would cost me my place, and,indeed, my orders are not to communicate remonstrancesmade by shippers at the company’s rules, exceptby mail. Of course you can send any messageyou like over your own name to the head office, but50I can inform you now that they will only refer you tome for an answer, and I can only refer to my generalinstructions, and there the matter will end.”

“Well,” replied Morning, “I will ship the ore byox teams or not ship it at all before I will submit tothe injustice of your general instructions. I supposeI am without remedy in the premises?”

“You might build another road, Mr. Morning,”said the agent, with a slight tinge of sarcasm in hisvoice.

Morning answered slowly, as he turned away:—

“I may conclude to do so, or to buy up this road,and if I do I will run it on business principles thatshall give the shipper some little chance.”

“When will that halcyon hour for the public arrive,Mr. Morning?”

“By and by,” rejoined our hero, “and then youmay look for better days.”

“Forty-five years ago, doctor,” said ProfessorJohn Thornton to his friend, Dr. Eustace, “do youremember that, as barefooted boys, we fished for pickereltogether in this very pond, and from this veryspot?”

“And caught more fish with our bamboo poles andangleworm bait than we appear likely to capture to-daywith this fancy tackle,” remarked the doctor.

“Everything about this lovely little lake seems unchanged,”resumed the professor, “but elsewhere thegreat world has indeed rolled on. Then there wereless than one hundred millionaires in this republic—now,doctor, there are more than eight thousand.”

“And then,” said the doctor, “we came here in arickety old stage wagon, and we were ten hours inmaking the same journey which to-day we achievedin an hour while seated in a parlor car. Then thetelegraph was in its infancy, the electric light was unknown,the great manufacturing cities were unconstructed,the petroleum of Pennsylvania and the goldof California and Australia were undiscovered, thegreat Western railroad lines were unbuilt, and the webof complex industries with which the land is nowlaced was unspun. The victim of a raging tooth or a52crushed limb was compelled to suffer without relieffrom chloroform or ether, and it was a crime punishablewith social ostracism to question the righteousnessof human slavery, the curative virtues of calomel,or the beneficence of infant damnation. I never couldthink, John, that the good old times, whose loss youare always bemoaning, were nearly so comfortabletimes to live in as those amid which we now dwell.”

“Dr. Eustace,” said the professor, “you attachundue importance to a few physical comforts andconveniences. If our fathers lacked the advantagesof our later civilization, they were also without itsvices. In the good old times which you deride,wrecking railroads, stealing railroads, and wateringstocks were unknown. Senatorships and subsidieswere not procured by bribery; the legislator who soldhis vote made arrangements to leave the country, andbank burglars and bank defaulters kept, in the publicestimation, the lock step of fellow-criminals.”

“And what, in your opinion was the cause ofour descent from this high estate of public virtueand whale-oil lamps?”

“The main cause, Dr., of the corruption of thehuman race everywhere,—gold. It was the goldof California that revolutionized the finances, thebusiness methods, and the morals of the nation.After the year 1849 the advance of values, the aggregationof wealth, the increase of population, and themagical growth of the West, made additional facilitiesfor inland travel and transportation a necessity. Thisnecessity caused the rapid construction of new lines ofrailroad. The differences and difficulties of local53management suggested the advantages of consolidation—andthen the reign of the centripetal forces commenced.”

“But all the millionaires of the country are notrailroad men, John.”

“Concentration of capital began with them, doctor,and their example was soon followed by others. TheCivil War broke down local prejudices, made East andWest hom*ogeneous, introduced communities to eachother on the battle-field, obliterated State lines, andmade individual effort in business, in finance, in manufactures,and even in politics, less advantageous tothe individual than participation in aggregated effort,where his gains were increased, though his personalitywas submerged.”

“I have always thought that our civil war was amoral education to this people and to the world,” remarkedthe doctor.

“War was an educator,” conceded the professor,“yet the tree of knowledge with its crimson leavesyielded evil fruit as well as good. The moral natureof the American people has, I fear, reacted from thetension of generous and patriotic sacrifice which warevolved. Some of the very men who helped to strikeshackles from black slaves have been busy ever sinceforging other shackles for white slaves, and in twenty-fiveyears from the days when we freely paid lives andtreasure to preserve the existence of the nation, andfree it from the wrong of slavery and the rule of a slave-holdingoligarchy, we have passed under the sway ofother despots, more selfish, more sordid, more relentless,and more rapacious of dominion. The dusk-browed54tyrant of Egypt has been overthrown, but inhis place Plutus reigns.”

“I grant you,” interposed Dr. Eustace, “that thewealth owners are the rulers of our later civilization,but, so far as I have observed, instead of endeavoringto curb or overthrow them, we are all doing ourbest to join their ranks and participate in their power.You appear to be the only living millionaire who declaimsagainst his class. I know of no other man whois brave enough to defy the power of money, greatenough to ignore it, or strong enough to resist its influence,and I dare say you would change your viewsif you were to lose your millions. We all defer to theplutocrats. The Spanish nobleman who, for his ancestor’sservices, was permitted to remain with his headcovered in the presence of his sovereign, would havebeen sure to take off his hat if he had entered the officeof the president of a country bank, with a view ofnegotiating a small loan on doubtful security. Therewas a great truth inadvertently given to the world inthe programme of a Fourth of July procession, whereinit was announced that the line would end with bankersin carriages, followed by citizens on foot.”

“This subservience to King Gold, and pursuit of hisfavors, must cease, Dr. Eustace, or this republic willbe lost. The people must be taught to assume a moreindependent and manly attitude toward the owners ofmoney.”

“Ah, John, money is so necessary, and it is so hardto turn one’s back upon it! This way lies comfort,ease, luxury—that way deprivation and sacrifice.This way ‘the primrose path of dalliance trends’—that55way ‘the steep and thorny road.’ This way thewife and children beckon and sue for safety and peace—thatway only rocks, and bruises, and hunger, andloneliness summon. What wonder that the Christ,voicing the cry of the human to the infinite Father,placed as the central thought of the Lord’s prayer thewords, ‘Lead us not into temptation’! But, John,honestly now, do you think the eight thousand millionairesyou rave about are such an utterly bad lot asyou make them out to be?”

“Individually I dare say they are good husbands,fathers, and neighbors,” replied the professor, “butthey conceal their selfishness and rapacity, and exercisetheir despotism from behind the shields of corporationswhich they create and govern, and tyranny is none theless tyranny because it is decreed not by kings, butby entities which fear neither the assassination of mannor the judgment of God.”

“Professor, pardon me, but you generalize a gooddeal, and I fear somewhat loosely. It would make adifference to me, in my feelings, at least, whether Iwas knocked down by a ruffian, or by an electricalmachine.”

“Doctor, your simile was not considered as carefullyas are your prescriptions. If the machine be guidedby the ruffian, what matters it whether you be struckby his hand, or with an electric current directed byhis hand? If our great newspapers, which are influential,which claim to be independent, and whichought to be free, are restrained from publishing articlesadvocating postal telegraphy, or criticising the managementof a news corporation, what matters it that the56freedom of the press is choked by a board of directorsrather than a government censor? If the citizen darenot give voice to his views on public affairs, whatmatters it whether his utterances be choked by theknuckles of a king, or the polite menaces of an employer?If the voter cast his ballot against his ownconvictions, and in accordance with the will of another,what matters it whether he be coerced by a soldierwith a musket or a station agent with a freight bill?If the settler lose his land, what matter whether thedespoiler be a personal bandit armed with a rifle, or acorporate robber equipped with a land-office decision?If capital exempt itself from taxation, and place theburden of sustaining government upon the broadback of labor, will it alleviate the pain of the load toknow that it is not the law of feudal vassalage but ofmodern politics which accomplishes the exaction?

“Hallo! I have a bite! Ah! ha! my boy, youreagerness to swallow that minnow has brought you togrief!”

And the speaker lifted a twenty-ounce pickerel fromthe placid waters of Nine Mile Pond, and deposited it,struggling and shining, upon the green turf at hisfeet.

“Well, John,” inquired the doctor, “what are yougoing to do about it all?”

“We will have him split down the back and broiledfor luncheon,” replied the professor absently.

“Broil who?” queried the doctor, “Jay Gould?”

“Eh? No; the pickerel I mean, though I am notsure that similar treatment might not be accorded toGould, with advantage to the country.”

57“You ask,” continued the professor, “what shall bedone about it all? The wealth owners themselvesshould be able to see that existing conditions mustsooner or later find cessation either in relief or in revolution.Monopolies in transportation, intelligence,land, light, fuel, water, and food—all concealed in theimpersonality of private corporations—now sit likevampires upon the body of American labor, and suckits life blood, and they have grown so bold and sorapacious that they even neglect to fan their victimsto continued slumber.”

“Why, John, you seem to have an attack of anticorporationrabies. You talk like a sand-lot politicianwho is trying to sell out to a railroad company.What is the matter with you? What have thesemuch berated entities done?” said the doctor.

“Done?” replied Professor Thornton. “What havethey not done? They have torn the bandages fromthe eyes of American justice and fastened false weightsupon her scales. They have turned our legislativehalls into shambles where men are bought and honoris butchered. They have written the word ‘lie’across the Declaration of our fathers. They havestruck the genius of American liberty in her fairmouth, until, with face suffused with the blushes andbedewed with the hot tears of shame, she turns piteouslyto her children to hide if they cannot defendher.”

“John Thornton,” ejacul*ted the doctor, “yourremarks would be admirable in substance and stylefor an address before some gathering of work shirkers,organized to procure lessened hours of labor and58larger schooners of beer, but to me you are talkingwhat our transatlantic cousins call ‘beastly rot.’ Ideny that a majority, or even any considerable number,of the capitalists of this country are dishonest, orunpatriotic, or indifferent to the rights and needs oftheir fellow-men.”

“I have not said that they were, doctor,” replied theprofessor. “Indeed, if such were the case, we mightcry in despair, ‘God save the commonwealth!’ for onlyOmniscience could work its salvation. What I claimis that it is full time for the conscientious millionaireswho love their country and their kind, to seriouslyconsider a situation the perils of which they are everyday augmenting by their indifference.”

“What perils do you mean, professor? How, forinstance, would anybody be hurt or periled if I wereto become a millionaire?”

“A great fortune is a great power, doctor, and notevery man is fit to be intrusted with great power.To-day no second-class power in Europe can negotiatea treaty or make even a defensive war withoutthe consent of the Rothschilds, while in America theowner of fifty millions is more powerful than thepresident of the United States, and the owner of tenmillions more influential than the governor of a State.

“And so he ought to be,” interposed the doctor.“The man who can by fair means make $10,000,000is more useful to the community in which he lives thana dozen governors of States.”

“But look at the danger to the people, doctor, ofthese great fortunes. There are ten men in the UnitedStates whose aggregate wealth amounts to $500,000,000,59and who represent, and control, and wield the influenceof property amounting to $3,000,000,000. Ifthese men should choose to settle their rivalries andcombine their interests and efforts, they could aboutfix the prices of every acre of land, every barrel offlour, every ton of coal, and every day’s wages oflabor between Bangor and San Francisco. Theycould name every senator, governor, judge, congressman,and legislator in twenty States. They could rulea greater empire than any possessed by crowned kings.They could promulgate ukases more absolute, moredespotic, and more certain of being enforced, than anywhich ever went forth from St. Petersburg to carrydesolation to a race. They could say to the laborerin the grain-fields, ‘Henceforth you shall be reducedto the condition of your brother in England or Scotland,and eat meat but once a week.’ They couldsay to the toiler in the humming factory or over thered forge, ‘Henceforth you must toil twelve hours ineach twenty-four.’ They could say to every wageworkerin the land, ‘Henceforth we will take all the resultsof your labor, and give you only the slave’sshare—existence and subsistence.’”

“All you need, Professor John Thornton,” saidDr. Eustace, “is a long beard, a woman with greengoggles and a tamborine, a fat boy with a snare drum,and a pair of bellows in your chest, to be a SalvationArmy seeking recruits for the church of Anarch. Youknow just as well as I do that you are talking nonsense,and that the capitalists of our country would beneither so inhuman nor so unwise as to push theirpower as you indicate.”

60“Maybe not, doctor, maybe not, but their abilityto so use their power if they choose is a menace to afree people, and a standing inducement to disorder,and unless the plutocrats cease their aggressions thepeople may invoke the motto, ‘Salva republica supremalex,’ and tax all great fortunes out of existence.”

“What aggressions do you refer to, professor? Forthe life of me I cannot see that this country or thispeople have any just cause of complaint. The censusreturns of 1890 show that in the preceding tenyears there was added to our national wealth, valuesamounting to nearly $20,000,000,000.”

“The census returns tell only a part of the story,doctor. The cottages of the land will tell you thatwhile as a nation we may have grown of late yearsvery rich and prosperous, yet among the individualscomposing the nation its wealth is possessed and itsprosperity enjoyed within a very narrow circle. Thevalue of all the property in the United States in theyear 1890 was $66,000,000,000. Do you know that$40,000,000,000, or sixty per cent of the wealth ofAmerica, is owned by less than forty thousand people?Do you know that in the last twenty years the laborersof the United States have added to the generalwealth of the nation, values amounting to $30,000,000,000?”

“Well, what is there to complain of in that fact?”questioned the doctor.

“The complaint is that the money has not beendivided among the ten million workers who earned it.The complaint is that it has not furnished each of ten61million households with a $3,000-shield against theassaults of poverty. The complaint is that as fast ascreated it has been seized by the centripetal tendencywhich now dominates our civilization and hurried intothe strong boxes of ten thousand Past-Masters of theart of accumulating the earnings of other people.”

“The complete answer, professor, to your diatribeis that the accumulations of which you speak are notthe earnings of other people. The greater portionof this wealth has been developed from the bounty ofnature in ways which could not have been pursuedwithout large combinations of capital.”

“That is a mere assumption, doctor.”

“Not at all, professor. The money taken fromgold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and coal mines, hascome from the treasure vaults of nature, and has notbeen filched from the earnings of anybody.”

“Mining is the one exception to the rule, doctor.”

“I beg your pardon, professor, but it is not. Anotheravenue to wealth has been the organization andreorganization of great industries on unwasteful andremunerative principles. For instance, the beef andpork packing establishments of the West supply theretail butchers of the land with meat at a less pricethan is paid for the live cattle.”

“Where, then, doctor, do these philanthropists ofwhom you speak make their money?”

“They make it, professor, by scientific utilization ofthe hoofs and horns, bones and blood, which in smallbutcher shops are necessarily wasted.”

“You believe, then, in the rightfulness of monopoliesand trusts, do you, doctor?”

62“John, there are no monopolies. No restrictionsare placed by law on any man who chooses to embarkin any reputable business. As for the much-abused‘trusts,’ they have all resulted in higher wages andmore constant employment to the workman, andlower prices and better goods to the consumer. Isuppose you will not claim that the capitalists aloneare responsible for all the crime and pauperism of theland?”

“No,” replied the professor, “for the ignorant andvicious poor play into the hands of the selfish andvicious rich, and between the two the honest and industriousbody of the people is being ground as betweenthe upper and nether millstone. Indeed, I donot know which is the greater curse to the country,the stock thieves, whose dens are under the shadowof Trinity Church spire, and who combine to corruptcourts, juries, and legislators, or the dynamiters andanarchists who would involve the innocent and theguilty in one common wreck of social order. I hope Iam no senseless alarmist, Dr. Eustace, but I am surewe must have relief, or there will be national ruin.”

“From what source, professor, do you expect reliefto come?” inquired the doctor.

“Frankly, I don’t know,” was the reply.

“Maybe your next National Convention will relievethe situation,” insinuated the doctor, slyly.

“I am sure that relief will not come,” said the professor,“from existing political parties, whose oratorsgrow earnest and belligerent over the ghosts ofdead issues, and travel around and around over thesame path, like an old horse on an arrastra, forever63going somewhere and never getting anywhere, neitherknowing or caring whether he is grinding pay rockor waste rock, conscious only of the whip of his driver,and hopeful only of his allowance of barley.”

“Why, John, I thought you were a devoted partisan,”said the doctor.

“Did you?” was the retort. “Well, you weremistaken. What can be hoped from political partieswhen legislators who are not free from suspicion ofvenality are voted for and elected year after year, becauseGrant captured Vicksburg, or Lincoln issued aproclamation of emancipation, or Stonewall Jacksonwas killed more than twenty-five years ago? Mustthe people forever submit to the rule of brawlers, andvote sellers, and trust betrayers, because such menhurrah for some flag which other men once carriedinto battle? Must the masses lie down in the path ofJuggernaut and invite him to crush them, because theevil-visaged god parades his devotion to party issueswhich were long ago remitted to the limbo of thingslost on earth?”

“The people will right all the evils of which youcomplain, professor, so soon as they see that it is totheir interest to do so.”

“How can they doubt that it is their interest toright them? It is they who suffer both in purse andpride for every unjust exaction and every dishonestevasion. The poorest do not escape the consequences;it all comes out of their toil in the end. Itdepletes their pockets in a hundred unobserved ways.They pay for it in enhanced taxation of their homes,in the fuel which cooks their food, in a greater cost of64the necessaries of life, in a higher rent, in the nailswhich hold their houses together, and in the increasedcost of the blows of the hammer which drives them.I do not need to tell you, doctor, that labor must bearthe burdens of the State. Labor at last pays all andcapital pays nothing—all burdens of government, allexpenses of courts and juries, and prisons and police,all cost of armies and navies. The diamonds whichglitter upon the shirt front of the purchased legislator,the wine which hisses down the throat of the lobbyist,the steel doors and locks which guard watered stockand stolen bonds, the very powder and bullets whichshoot out the life of maddened and insurgent labor, areall paid for out of the toil of the laborer.”

“While there is much truth in what you say, professor,”observed the doctor, “yet where is the immediatenecessity for you to work yourself into such astate of mind about it?”

“Your remark, doctor, is a representative one,”replied Professor Thornton, “and the general indifferencewhich it expresses is the most discouragingfeature of the existing situation. Like the villagerswho cultivate their vineyards at the base of Vesuvius,we heed not the rumblings of the volcano. Like thecitizens long resident in Cologne, we scent the taintedair without discomfort. We cry with the Frenchking, ‘After us the deluge,’ and we seem to carevery little what may happen so long as it shall nothappen to us.”

“There is the mate to your pickerel,” said the doctor,as he landed a fish upon the grass at his feet.“Two of the millionaires of Nine Mile Pond have65succumbed to their own greed and the patience andcunning of intelligent labor.”

“Many of our millionaires,” resumed the professor,not to be driven from his theme, “and some of themost active and powerful of them all, are as selfish, asrapacious, as arrogant, as ignorant, as corrupt, and asdespotic as Russian Boyars or Turkish Bashans. Atthe same time they are unaware of their danger, areutterly obtuse to their social and moral responsibilities,and conceited with the invulnerable conceit ofself-made men. They do not seem to recognizethat they are unprotected by an army, or a stronggovernment, or spies, or the machinery of despotism,or any traditions or practices of rule, and theyappear to take no thought of the infinite possibilitiesof disaster which line the path of every to-morrow.”

“You really fear, then, the fulfillment of Macauley’sprophecy, professor?”

“What thoughtful man does not? There is inevery large city of our land a multitude unindustrious,unfrugal of life, uncurbed of spirit, undisciplined,uneducated, fretful of small gains, accustomedto freedom of speech and action, jealous of anythingwhich looks like oppression or class rule, unaccustomedto restrictions of any kind, irrreligious, materialistic,discontented, idle, envious, and often drunken.”

“In brief, a powder magazine,” said the doctor.“Great cities have always presented the same problemto rulers, yet civilization lives, nevertheless.”

“Because,” rejoined the professor, “in monarchialEurope the magazine is guarded by trained armies66and watchful sentinels, while in our country it is leftopen and unguarded, and anarchists with lightedtorches pass to and fro. In Europe the train of governmentis built of carefully-selected materials, it isofficered by experienced engineers, and at every stationthe testing hammer rings against the wheels.Here we put in any piece of crystallized iron for wheelor axle, and give the control of the engine to anyloud-voiced braggart who can climb into the cab, orany ambitious dotard who chooses to hire the trickstersof the caucus to hoist him there. Then wethrow the brakes off, the throttle-valves open, andgo screaming down the grade.”

“And how do you propose, John, to avoid a smash-up?”queried the doctor.

“We shall have passed the danger point,” repliedthe professor, “and entered upon an era of safer andbetter life for the republic, only when the great millionairesof America shall elect to consider themselvesnot merely as conquerers on the field of finance, entitledto the spoils of victory, but as trustees for humanity,as suns whose mission it is to draw the watersof affluence from overflowing lake and stream, not tohold those waters above the earth forever, but to distributethem in bounteous and fertilizing showers.”

“And do you suppose, John Thornton, that thepeople would either appreciate or respond to such seraphicunselfishness on the part of your regeneratedand beatified millionaires?

“Dr. Eustace, let me tell you that when the great,industrious, intelligent, patriotic body of workers shallbe made to feel that there is no necessary conflict between67labor and capital, —when they shall be made toknow that any considerable number of our millionairesare seeking further wealth not merely to add to theirpersonal luxury and power, but in order that labormay be helped in turn to higher planes of life, whenit can be said truthfully—

In that day professional labor agitators will lose theirvocations, the workingman who never works willbe without influence among his fellows, and thebrotherhoods of beer and brawling which infest thepurlieus of our larger cities, and clamor for bread orblood—meaning always somebody else’s bread orsomebody else’s blood—will find occasion to disband.I do not despair of relief, I know that it must come.Whether it shall come through ‘a preserving or adestroying revolution,’ whether it shall come inwrath or in peace, is a question which the capitalistsof this country must answer and answer speedily.”

“John, you dear old dreamer,” said the doctor,“I know of one millionaire whose gold has not corrodedhis humanity. I hope there are many such, butI fear that if the world looks to its wealth owners tolead it in a crusade of unselfishness, it will wait a long,long time. But I do not diagnose the disease as youdo. You resemble a boy who has stubbed his toe.To him there is no world and hardly any boy outsideof that sore toe. Yet if the cure be left to nature, intime the pain will abate and the toe recover. I do68not believe that any law framed by man can make apound of flour out of half a pound of wheat, or thatany scheme of government can equalize the inevitableinequalities of human life.”

“Then you do not believe in the wisdom and beneficenceof compelling the rapacious rich to aid thedeserving poor?”

“No; I believe in the wisdom and beneficence ofexact justice. I believe that the skillful and rapidbricklayer is entitled to higher wages and greater opportunitiesof employment than his stupid and slothfulassociate, and that to deny the former his rightful advantageis an outrage upon justice, whether such outragebe perpetrated by an employer or a trades union.I believe that every man is fairly entitled to all thefruits of his labor, his skill, his good judgment, and hisgood luck. The pickerel at your feet came by chanceto your hook and not mine, and therefore it is yourfish and not my fish.”

“But by the law of nature, doctor, there is no differencebetween a beggar and a king.”

“There is where you are wrong, professor. Thelaw of nature is a universal statute of equality of opportunityand inequality of result, and man distortsher purposes and violates her statutes when he placesan unearned crown on the head of a king, or an unearnedcrust in the mouth of a beggar.”

“Do you think, then, that man has no excuse forhis shortcomings, doctor?”

“He has many. He is controlled by the occultpower of race transmissions, by laws which he didnot help to make, by customs which he did not69help to form, by organizations and environments beyondhis power to change or combat. But becauseof these he should have no license to plunder hiswealthier neighbor, for, in this republic, it is withinthe power of the people to change laws, and alter customs,and secure to every man the result of his owntoil and skill—and that is all any man is entitled to.”

“But the wealth owners, doctor, have monopolizednearly all the resources of nature.”

“Nonsense. There is not a hungry idler in the purlieusof New York City but might catch fish enoughat the nearest wharf to keep him from starvation, orfind within a day’s walk a piece of land he couldcultivate on ‘shares.’ The resources of nature areinexhaustible. If every adult male in the land wereto build for himself a marble palace, there wouldbe no perceptible diminution in nature’s supply ofmarble. If every farmer were to devote his energiesand his acres to the production of wheat, until enoughwheat should have been harvested to feed the worldfor five years, yet the capacity of soil and sun, waterand air to produce more wheat would be neither exhaustednor impaired. For thousands of years themen of every civilization have been hewing forests,and smelting iron, yet the forests which are untouchedand the mines which are unopened are practicallylimitless.”

“Doctor, a man cannot stir the earth without aspade, or cut down a tree without an ax, or mine ironore without a pick, and the owners of the spades, andpicks, and axes, exact from the laborer an undue shareof his labor for their use.”

70“Who is to determine whether the share exactedbe an undue one? My own opinion is that the laborer’sshare of results has grown larger, and the capitalist’sshare smaller, during the last twenty years. Atleast, the rate of interest on money is not much morethan half what it was before the war. But whetherthis be so or not it is not nature’s fault. Nature isnot only implacably just, she is impartially generous.No suitor is denied the chance to gain her favors, andnone is refused any favor he may have earned. Thereare floods and tornadoes, frosts and fevers, burningsuns and chilling winds. Yet these, as well as thefruitage and the harvests, are the offspring of inexorablelaw, and science now interprets the law. It warnsus of cyclones ten thousand miles away; it predictsthe date of arrival, speed, and duration of hurricanes;it brings the ladybug from Australia to combatand destroy the scale-bug in California; it promisesto conquer drought by exploding dynamite bombsin the air or by chemical production of rain; it restrainsfloods by diverting rivers; it destroys malarial germsby planting groves of eucalyptus; it analyzes soils; itselects seeds; it fertilizes with electric wires, and itploughs and plants and harvests fields with iron-limbedand steam-lunged servants. A hundred years agoone man with spade and sickle slowly wrested fromthe earth the sustenance for his little household, withonly sufficient surplus to scantily compensate theweaver, who, with hand loom, constructed a few yardsof cloth between daylight and dark. Now a girlguides the spindles and shuttles and makes thousandsof yards of cloth in a day, and the labor of one man71industriously applied to so much land as he can advantageouslycultivate with the aid of improved machinery,will in one year produce one thousand bushelsof wheat, or their equivalent in agricultural products—enoughto feed fifty men for a year.”

“I grant you, doctor, that the production of wealthhas greatly increased. The problem of the hour ishow to provide for a more equal and just distributionof it.”

“John, the solution of the problem is not difficult.Allow every man to have that which he earns, andcompel every man to earn that which he has. Accordevery man the opportunity to work or starve,with the assurance that for his work he will receivefull value, and for his idleness a hunger that no publicor private charity will alleviate. Hard labor and hardfare for the criminal, generous diet and tender carefor the sick, an ax or a pump handle for the tramp,and allow no healthy man to eat his supper until hehas earned it. Consider sporadic and indiscriminatecharity as great an evil as injustice. Accord everyman his dollar and demand from every man your dollar,and give and exact shilling for shilling. Emulateand copy the inexorable justice of nature.”

“Doctor,” said the professor, “I am silenced butnot convinced. The sun is getting too high for furtherfishing. Come, let us go to luncheon.”

“Bob,” said Morning, as they lighted their cigars,and seated themselves after supper upon thepiazza of the railroad hotel at Tucson, “the copper assaysare not up to your expectations, still I am inclinedto buy the property if I can arrange to employmen at rates that will enable me to work it. What areminers’ wages hereabouts?”

“Three dollars and a half a day for ten hours,”replied Steel.

“And how much for unskilled laborers for roadbuilding, wheeling, and aboveground work?” saidMorning.

“Two dollars and a half; but for work of that kindyou can get Chinamen at $1.50 a day, Mexicans at$1.25, and Papago Indians for $1.00, if you wish toemploy them, though I reckon you would havetrouble about getting white men to work with either.”

“I don’t wish to cut wages on miners, Bob, forthey earn all they get, but if I buy that property, therewill be a lot of road building, and grading for furnacesites, and wheeling, and other work of the same nature,and unless such work can be done cheaply, it willnot pay to hire miners for underground work, or, indeed,to work the copper mines at all. I shall want73these unskilled laborers for only a short time, and Ihave especial reasons for not hiring either white menor Mexicans, neither do I care to employ Chinamen ifI can avoid it. Could I, think you, obtain enough Indiansfor this preliminary work?”

“Plenty of them at the San Xavier reservation,nine miles from here. I patter their lingo a little andcan get you a gang if you want them.”

“I may want to drill and blast down a lot of basaltrock to build the foundations of furnaces and ballastthe road with,” said Morning. “Will they do thatkind of work?”

“Yes, until it comes to firing the blasts. You willneed a white man for that. You will also need awhite man for blacksmith work—sharpening picks anddrills. The Indians cannot work at a forge, and theyare nervous about ‘big shoots,’ as they call them.”

“Bob, if I take those copper prospects of you atyour price, will you hire a gang of Papagoes for me,and take them up there and work them for two orthree months under my direction, you and I sharpeningthe tools and preparing and firing the blasts, Ipaying you say $10 a day for your services?”

“Well, Mr. Morning, I don’t quite like such a jobas that, but I am anxious to sell those copper prospects,and I will do it. But if you are going to hireIndian labor, I advise you to do first all the workthat you intend to do with it. I mean, it will be bestto get through with the Papagoes before you take anywhite men in there, or else there may be a row, andthe white men will drive away the Indians.”

“All right, Bob, I will take your advice. You may74consider the trade made. I will take your deed forthe copper locations and give you a check to-morrowfor $10,000 on the First National Bank at Denver, orI will arrange to get you the coin from the bank hereif you desire it.”

“Your check is good enough for me, Mr. Morning.”

“Very well. Then you can go to the San Xavierreservation early in the morning and make a bargainwith the Papagoes for three months. Obtain fortygood men and agree to furnish them with rations andpay them $1.25 a day. They have ponies, I suppose,and can take their squaws along if they choose. Itwill make them more contented to stay. You mightcontract with them also to furnish enough cattle tosupply themselves with fresh meat. They can drivethem along, and there is now plenty of grass in the ravines.Don’t let them come to Tuscon, for I don’twish the people here to know what I am doing. TheIndians can strike across from San Xavier by FortLowell and meet us, or wait for us at the mouth of theRillito. You can return here as soon as you startthem, and we will buy teams and load them with supplies,and drive them out ourselves. We will do allthe blacksmith work and blasting ourselves. And,Bob, keep your own counsel strictly about everything.I have reasons for secrecy which I will explain to youlater.”

“All right, Mr. Morning. I don’t clearly see whatyou are driving at. It’s a queer way to open a coppermine, but you are the captain, and I’ve knownyou a long time, and whatever you say goes with BobSteel.”

75It was three o’clock the next afternoon before Steelreturned from San Xavier. He was well known tothe Papagoes, having often purchased grain and animalsfrom them for mining companies with which hehad been connected as superintendent. His missionwas successful, and Manuel Pacheco, a leader amongthe Indians, had agreed to have the necessary forceat the place designated on the third “sun up.”

Tuscon, although not a mining town, is a commercialcenter for a dozen mining camps, and there wasnothing in the outfitting of a party of miners calculatedto attract especial notice. Two wagons and twelvemules were purchased, with all needed supplies, andMorning and Steel drove away to their destination,where they met the Indians and proceeded to theold copper-camp. After supper Morning opened theconversation which he had determined to have withSteel.

“Bob,” said he, “to tell the truth, I do not intendto work this copper property at present, though Ishall need it by and by for a purpose I will not nowexplain. I bought it mainly because I knew youintended to sell it to somebody, and I wished to keepothers away from this vicinity. I have another use forthe powder and the Indians, and, if you will acceptthe offer I am about to make, I have another servicefor you. I selected you because I know you are astrue and as bright as your name. If you will workwith me and for me in this cañon as I require, I willgive you a salary of $1,000 a month for three years,and at the end of that time I will pay you—don’t thinkI am crazy—I will pay you $1,000,000. What doyou say to my proposition?”

76“You take away my breath,” rejoined Steel. “IfI did not know you so well, I should say that you hadbeen boozing on mescal, or were otherwise off yournut. But you don’t talk usually without meaningwhat you say, and I reckon you are in earnest. Butthere is nothing that I can do to earn $1,000,000,or $1,000 a month either.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” said Morning, “as you willagree when you know all, or at least all that I intendto tell you! Listen: When I was up the cañon whilewe were here last week, I discovered and located arich gold quartz lode that was uncovered by the waterspout.It is very rich and extensive—indeed, thereare many millions in sight in the croppings. It wasthrough my coming here to look at your copper lodesthat I was led to its discovery, and in a certain wayI consider you have a right to some profit from it, andI can well afford to give you a million dollars for yourservices and your silence, or several millions, if youwant that much. The ledge is so rich that the firstthing to do is to conceal it. No person but myselfknows its extent or value, and I shall not disclosethese even to you. When I commence working itand turning out bullion, people will be curious, andthey will badger you to tell them all about. The elderRothschild is credited with the aphorism that no mancan tell what he does not know, and if you really don’tknow the extent of the Morning mine, it will be a gooddeal easier for you to baffle the curious. I proposethat you shall not look at the ledge or go into thebox cañon where it is. Will you agree to that?”

“Oh, I am agreeable!” said Steel. “I appreciateyour reasons, and, anyway, it’s none of my business.”

77Morning then explained to Steel the situation ofthe cañon where he had found the lode, and the mannerof its discovery, but was silent as to its dimensionsor the quantity of gold contained in the rock. Heinformed him as to his plan of operations, which wasto pack all the supplies and tools on the backs of theanimals as far up the cañon as it was possible thus togo, and there make a permanent camp. The Indianswere then to carry the tools, powder, and a supply ofprovisions upon their backs up to the summit of thebasalt wall near the rift, where another camp wouldbe made.

Two Indians were to be left at the copper-camp,with directions if anyone appeared there to run upthe cañon and inform Steel or Morning. Two Indianswere to be placed in charge of the permanent campand the animals, four Indians were to carry water inkegs to the top of the wall for the use of the mainparty there, two Indians to procure firewood and preparefood and attend to the camp at the summit, andthirty Indians to work at drilling holes in the basaltat the summit on both sides of the rift, and at a distanceof about ten feet from the edge of it.

The squaws were to be suffered to make such dispositionof their time as their social and domesticduties and inclinations might suggest. Steel andMorning would keep the drills sharpened at the portableforge, which, with a supply of charcoal, would betransported to the summit camp, and as often as thedrill holes were ready they would place and explodethe blasts.

It was intended thus to throw rocks from the summit78down into the gorge, and this was to be repeateduntil its bottom should be covered to a depth of manyfeet, and all signs of the existence of the quartz lodeobliterated. From the height of one thousand feet thelode could not be seen at all, unless one were to crawlto and look over the edge of the precipice, and then itsnature could not—except by an experienced miner orgeologist—be discerned from that of the neighboringrock. The Indians below would not be apt to disobeyorders, leave their posts, and go into the cañonamid tumbling rocks, and the general stolidity andlack of interest of the Papagoes would lead them toattribute the entire work to the eccentricity of theirwhite employer.

The plan formed by Morning was carried into effect.Drills of different length had been provided, and thework was systematized. At six o’clock each morningthe Indians commenced work; from eleven totwelve they were allowed for dinner and rest. At fiveo’clock drilling was suspended, and the work of preparingthe blasts was performed. The Indians thenretired to a distance, and Morning and Steel wouldexplode the blasts.

At the end of two months’ hard labor the rift wasfilled with rock and débris to a depth of thirty feet, andthe lode completely covered from view. Morningthen made a relocation of the mine on the basalt wallabove and on the mountain side below. He locatedextensions, side locations, and tunnel locations in everydirection for a mile or more, so as to completelyappropriate all approaches to the original location,and prevent others from obtaining any vantage-ground79from which drifts might be run under his property.He also located the necessary mill sites, the waters ofRillito Creek, and the timber upon the mountains.

The plateau where he had tethered his horses onhis first visit was, with the available adjacent slopes,chosen as a site for buildings he intended to have constructedfor the use of the miners and their families,and a rock and earth dam was built in the Rillito severalhundred feet above, from whence the water shouldbe piped to the buildings. The Indians were then setto work constructing a wagon road to the mouth ofthe Rillito.

The work being completed, the entire party nowjourneyed to Tucson, and the Indians were paid offand returned to the reservation, where they doubtlessregaled their tribe with an account of the work theyhad performed at the instance of the white lunatic whohad paid them over four thousand “pesos” in silverto tumble rock into a hole. Yet it is doubtful if suchinformation ever extended beyond members of theirtribe, for, on parting with them, Morning presentedeach worker with a high silk hat, and each squaw withred calico for a gown, and Bob Steel made a speechto them in the Papago tongue, and asked them toagree not to tell the Indian agent, or any white man,where they had been working or what doing, beyondthe statement that they had been “building wagonroad.” The Indians—naturally secretive—readilygave the required promise.

Having recorded his new location notices, Morningtelegraphed to San Francisco for a portable sawmill.He loaded the wagons with a fresh supply of provisions80and tools and sent them with a gang of wood-choppersin charge of Steel to the upper camp on theRillito, with directions to get out logs and haul themto the site of the proposed sawmill.

While awaiting the arrival of the sawmill, Morningvisited the neighboring mining camps of Tombstone,Globe, and Bisbee, and selected with great care—afterwatching them at work and informing himselfas to their habits and antecedents—one hundred miners,to whom he agreed to give a steady job for severalyears, working in eight-hour shifts, at $4.00 per day.He preferred and obtained married men, each manbeing promised a comfortable cabin, with transportationfor his family and effects from Tucson.

In ten days the portable sawmill arrived, and withit and a full outfit of building material, tools, andpipe, Morning, accompanied by a gang of carpenters,was again en route for the mine.

It was busy times at Waterspout, for such was thename given to the new camp, for the next six weeks.By that time the sawmill and shingle machine hadturned out sufficient material, and with the carpentersand a number of the wood-choppers who were draftedfor the purpose, eighty comfortable board houses hadbeen constructed, with large buildings for shops andoffices, and a suitable edifice for a schoolhouse.Water was piped to the little plaza about which thebuildings were gathered, and all was ready for theminers.

The sawmill was now set to work getting out timbersfor a mill, and for timbering tunnels. The menwere all alive with curiosity to know where was the81mine for the working of which all these preparationswere made, but both Morning and Steel were reticent,and those who were too pressing in their inquirieswere quietly given to understand that a continuationof questioning might cause their services to be dispensedwith.

All being ready, the teams were sent to Tucson atthe appointed time and returned with the miners andtheir household effects, a number of wagons charteredfor the purpose bringing the women and children.Twenty or more adventurers on horseback and inwagons accompanied the party, as by this time curiositywas all ablaze at the proceedings of Morning,whose location notices had been read by hundreds,and been made the subject of frequent comment in theTucson papers.

Numerous prospecting parties were dispatched tothe Santa Catalinas during the next few months, andtheir members climbed all over the mountains, examinedMorning’s location monuments, and returnedto Tucson with the report that the Colorado manwas clean crazy, that there was not a sign of quartz,or any place where quartz could exist, and thatMorning’s friends—if he had any—would do well toappoint a guardian for him.

The plan of production upon which Morning hadsettled was to extract sufficient gold to gradually substitutethat metal for paper, or to make it instead ofbonds or credits the basis for paper money in all thecivilized world, and to increase the circulation of allcountries to the volume per capita of the countryhaving the largest amount.

82He learned from the statistics with which he hadsupplied himself that the money circulation of France,the most prosperous and the most commercially activenation in Europe, was $42.15 per capita, of theUnited States $24.10, of Great Britain $20.40, of Italy$16.31, of Spain $14.44, and of Germany, $14.23. Inthe Asiatic, semi-Asiatic and South American countriesthe money circulation was still less, being but$5.20 per capita in Russia, $3.18 in Turkey, $4.02 inBritish India, $4.90 in Mexico, $4.29 in Peru, $1.79in Central America, and $1.29 in Venezuela.

Morning noticed that the greater the money circulationof a country, the greater the civilization, prosperity,and refinement of the people; and metallicmoney, or paper currency calling for metallic money,being the best money, it would be sure wherever obtainableto drive out all other currency. He proposed,therefore, to increase, as rapidly as was possible,the metallic money of the United States and Europeto the standard per capita of France, beginning withthe United States, following with England, and thenproceeding to the Continent.

The process of accomplishing this was to be exceedinglysimple. He would ship gold bars to themints of the country whose currency he proposed toincrease, and ask that they be coined into the moneyof the country. The coin received he proposed todeposit in the banks of that country for investmentor use therein.

The one danger against which he had to providewas demonetization of gold by the nations. He couldonly effectually guard against this by withholding all83knowledge of the extent of his mine until he shouldhave accumulated a vast deposit of gold bars—say$2,000,000,000 worth—and then deposit these forcoinage suddenly and simultaneously at the mints ofthe world before any law could be enacted deprivinggold of its quality as a money metal. Yet it wouldtake several years for the mints to coin so large a sum,and in the meantime gold might be demonetized. Inorder for Morning to place his gold beyond the reachof such legislation, it was essential to have it coined,or put in form of money having a legal tender value.A slight change in the currency and coinage lawswould effect this. In the United States it might beaccomplished by an act of Congress requiring thegovernment to receive gold bars, and to issue legaltender gold notes thereon, without actually coiningthe gold at all. The mints of the United States,working to their full capacity on gold alone, couldnot turn out more than $50,000,000 in coin per month,while a government printing press could issue $500,000,000in a day.

Morning concluded that one of his earliest dutieswould be to visit Washington while Congress was insession, and promote the necessary legislation.

Of the gold which he produced he could ship tothe mints openly about one bar in twenty-five. Theother twenty-four bars he could keep at the mine untilhe could build a smelting furnace and manufacturepigs of copper, which should be hollow, and in whichgold bars should be concealed, and thus shipped tofinancial centers, where they could be stored readyfor any occasion.

84Morning estimated that the production of $100,000,000per month would require the activity of twohundred stamps, and that with the aid of improvedmachinery he could reach the ledge and commencethe production of gold in about three months. Hehad now expended for labor, machinery, and suppliesabout $25,000, and as much more would be requiredto meet the labor expenses of the next sixty days,while the quartz mills he proposed erecting would requirenearly $200,000 more. As the business methodsof the railroad company prevented him from keepinghis secret, and at the same time realizing any moneyby shipping ore, he determined to obtain the necessaryfunds by a sale of his mortgage securities, and,leaving Robert Steel in charge of the work, DavidMorning departed for Denver.

On his return to Denver, Morning found no difficultyin speedily closing up his business and convertinghis mortgages into money. In about ten days hewas ready to depart for San Francisco, where heintended purchasing the necessary machinery for fivemills of forty stamps each. His sole remaining businessin Denver was the execution and delivery to thepurchaser of a conveyance of some city propertywhich he had sold.

While breakfasting at the Windsor that morning,his appetite was not increased by reading from theAssociated Press telegrams the following:—

“There was celebrated this morning at the residenceof the bride’s father, Professor John Thornton, inRoxbury, the nuptials of one of Boston’s greatestheiresses and acknowledged belles, the beautiful andaccomplished Miss Ellen Thornton, to the Baron VonEulaw. The happy couple will sail on the Serviato-morrow, and will proceed directly to Berlin. It isintimated that our fair countrywoman may be restoredto us after a season by the appointment of the BaronVon Eulaw as envoy at Washington from the GermanEmpire.”

Forgotten? Ah, no! there are experiences in life86that may never be forgotten. Time rolls by, andagainst the door of the mausoleum where we buriedour dead out of sight the years have piled events andemotions and distractions, and the passion which weonce thought immortal becomes now an episode, andby and by a dream, and at last a vague and shadowyremembrance, and one day some new and mightyfact stalks forward, and sweeps away all obstructions,and the doors of the tomb are reopened, and the deadof our heart come forth, bringing to us sometimes thejoys of life’s morning, and sometimes the bitternessof a new death.

David Morning walked from the hotel to his officewithout noticing many of the friendly greetings bestowedupon him, for his thoughts were busy with thepast, and there was a dull, dead pain tugging at hisheart strings.

The notary who had taken Morning’s acknowledgmentto the deed whose delivery would complete hisbusiness in Denver, brought the instrument to Morning’soffice, and, not finding him in, slipped the paperin the top of a desk with a circular cover. This deskwas one of Morning’s first possessions in the way ofoffice furniture, and, finding it convenient and commodious,he had caused it to accompany everychange of quarters which his increasing business hadfrom time to time rendered necessary.

Entering his office, Morning hurriedly threw backthe cover of the desk, not noticing the deed in thetop of it until it was too late to prevent the paper frombeing carried by the revolving cover into the interiorof the desk, where it could only be reached by removing87a portion of the back. The services of amechanic from a neighboring furniture store wereprocured, the back of the desk was removed, andMorning recovered the deed.

He also recovered another paper. It was an unopenedletter addressed to himself, which had doubtlessreached its resting-place in the old desk throughthe same process as that which carried the deed there.The envelope was covered with dust; it was postmarked“Boston, Mass., February, 1883”—ten yearsbefore—and the superscription was in the handwritingof Ellen Thornton, now the Baroness Von Eulaw.

Dispatching the recovered deed to its destination,Morning closed the door of his private office, and,with breath coming thick and fast, proceeded to openand peruse the missive. It read as follows:—

My Dear Mr. Morning: This letter may bringyou a moment of surprise; if it be not a surprise mixedwith chagrin, I am less justly repaid than perhaps Ideserve for that which may seem my instability of purpose.But I have heard you say that you scarcelyknew which was the weaker, the man who changedhis mind too often or who never changed it at all, andin this recollection I find refuge.

With men as intuitive as yourself, explanations arealmost superfluous. Nevertheless, you will bear withme while I pass under review a few of the causeswhich have led to this action.

After the change in my father’s fortunes and oursubsequent removal to Boston, life began to open upnew possibilities, and what with the increased demands88upon my time, and the many beguilements offlattering tongues, together with—let me confess it—anunresting desire to forget the act of folly whichhad shut out every ray of sunshine from my heart, asI found too late, I at length fixed my footing to theartificial conditions of the situation, and for a brief timeflattered myself that you were forgotten.

My letter, if written at all, ought to stop here. Butthus much I have learned—that passion tinctured withsorrow is the greatest of egotists, and that the feelingthat brooks no measure of repression or discouragementinspires a degree of courage little short of defiance.Thus stimulated, I feel a growing joy in beingable to surmount artificial restraint and to addressyou as I know you would wish an honest girl wholoves you with her whole heart, should speak.

What will you think of me? Will you call mefickle and unworthy? unwomanly? In a word, willyou misunderstand me? How could I know till myeyes were opened that there was but one sun? thatthe whole world to me was adjusted to your simple,noble qualities? How could I know that the musicof the spheres meant the remembered tones of yourvoice, that your face should haunt alike every scene ofsplendor and every secret shadow, or that I would givemy patrimony to be able to pass my fingers throughyour brown locks for ever so brief a moment?

What am I writing? I dare not read it. How confidentI feel, how transported with the thought thatyou may in remembering me forget my much-repenteddictum, or at least relegate it to the Quixotic realm towhich it belongs.

89As I near the close of my letter, I am possessed witha new fear. Shall I dare send it? What if you shallhave discovered new powers in yourself, new personsout in the broad world, which shall make you glad ofyour escape? It is so long since I have heard of you,and life is so full of new things, I forget that you toohave quite the right to change your mind. If this beyour condition, do not, I beg of you, write me. Icould not bear the humiliation as your great heartbore yours. Consign my letter, then, to the great silence,and only remember me as ever and alwaysyour sincere friend,

What was his colossal fortune to David Morningnow? Out of the past came this message of life andlove; of a love gone forever, and a life which nowseemed barren of purpose and hope.

What is time but a name? The intervening yearsshriveled into nothingness, and he was again bathingin the light which shone from the eyes of the womanhe loved, the one woman on earth or in heaven forhim, yesterday and to-day and forever. Again hewalked with her under the whispering foliage alongthe brow of the hill which crowns the Queen City ofthe plains, and watched the burning sunsets illuminethe lavender mountains and change the clouds intoembers of glory. Again he sat beside her, readingsome tender or beautiful or stirring passage from poetor essayist. Again, at the good-night going, he felther dainty kiss, thrilling his soul to ecstasy.

And she was lost to him now, lost through his pride,lost through his vanity, lost through such dense andinexcusable stupidity as never before possessed or90afflicted a man. He had taken her girlish doubts asfinal. He had thought to exhibit his manly pride—whichwas, after all, only conceit of self—as an offset toher presuming to question the possibility of her beingpossessed by a great love for him. Coward that hewas to surrender this glorious creature without an effort.Dolt that he was to so mistake her maidenlyhesitancy.

And she—dear heart—had loved him after all. Shehad condescended to summon him, and he had neverreceived the message. What had she thought of hisfailure to respond? What must she have thought ofhim, save that he was a cruel, conceited creature unworthyof her love? What humiliation his unexplainedsilence must for a time have brought to hergentle spirit! What wreck and misery had not thismiscarriage of her missive brought to his life!

If he could have identified the clerk or postmanwhose carelessness had misplaced her letter, he wouldhave beaten him in his fury, and he wished for an axthat he might hew and batter to splinters the inanimatedesk whose machinery had been instrumental inwrecking two lives.

Were they hopelessly wrecked? He caught hisbreath at the thought. He at least was free, andwhatever else might come never would he be otherwise.Never should wile of woman enchant him,never should desire for home and love and perpetuationof race and name beguile him. He would walklonely to the gates of the eternal morning, and waitfor her beyond the portal, and carry her soul uponthe pinions of his immortal love to the uttermost confines91of ether, where no entrapments or environmentsof earth could follow or molest them, and in the glowof the astral light he would claim her as his own, andgive himself to her forever and ever.

Ellen’s letter released the passion which had beenlocked for ten years in the silent chambers of DavidMorning’s soul, and it possessed the man, and masteredhim with throes of bitter agony and throbs ofecstatic delight. His cheeks were wet with the tears ofdisappointment, and again to the very center of himhe laughed with joy as he covered the letter withkisses.

“She loved me, my darling, my own, she lovedme!” he cried. “Maybe she loves me yet!” andagain his heart beat wildly. “For ten years she remainedunmated. But yesterday she married thisGerman nobleman, this Baron Von Eulaw. Surelylove could not have moved her to the union. Surelywith her nature she could not have forgotten her firstlove. She was outraged and humiliated and incensedat the silence and seeming indifference of theman she really loved, and so she married, for reasonscommon enough in society.”

Was this tie irrevocable? Could it not be severed?Might it not be possible that happiness should yet bein store on this earth for his darling and himself?He was now in possession of the lever that moves theworld. Should he not use this power for her and forhimself, as well as for the benefit of mankind?

Who was this German baron that he should standagainst him? There were hundreds of barons, butonly one owner of the Morning mine. He would92use millions piled upon millions to bring his Ellen tohis arms.

Napoleon divorced Josephine and married MariaLouisa. Cæsar put away one wife and marriedanother. David placed Uriah in the front of the battle.Many kings had used their power to readjust totheir liking their own domestic relations and those oftheir subjects.

He was a mightier king than Darius. He ruledgreater armies than any ever commanded by Bonaparte.Not the Kaiser or the Romanoff upon theirimperial thrones could exercise so great a power asDavid Morning.

He would bid his golden armies serve their master.Walpole had truthfully said that “every man has hisprice,” and the Baron Von Eulaw probably had his.How many millions would this titled Dutchman takefor his wife? ten? fifty? a hundred? a thousand?—heshould have them multiplied again and again.

Morning smiled grimly at the grotesque fancy.Von Eulaw aspired to the American embassy. Mayhaphe was not covetous but ambitious. Very well,he would ask the Hohenzollern to name his figuresfor offices and ribbons and rank to be accorded to thebaron in exchange for a surrender of his Americanwife. He would pay off the national debt of Germanyif necessary. Or he would buy the baron akingdom. There were always thrones for sale forcash or approved credit in the Danubian country.That of Servia was just now in the market, and eventhat of Spain or Portugal might be purchased.

Maybe the baron loved his wife. How could he93help loving her? Curse him, what right had he tolove her? What if Morning emulated the exampleof the Psalmist and caused the Baroness Von Eulawto be made a widow? Money would accomplish this,and none be the wiser.

None? Ah, what of the God that rules worlds anddirects the eternities, the God that was in and a partof David Morning, the God that punishes and pities,the God that smote David, that struck down Cæsar,that gave Napoleon to an exile’s death, and HenryTudor to centuries of infamy?

If Morning gained his Ellen’s arms through wrongto another, through wrong to his own imperial andimpartial conscience, there would be bitterness in herkisses, and misery in his soul; they would go maimedand chained to the gates of death, and in the otherland they should meet not again.

And, inch by inch and minute by minute, Ohromadesand Ahriman fought for the soul of David Morning.The ebon-plumed spirit of darkness and the silver-armoredessence of light battled along the lines ofheaven and hell, and the light triumphed, and darknesswas hurled from the battlements, and peace andstrength came to the aching soul.

He would wait. He would not even jeopardize herpeace by righting himself in her esteem. He wouldoffer no explanation. He would wait, wait for thedecree of the Father, wait for the hour of meeting inhonor. If it came on earth, well; if it came onlythrough the help of death, still well, for “life is shortbut love immortal.” In the other land there wouldbe readjustments, and each soul not mated truly here94would find its true mate there, in a mating that shouldbe prevented by no power, and limited by no death,but should endure so long as the planets circle in theirorbits.

How did he know this? Not through any evidencepresented to the material senses, nor through anylogic of the schools. It is the spiritual sense of manthat perceives his spiritual life. No priest can givehim his intuitions, no scoffer can take them from him,and the querulous questionings of science are but asthe babblings of infancy in the august presence of thesoul.

And for full five minutes David Morning sat withhis face between his hands, then rose and went fortha conqueror.

Before leaving Colorado Morning employed a forceof skilled workmen, necessary for the successful conductof both quartz mills and copper-smelting furnaces.It was his design to make Waterspout a little worldin itself, the members of which should consent to remainin the cañon for three years, communicatingwith the world outside only by mail. To this endphysicians, school-teachers, and a clergyman were secured,and a library, musical instruments, and theatricalscenery purchased, with the confident expectationthat local histrionic talent would be developed; forwhere is the American community of five hundredsouls which does not contain the material both forHamlet and burnt-cork opera?

From Denver Morning proceeded directly to SanFrancisco, where the leading iron works were soonbusy constructing quartz-crushing machinery. By the15th of April everything was on the ground, and inone month thereafter the stamps were ready to drop.This result was achieved by working nights by electriclight, the Rillito furnishing power for the dynamos.

In ordering the mining work Morning had arrangedfor a double-track tunnel, which would reachthe lode at a depth of about one hundred and fifty96feet from the surface, and there was now a broad, well-ventilatedand well-lighted underground road to andalong the entire length of the quartz lode, at a pointfive feet from it. From this tunnel Morning couldcause to be run as many crosscuts into the lode as hedesired, and thus control the amount of quartz extracted,and keep within his exclusive knowledge thetrue dimensions of the mineral deposit.

Conjecture was rife, and the general opinion questionedthe sanity of a man who made such costly andelaborate preparations for extracting and reducingquartz in a place where no quartz or sign or promiseof quartz was visible. But Superintendent RobertSteel kept his own counsel, the wages of the menwere paid promptly, all bills were cashed on presentation,and the prevailing sentiment was voiced by bigJim Stebbins, the boss of shift No. 3, who interruptedand terminated a discussion among his men as toMorning’s movements by saying:—

“Dave Morning is no mining shark or stock-boardstiff. His money is clean money; he dug it out of theground; and if he chooses to buck it off agin a syenitedike, a payin’ you fellers $4.00 for eight hours’ work,which is a sight more than some of you is worth, why,I reckon it’s nobody’s business but his own. It’s onlyfive minutes to shift time; put out your pipes, and geta move on you.”

The mills were built on the side of the mountain belowthe tunnel, and were inclosed—as was the entranceto the tunnel—with a high fence, within which nonewere permitted except workmen on duty.

A light narrow-gauge road was built from the mill97yard at Waterspout down the cañon, past the coppersmelters, to the mouth of the Rillito. The wagonroad was destroyed, and the stream dammed in severalplaces, so that the only means of reachingWaterspout was by rail; and, without a pass fromSuperintendent Steel, no person was permitted toride on the cars. Tourists, prospectors, and seekersfor information who should overcome these difficulties,and walk, climb, or swim to Waterspout, would needto carry also their own provisions and bedding, forthey would find neither shelter, food, nor welcome,and could not gain access to mine or mill.

These discouragements stained the reputation ofMorning for hospitality, but they helped to keep hissecret, and proved effective against everybody excepta special reporter of a San Francisco journal, who, disguisedas a Papago Indian, journeyed to Waterspout,and remained there several days. He might havemade a longer stay, but a Papago squaw, hearing ofhis presence, sought him with a view to connubial felicity.The reporter would have faced death for hisjournal, but he drew the line at matrimony and fled.He did not gain access to mine or mill while there,but he picked up considerable information, the publicationof which might have proved damaging to Morning’splans.

It happened that the sagacious manager of the greatdaily, before ordering publication, frankly communicatedwith Morning—who happened to be in San Francisco—and,being persuaded by that gentleman thatthe public interest would be subserved by silence concerningthe great gold mine in the Santa Catalinas,98the notes of the reporter were not sent to the composingroom.

At last all was in readiness. The men whose dutiesended with the construction of mills, furnaces, railroad,and buildings, were sent with the teams to Tucson andpaid off. All idle, dissatisfied, and unsatisfactory menwere discharged, and their places supplied with others.The best mining and milling machinery obtainablewas in place and ready to run. Supplies of all kinds,sufficient for months, were in the storehouses, fivecrosscuts, twenty feet apart, had been run to withinone foot of the ledge, and the doors of the treasurecaverns were ready to open, when the owner of themine directed that all the men assemble on the littleplaza at Waterspout in front of the company’s offices.

“My friends,” said David Morning, “I have calledyou together that we may have a more perfect understandingbefore entering upon the most important partof the labor that lies before us. You have doubtlessfelt surprised at the extent of the work which has beendone in this cañon without there being any ore, or indicationsof ore, in sight. But your surprise will changeto astonishment when you know, as you soon mustknow, how extensive and rich a body of gold quartzis here. It has been and still is my desire to withholdfrom the world any knowledge, or, at least, any accurateknowledge, of the amount of gold that will be produced.I conclude that the best method for securingsecrecy is to make it in the interest of all concerned tokeep the secret, and I desire to say now that each oneof you, whether miner, millman, mechanic, laborer,teacher, clerk, clergyman, or physician, every man who99is or who may be on the pay-rolls, who shall faithfullydischarge the duties for which he was employed, andshall remain in such employment for one year, withoutin the meantime leaving this cañon, and who shallnot by letter, or otherwise, communicate any informationconcerning the working or yield of the mine, willbe presented by me at the end of the year with thesum of $5,000 in addition to his pay. Those who remainuntil the end of the second year will receive afurther present of $10,000, and those who remain untilthe end of the third year will receive a still furtherpresent of $15,000. Those who choose to go, or whomay be compelled to leave here because of either misconductor misfortune, will receive nothing but theirpay. Should any die, the present for that year will,at the expiration of the year, be paid to his family—ifhere. If strangers visit this cañon, I shall expectyou not to entertain them or converse with them.Those of you who correspond with friends will pleasesay nothing whatever as to any facts concerning thisproperty, or any opinions you may have about it orabout me. It is only with your co-operation and goodfaith that the secrets of this mine can be kept. Any oneof you may, to a certain extent, betray those secrets.Should he do so, he will not only defeat my plans butdeprive himself of the fortune which I expect to payeach of you as the price of three years of work andreticence.”

The proposition of Morning was agreed to withunanimity, and with an enthusiasm and gratitudewhich can be comprehended when it is understoodthat even the sum of $5,000 represented to the most100industrious and frugal workman the savings of fromfive to twenty years.

Three days afterwards the crosscuts were in ore,cars loaded with the yellow-seamed quartz began todischarge into the chutes and feeders, and the musicof two hundred stamps resounded in the SantaCatalinas.

Morning’s estimate of the value of the ore, whichhe made from the specimens taken by him at the timeof the discovery, proved singularly accurate. Thequartz contained $10,000 in gold per ton, of whichamount ninety-five per cent was saved in the mill.The reduction power was two tons to each stamp perdiem, and the yield of the mine was quite $4,000,000,or eight tons of gold, each day. The necessity ofresting one day in seven was observed at Waterspout,both as a sanitary measure and because of the suggestionsof the race germs that Morning had receivedfrom his Connecticut ancestors.

The disposition of the gold bars produced wasmade in accordance with Morning’s plans previouslymade. Each day the product of the copper furnaces,cast in hollow moulds, was brought upon the railroad,to the lower part of the mill yard, where were situatedthe gold-melting furnaces. Under the personal supervisionof Steel, assisted by a few men speciallyselected for the work, a gold bar was placed insideeach copper mould, the slight spaces filled with drysand, a half inch of dry sand placed upon the end ofthe gold bar, and the mould then filled with meltedcopper.

When completed there was to all appearance a pig101of black copper or copper matte worth commercially$18 or $20. In truth there was a gold bar worth$40,000, which a few minutes’ work with a cold chiselwould release.

The gold bars intended for open shipment werecast one-half the size of those intended for imprisonmentin the copper pigs. Of these small bars Morninghad eight prepared each day, making the ostensibleyield of the mill and mine $160,000 per day, orabout $4,000,000 per month. Of the large bars hehad eighty prepared each day, which were shipped ascopper pigs. Their real value was about $4,000,000per diem, or $100,000,000 per month. These wereallowed to accumulate in the warehouse at RillitoStation until Morning should procure suitable placesfor their deposit in Eastern cities.

On the 1st of August, 1893, everything had beenrunning smoothly for several weeks, and gold shipmentsamounting to millions had been made. Morningconcluded that the running of the mill and mineno longer required his personal attention, while hisprojects demanded his presence at the great financialcenters. Robert Steel was in full possession of theplans of his friend and employer, who, leaving everythingin his charge, bade good-by to all and departedfor Tucson to take the train for the East.

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.

My Dear Mother: Really I hardly feel equal to adetailed description of our trip over the ocean. Whyis it that I remember only the painful things aboutour journey? Surely there were pleasant people,cultivated men and graceful women, such as one alwaysmeets in these days of free interchange betweendifferent nations. But I have observed that sometemperaments catch first and make most visible theshadows upon the landscape. Much as I love thehues and tints of the changeful waters, I seem to rememberonly the rolling ship, and between me andthe thought of the blue skies and the splendid sunsetswhich I would have carried away as a treasuredmemory, comes some trifling but harassing recollection.So narrow and individual is the composing-stoneupon which our impressions are made up.

I assume, dear mother, that you remember ourserious conversation that last night before my marriage,as, sitting upon my couch and looking into mysleepy eyes, you half chided me for that which youcalled—for want of a better term—indifference.

103Pardon me, ’tis a word with a sex. A womanmay love, she may hate, she may dissemble, but, poseas she will, there is no profile in her passion. I donot deny I am going to school to my own heart. Iam honestly endeavoring to follow your advice. I amlearning to love. Let me say in the beginning it is amistake to believe that men love deeply. If ever theydo, the object of their passion is themselves. Is thisa sound foundation to build domestic faith upon?However, as I have said, I shall try very earnestlyto do my part.

The baron told me this morning that as Americanswere a nation of plebeians, I would naturallysuffer many disabilities even as the Baroness VonEulaw, to which I replied rather hotly that honorand courage required no purple swaddlings to hidetheir proportions, and that we Americans sprang fullcreated from the brain of regenerate thought,whereupon his manly fist gathered muscle for amoment, then as speedily relaxed, and he onlyslammed the door of his dressing-room between us.Believe me, my dear mother, I was very sorry for thescene, and I have no excuse to offer save the gapingwound to my patriotism, which I find much moresensitive over here than at home.

We have constant engagements, and I feel a littleworn, though otherwise quite well. Can you pardona letter wholly devoted to myself? and in return willyou not tell me all about yourself, dear papa, andeverybody you know?

My Dear Daughter: I have your first letter writtenfrom Berlin, but how sad! That dreadful sea musthave made you bilious. It has always just such aneffect on your father; he sees the whole earth throughsmoked glasses.

But I can only imagine you as in a constant successionof raptures. Such a marriage for an Americangirl! A baron with such deportment, and such adelightful accent! I have no doubt, too, he is muchricher than he represented. I assure you, the youngladies of Boston’s high circles have turned all hues ofthe rainbow with envy, and you ought to find greatpleasure in that recollection alone. Besides, such opportunitiesas you are having to meet crowned heads,and feel yourself as one among the titled people of Europe!What elevation! What distinction! Youmust not forget to make the most copious notes, sothat you will be able to impress your superiority uponthe world of society when you return.

Really, you should be, as I know you are, veryhappy. Of course “scenes” are unpleasant to onelike yourself, not foreign bred. But I am told thatsuch experiences are the real thing with nobility, especiallyif there is an American wife. And it is reasonableto suppose that high blood should feel intoleranttoward all forms of assertiveness on the part ofwomen, especially American women.

Therefore, be a little discreet, my dear, and rememberwhat an English woman said to you, that it is not105good form to be either clever or artistic, and aboveall patriotic.

You speak of shadows in your life. It was only theother day I read from one of your own books on theNewtonian theory of color, that dark objects weresuch as absorbed the light and reflected only sombertints, and I am sure it is so with your life; it is holdingthe light within itself.

I will not write more to-day, for your correspondencewill be large, and time precious with you.How radiant you must look with your graceful gownsand your classic face; almost equal to a born princess!Believe me, my dear child, I am very proud of yournoble marriage and of your dutiful conduct in makingsuch an one largely, let me confess, to please me.And of all things, do not trouble yourself too muchabout the love business—that will all come about ingood time, and if it does not—well, I can only sayyou will have a majority with you.

Greet your noble husband with the pride and joythat I feel in him, and present your loving father, whoso seldom writes. Send fresh photos of your dear self,the baroness, and the baron, and do not permit themto exaggerate his nose, which is quite full enough atbest, though a true sign of the blood.

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.

My Dear Mother: So far from the monopolizing106effect of minor matters of which I complained in mylast, I seem to be losing my individuality altogether.Have you ever possessed your mind of one subject orobject to the absolute exclusion of even yourself?What an unpleasant condition of mind it is! Thebaron I find to be a man most peculiarly constituted.The somewhat dominant manner which you supposeto be foreign breeding, as you expressed it, seems tohave developed into an engrossing self-consequence,which appears to draw its vitality, if I may be pardonedfor saying so, largely from his new marital connection.

For instance, at the opening of the season we attendedthe Emperor’s Easter ball. According to ourcustoms, after concluding the first dance with the baron,I accepted a waltz with an English nobleman, whomI had met on some previous occasion. We wereresting for a moment after a round of the spaciousballroom when I felt my arm seized from behind, andwith a muttered oath the baron commanded my instantrelease and return home.

What should I have done? Disregard him andprecipitate a scandal? Impossible. I made excuse insome hypothetical disarrangement of my dress andretired. I am only able to write because it is my leftarm which suffered the accident. The subsequent explanationsof the baron were, of course, frivolous, but Iwas too relieved by any form of apology to add words,which, without reference to their significance, alwaysirritate him. I mention this little incident in order toshow you how it is that my visible life is subordinated,albeit my spirit is in no way depressed though severelyharassed.

107As I write I am doubtful if I ought to speak of thesethings at all. I do not ask myself what is due to myrank here, for that was conferred by him, but is itwomanly to stand before the world an intelligentand willing indorser of his character and conduct,having given my public vows for better or worse, andthen, cowering behind his faults, denounce such acts asonly, at worst, affect me? Indeed, I must exercisemore courage and less candor. One thing is certain,I am constantly looking for the better traits in hisnature, and am making every effort to call them forth.Thus I escape self-reproach at least. But I am self-abashedat my attitude, for I abhor dissembling. Thebaron loves to taunt me with this trait, which he callsrudeness, and declares it to be the result of my “Yankeetraining.” I only smile at this, for, as I have said,he cannot brook discussion.

But, my dear mamma, enough of this, for you willthink my marriage a failure, and contribute my experiencesto the building up of Mona Caird’s theories.By the way, how shocked I felt at reading them, althoughI now divine some meanings that I had overlooked!But never can I tolerate the thought thatthere are not people—ideal, if you please—whose marriagesmight be too sublimated for earthly contract,and are, therefore—according to the proverb—madein heaven. Dear mother, pardon me, there is somethingwanting in your letters. You promised me tomention everybody we ever knew, or something tothat effect. I am absolutely famishing for news of ourold friends. By the way, how peculiar it is, I seemto remember with singular pertinacity the people we108knew before we came to Boston, and dear, beautifulDenver is ever before my eyes. Please remembereverything, and above all your affectionate

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Miss Fanny Fielding, Denver, Colorado.

My Dear Old Schoolmate: Your kind lettermakes me homesick. Can you imagine a homesickbride? Even before fruitage appears from the orangebloom, dismated for the decking of my nuptial robes,or even the fragrance departed from the yellowingbuds on the garniture laid away to rest and rust, Iam sitting with an unwilling face to the open door ofthe future, and groping with a blind but eager handamong the rustling leaves of a near past, for some familiartouch or sound to summon back the half-tastedjoys which I so ruthlessly flung away.

You ask me for some advice concerning marriage,illumined, as you tersely put it, by experience. Mysweet friend, what a useless task you impose upon me.Whenever was woman directed by the experiencesof others, however wise or however bitter such experiencesmay have been? Always some suggestion orexception to change the verdict. “Mine has blackeyes, yours has blue, which makes all the difference.”Or, “one is fat, the other lean.” Or, “this one walks,the other rides”—so infinite the variety of excuses,so single the faith of woman.

What else, then, shall we call marriage but destiny?The heart knows its wants and we know its plaintive109cry, as a mother knows the wail of her famishing babe;yet for some frivolous fancy or conceit, some woundto our vanity, some plethoric ambition, or some glitteringpaste or bauble, we stifle the natural cry of thehuman heart, and wait for the mystic note upon whichis to be constructed the music of our future. Alas! inthe metaphor you understand so well, we too oftentouch only the diminished seventh, and the sure, complete,resolving chord is never sounded.

Somewhat, too, our institutions of marriage are atfault, or at least the laws and customs which controlthem. With a nation of men, free, rational, and liberal,we have a nation of women enslaved, dishonest,and miserable, and it is among her noblest and mostcommon phases of fate that she goes mutely to hergrave, a victim of such weak social prejudices as havegrown to be even a subject of satire among Europeans.

Conscientiousness is a boasted virtue among Bostonpeople of certain high cult, yet how many of her beautifulwomen go to the altar with a lie upon their maidenlylips? Why?—For the reason that there is someman whom she loves and dares not declare it. For thereason that society sets a seal upon her lips and turnsher life into a drain-channel for misbegotten vows.For the reason that she cannot break the frost-boundusages of cowardly error with one stroke of her punyfist, and openly propose to join fortunes with the manafter her own heart and her own high convictions.And so she rakes over the cold, unfruitful soil in herown soul, and plants the germ of a falsehood or a folly,and waits for the accident of some quickening power,in slavish and unheroic patience.

110Witness the result: Some masculine hand, more orless clumsy or more or less cunning, little matter if itbring a wedding ring, sheds ephemeral warmth uponthe unsanctified ground, and the victim starts uponher lonely, loveless journey toward race building andsacrifice.

As I indicated, dear Fanny, I have not drawn for mypicture largely upon individual experiences, neitherare my opinions stimulated by any observations takenfrom this side the water. Indeed, I even prefer, ofkindred evils, the insipid method which leaves themarriage question in the hands of the parents. Butlet me leave this for subsequent discussion, for my letteris already too long, and I have not gossiped atall, and I remember, dear girl, how you do love innocentgossip.

Write to me often and I will fill my letters with thesweetest of nothings if you will. Love and adieu andthink of me as your devoted friend,

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.

Dearest Mother: “Let fate do her worst, thereare moments of joy,” and such moments I owe to myfondness for music. What would have been all thesedreary weeks and months of shallow acting, if thedepths of my soul had not been stirred by the geniusof that creative force which, mocking at our owncrude disguises, rehabilitates pain with the fair seemingof pleasure, which relegates near sorrows to therealms of tradition, and illusionises common care?

Art, in any form, I conceive to be the benefactor111of the human race. If truth, shorn of its infinitudeof possibilities, constitutes the religion of the civilizedworld, if the deus et machina, as Æschylus somewherehas it, unlyrical and unleavened by beauty ofdevice, by rhetoric or action and climax, be persuasiveand instructive and inspiring, then how ineffably shalltruth have gained by the development of its powersthrough visible forms of dramatic conceit, through associationwith the elements of art, through characterization,through skillful adaptation, through harmonizedmediæ of appeal to the sense or the sentiment,the sympathies or the imagination?

I am reminded here of an incident which occurredin our box at the Grand Opera House, during a lateperformance of Die Meistersinger, which resulted—asis not unusual in these days—unpleasantly. My husband,as you may remember, affects music solely for theparaphernalia of the stage, for the glitter and show ofboxes and stalls, for the exposed shoulders of the diamondeddames of fashion, for the numbers of men witheyeglasses and uniforms—anything, in fact, but themusic, which rather bores him.

Therefore it is I apprehend that he discusses musicso incomprehensibly—to say the least—I would notsay irrationally. Somewhere during the developmentof the plot I was struck with the similarity of the dramaticmotive with that of the Greek tragedies, especiallythe choral odes, where occurs the element oftransition which some scholars call the evolutionary orperhaps the re-incarnating period of the ancientdrama. This similarity—in some ways identical—Iinadvertently alluded to in a more or less critical review112of the opera and its construction, which I venturedbetween acts, in the presence of a party ofAmericans who were our guests for the occasion.

Suddenly as thought, the baron’s face was aflame.But “what it were unwise to do ’twere weaker to regret,”and I prepared to defend my position as bestbecame me. “You call my divine countryman a plagiarist,”he hissed between his teeth. Our male guestglowered, and the ladies with heightened color lookedat the orchestra.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said I, with an assumedsmile, “I did not say so, though I admit that mysuggestion was unfortunate in its inference.”

The baron sprang to his feet and stood over me,his arms akimbo and the well-known look of suppressedrage upon his face.

“You called my divine countryman a plagiarist,”he repeated, gazing out over the audience, and feelingfor my slippered foot with his heel, which he settledfirmly upon my silken-clad instep. The hurt mademe wince, but I could not remove my foot from thevise. Then, in order to mollify his temper, which Ihad grown to know too well how to deal with, I addedlaughingly, though half wild with pain as he deadenedhis weight upon my poor instep:—

“If your countryman were amenable to the chargeof plagiarism, so also is our Shakespeare, for in thecomedy of Trinummus, Megaronides says, ‘The evilthat we know is best. To venture on an untried ill,’etc., and Shakespeare, two thousand years later, said,‘Rather bear the ills we have than fly to others that weknow not of.’”

113“You call my divine countryman a plagiarist,” half-childishly,half-insanely repeated my noble lord, grindingmy foot beneath his heel. A cry of pain escapedme, which a timely crash of cymbals in the orchestrahad the effect to drown.

“Well, what of it” blurted the American, throwinghis full weight, as if by accident, against thebaron’s shoulder, and then turning to me with anapology resumed his place. Now while I never takerefuge in my sex for at least a verbal retaliation of thewrongs I receive from my husband, it goes withoutsaying that the man who visits brutality in any formupon a woman is a coward. But I had never seen thebaron insulted, and was therefore wholly unpreparedfor the profuseness with which he apologized to ourguests, and the blandness with which he offered hishand as he bade them good-night. But the mosthumiliating part of this humiliating affair was the factthat I was forced to repeat an apology fashioned byhimself, the entire length of our journey home, evenuntil the carriage stopped at the door.

It is not clear to me, my dear mother, that I amjustified in rehearsing to you, or to anyone, details ofmy life, which may seem trivial, but for which I amable to offer no other excuse than your own solicitousinsistence. I am always promising myself that everynext letter shall be dictated in more cheerful spirit.Till then adieu. Present me with kindest love and begpapa to write me. I do so long for a sight of his letters.Love to those who love me.

My Dearest Mother: How shall we account forour various moods? Yesterday I was miserable; to-dayI am joyful; to-morrow I may be hopeful or heartbroken,according as—oh! I forgot to say I am allalone; the baron has gone to St. Petersburg. I amsupposed to have accompanied him, and so nobodycomes. But I am not lonely; now that I am left tomyself I see how beautiful is the world about me.

This morning I looked from my windows uponthe river. The sharp lights I had watched so oftenswiftly changing to shadows, the warring glances suggestiveonly of inner strife, with all its complexity ofpassion, were lost in the soft peaceful flow of the watersas they hurried on to the ultimate sea. And Ithought how much of this mood is due to fancy, thatuntenable, mercurial, and sublimated quality of themind, half trickery, half truth, and altogether elusiveas vapor. But how profligate of that precious senseof pleasure so steadily withheld from my heart theselater months! Too precious, indeed, for the operationsand experiments of the mental laboratory to which Iseemingly so recklessly submitted it, and so I dismissedanalysis and clung to my fancies, which at leastmade me happy in the present.

After my breakfast I prepared myself for a walk,with only my little fox-terrier for a companion. Poorlittle Boston, how grateful he seemed! I could seehim laugh with joy as his little brown lips quiveredwith flexible feeling. Notwithstanding his many years,115he could scarcely find footing for his bounding stepsfor looking back at me to search my laughing eyes.You remember who gave me my terrier, away outin Denver? how he was brought to me in two strong,guardful arms, a little loose-skinned, wise-eyed puppy,so quiet and serenely happy in the warm embrace—wherewas I? oh, yes! talking about Boston—so wepulled some roses, Boston and I. But never lookedroses so red, or green so tender or so vivid, and Ilonged to find the secret of their voluptuous bloomand half-suffocating fragrance, but that I guessed allwas again fancy; only an easy, translatable pinch ofdust and a resolvable stain; a simple stroke of creativepower and a dash of ether—only a rose.

How easy seem the processes of nature with harmonizedmaterial for working out the thought! Naturenever experiments; gravitation is her law, deflectionis anarchy, and defiance a destroyer. Love, I deem, isonly obedience to this law. Obscure as are its operationsand subtle as its teachings are, any smallestportion of scholarship, leveled at the finding out, divestedof preconceived ideas and personal bearings,but persistently and conscientiously agitated by scientificand organized effort, might revolutionize a worldof error, and establish a sure basis for sentiment andsocial reform.

For I believe that unhappy marriages are a directresult of ignorance. Passions called by various namesgo to make up the system. Sordidness, vanity, interdependence,weak abeyance to custom, contributeto the sum of human misery. But ignorance is thebasis of the organized error. For what manner of116men or women would deliberately entail upon themselvesthe shackled conditions of a loveless marriage,which has no alternative but subordination or rebellion?For only in love—another name for harmony—maybe found that unity which leaves no room for sacrificeor misconceit.

But, dearest mother, what can you think of my letters?I began to tell you of my one happy day andhave spread my speculations over the whole humanrace. I started to take you for a promenade alongUnter den Linden, and to rest by the cool fountainin the Lustgarten, and have ended with a few feebleremarks upon the possible sources of sentiment andsorrow.

But Boston is waiting for his dinner, for he dineswith me to-night. What a jolly day we’ve had, eh,Boston? and we will sleep and dream of you, dearmamma, and many more, for none but bidden guestsmust fill my room to-night. By the way, I do wonder ifthe poor, weak brain of my little terrier is in any degreesusceptible of being stirred by memories of hisold friends? In any event, I envy him, for he is notamenable to the necessities of a false life, “a liar ofunspoken lies.”

Dear mamma, a sweet good-night. I am sendingyou a few pictures picked up at Lepkes. The group Iam sure you will enjoy, though I like better the portraitby Van Dyck. There is a haunting sort of lookabout it, reminding me of someone I have knownsomewhere. I wonder if you will discern it? Probablyit was only a passing fancy, one of such as havefilled my brain all day long.

Dearest Mother: How rebellious my heart andimpatient my pen as I take it up to write words whichonly your mother’s ear should catch from my lips!

Where shall I begin to tell you the history of thepast month? Really, my memory seems too surchargedwith a sense of bitterness and wrong to do meservice. But I must lead you step by step, reluctantas I know you are to follow me behind the gildedarras.

After his return from St. Petersburg, the barondeveloped more pronounced signs of jealousy thanhad ever appeared hitherto. Perhaps this feeling wasstimulated by my last letter to you, which I inadvertentlyleft unmailed, and which he opened and read.Suspicious husbands you know are as jealous ofmoods as of men, and not to be miserable “when theSultan goes to Ispahan” is indeed a crime. I believethere are few jealous husbands who are themselvesguiltless. I do not think, however, that this test appliesto my own sex, albeit I do not take refuge in theexception—Heaven save the mark!

But the baron came home, as I said, quite confirmedin many unpleasant ways I had remarked before.Without any apparent cause he stole about myroom in unslippered feet, and listened furtively at thekeyholes. He locked the doors whenever he passedthrough, and spoke to the servants through a crevice.Instead of his usual violence he whined his complaintsof my demeanor toward him in the weakest and most118supine fashion. But that which exasperated me mostwas, and is still, his unaccountable pertinacity. Hewould place his chair close by me and hold his kneeagainst mine, or his elbow, or his foot, while, with purplingface and hanging mouth, he entreated me not toleave him, until, in half insane protest, I would breakclear of him and throw open a window, or bathe myhands and face in utter exhaustion, or—I had almostsaid—sense of contamination. In his fits of rage thereis something genuine from an animal, if not from amanly, point of view. But how shall I deal with thisnew phase? Ah, well! let me get on with my letter,for I have much to say, and that is why I am dallying.

I consented to come to Mentone on account of myhealth. Finding myself growing weak and failing, thephysicians ordered an immediate change, and recommendedthe old cure virtually—to take myself out oftheir hands. The baron loves to play, and I suspectis a little too well known in gaming circles in Berlin.

Therefore when he proposed Mentone so early inthe season, or, indeed, altogether out of season, I—quiteknowing that it meant Monte Carlo—accepted,and with valet and maid and dear old Boston we came.

Result, financial ruin! The baron played recklessly.Each time when I saw him he was feverishand abstracted. I did not ask the cause, whether hewere winner or loser, for, like most women, I believethat everybody finally loses, but I was not preparedfor the dénouement, for he has absolutely lost not onlyall his ready money, but is heavily in debt, and willneed to resort to further mortgage of his landed estates.

119Weak and foolhardy as he was, I pity him, for whatmust have been his feelings as, driving down the Cornicheroad overhanging the old sea, he reflected howmany men had sought forgetfulness for just such actsof folly in the tideless waters. Only that the baronhas other ideas about reparation, for he came homeand first proposed that I write my father for moneyto make good his losses. Taking courage from mysilence, he suggested that I cable my message at once.

This latter I proposed not to do, as I informed himin very few words. He has left the hotel in a terriblefit of rage, vowing revenge with his last accents. AndI am writing this letter while I wait, meanwhile wonderinghow much I ought to blame myself for my unhappylife, or if I ought not to lock the secret in myown breast, even from you, my mother. But a secretis a dumb devil, and so long as there is another handto glance the dart, it rarely wounds to death. I willmail this at once in order that it shall not fall into hishands.

Dearest mamma, are these letters never to cease?I think I notice that your replies are more reserved,and I have thought full of pain and discouragement.But do not feel discouraged. I realize the resourceswithin me, and I have a fund of reserved power whichI may summon in an exigency. I have not fairly contemplatedanything in the future; to deal with thepresent has been my purpose. Each joy and eachsorrow in its turn, so shall no preconceived actionoperate to the ends of injustice or unfairness. I closethis in haste but lasting love.

O My Beloved Mother: While I feel alwayssure of your earnest sympathies, how shall I expectyou to appreciate the sentiment of horror which thisnew and fiendish device for torturing my feelings visitsupon me! How can I write it?—my poor little Bostonis dead.

That fact, with a few silent tears, and a day or two ofdepression, I could have borne as the end of all thingsmortal. But he was as foully murdered as ever wasthe victim of the most infernal plot, for he was givenno poorest or most unequal chance to fight for his life,which was as dear to him as mine to me—and that isthe least possible to be said. I am in no condition ofmind to discuss ethics, or to philosophize upon theevents which led to this tragical termination of differences,of which poor little Boston’s life paid the forfeit.

It may be that I was wrong, certainly I would havemade any terms to have saved my poor terrier fromhis terrible fate, few as were the years he would havelived at most.

I am not unaware that there are certain concessions,and certain acts of graciousness, which, in alimited sense, may properly be expected of everywife toward a reasonable husband. Not his boastedsuperiority by any means, but the fact that she ismeasurably relieved from financial stress or responsibility,constitutes an unwritten law among well-thinkingwives everywhere, I believe, and makes the demandupon her. But I considered nothing but the enormity121of my husband’s exactions, and erred in my estimateof the possibility of my husband’s brutality. I wishthere were a stronger word which I might politely use.

Shall I give you briefly the harrowing details ofthis ruffianly act of cowardice? I think I told you inmy last how the baron had left the house, filled withvindictive rage at my refusal to demand of my fatherlarge sums of money for his gambling losses. Inabout an hour he returned and renewed his propositionwith increased violence, at the same time seizinga pen and writing a cablegram, which he commandedme to sign.

Remembering that I had given him considerablesums of money from time to time, amounting to manythousands of dollars, I entreated him to wait for aday, while he should make me understand the conditionof his financial affairs. This proposition he receivedwith the most frightful oaths. He declaredthat he would take my life, and would begin by killingmy pet dog. No sooner said than done. He rushedto the veranda, where poor little Boston lay stretchedupon his cushion asleep in the sun, and, seizing himby the neck, he dashed him violently to the groundbelow. A few minutes later my little friend wasbrought to me still feebly conscious, but mangled,bleeding, dying.

How can I ever forget, who ever did who hasever witnessed it forget that last questioning, beseechinglook of affection and dumb fright which a dyinganimal turns upon the face of someone he has loved?Is it less than human or more? Not till the mistsgathered across his pretty brown eyes was that last122eloquent appeal swept away. “What have I done?”“What have I done?” was the question he was askingof me. Who shall say whether he received his answerin some later and easier translatable speech than mine,in some new and disenthralled state of being? Whoshall say that he did not carry away with him a lovewhich was all love, with no taint of selfishness or ulteriorthought, quickened by no new speculation, or tradition,or sanction, or human edict? Who shall saythat the attributes of faith, and self-surrender, andcharity, and forgiveness, and loyalty are lost becausein one incarnation they were tongue-tied? For myselfI want to see my dogs again. They were myloved companions, as are my books or my works ofart. And if the fire destroy them, are their contentsnaught or worthless because an unlettered man couldnot read them? At best an after life is a problem,but let us put the problems together and one mayhelp to solve the other, for half a truth is oftenest alie.

I have sought distraction in these comments, butmy sorrow returns to me, dear mother, and my eyesare too full of tears to be able to see the lines. Vale,poor Boston, and a grateful throb of gladness that Ihave a dear mother to whom I can tell my grief.

Imperfect definition and classification, followed byhasty, inaccurate, and unwarranted generalization, arefruitful sources of popular error. To the misinformedor uninformed mind the Indian is a noble savage,whose hunting-grounds and corn-fields have beentaken from him by the ruthless paleface, and whopasses his time pensively leaning upon his rifle, withhis face to the setting sun, the while he makes touchingappeals to the Great Spirit, and mourns the disappearanceof his race.

In the country west of the Rocky Mountains andsouth of Green River, the sentimental Indian with whomCooper doped American literature, has absolutely noexistence. Uncas and Chingachgook never journeyedso far westward as the Rio Grande, and prosy oldLeather Stocking, with his Sunday-school soliloquies,and his alleged marvelous marksmanship on knifeblades at three hundred yards, would have beenelected president of the Arizona Lying Club byacclamation.

Many tribes of Indians in that section of the countryhave scarcely any belief in a future state of existence,and no words in their jargons to represent theideas of gratitude, of female chastity, or of hospitality.124Their opportunities of obtaining food have been innowise lessened by white occupation of the land.There never were any buffalo there, they never huntedbears or any combative animal, the fish and smallgame and pine-nuts are nearly as plentiful as ever,and the bacon-rinds and decayed vegetables to befound near every mining camp furnish the noble redswith a food supply more agreeable to their indolenthabits than the hard-won trophies of the chase.

Yet there are Indians and Indians, as there areChristian bank presidents and unsanctified bank robbers,and it is as incorrect to class the devilish ChiricahuaApache with the dirty but gentle Yuma as itwould be to similarly couple a hook-nosed vender ofLouisiana lottery tickets with a blonde-haired solicitorfor a church raffle.

In the mountains of Eastern Arizona and WesternNew Mexico, occupying a country hundreds of milesin area, a country which, for their benefit, has beenreserved from miner, settler, and grazier, live theWhite Mountain Apaches during the winter months,when they are not “on the war path,” as their pillagingand murdering expeditions are somewhatbombastically designated.

Whatever may be said of other savages in otherlocalities, the Arizona Apaches are without a singlejust cause of complaint against the government, oragainst any of the Caucasian race. No cruel whitemen have ever invaded their hunting-grounds, orgiven them high-priced whisky in exchange for low-pricedpeltry. Red-handed and tangle-haired havethese marauders and their ancestors lived for centuriesin their mountain lair.

125Since the United States of America became, fortyyears ago, the nominal suzerain of the territoryoccupied by these peripatetic “vermin ranches,” theyhave been unprovoked invaders, thieves, and assassins,and their summer raids upon the miners, teamsters,and cattle ranchers of Arizona and New Mexico, havebeen as regular as their winter acceptance of thebacon and blankets with which a generous but mistakenpolicy feeds and warms them, at a cost equal tothat of providing each savage with a suite of roomsat a fashionable hotel.

It is but a few years since a small party of the mostvicious and untamable of these bandits, who werecaptured with the scalps of their victims at their belts,were declared by the authorities at Washington to benot answerable to trial or punishment by the courts ofthe Territory whose people they have robbed and murderedwith impunity for many years. But, partly indeference to outraged public sentiment, and partly inapprehension of the acts of a possible committee ofvigilance, these Indians were condemned for theircrimes to imprisonment in a government fortress inFlorida.

Unlike white prisoners who were condemned tolabor and isolation, these tawny murderers were allowedto be accompanied in their journey across the countryby their wives and concubines, who were transported,fed, clothed, and made comfortable, at government cost.Arrived at their destination, it was found, after a fewmonths’ sojourn, that the humid air, lower altitude,and uncongenial surroundings of Florida, and, later, ofNorth Carolina, disagreed with the digestion and126disgruntled the disposition of the noble reds, and,upon a proper showing that their health demanded areturn to their former homes, lest confirmed nostalgiashould set in, and possibly remove them permanentlyfrom the scene of human activities, they were surreptitiouslyreturned by the government to their old reservation,where they promptly expressed their appreciationof the clemency accorded them by breakingout once more and heading for the Mexican Sierras,marking their track with burning ranch houses andmurdered settlers.

In the summer of 1893 a party of about forty ofthese Apaches, headed by the most cruel, malignant,and treacherous of savages—the thrice-pardoned andfaith-breaking Geronimo—left the reservation for theirannual raid. The military post at Fort Lowell havingbeen abandoned and the troops removed in the interestof government parsimony, the savages found itconvenient to make a detour by the valley of the SantaCruz, so as to cross the railroad track in the vicinityof Tucson, and reach their mountain fastnesses inSonora by the Arivaca Pass.

It chanced that David Morning, on his departurefrom Waterspout for New York, while riding from theRillito station into Tucson, and riding by night, toavoid the heat of an Arizona sun, was seen by the Indians,who, having emerged from a defile in whichthey had been concealed during the day, were nowstealthily and swiftly journeying in the same direction.The opportunity to murder a white man was one notto be neglected, but the report of a rifle might attractattention and instigate speedy pursuit, so two of Geronimo’s127followers were detailed, armed only with bowsand arrows, to follow the wayfarer through the dusk,and bring back a scalp, that might be obtained withoutdanger and without noise.

If Morning had been riding a horse, this tale mighthave had sudden ending, but he had found for his necessarilyfrequent journeys between the mine and Tucsonno such convenient and comfortable mode of transportationas a seat upon the back of Julia. Theequine in question was a large jet black saddle mulebred at the ranch of Señor Don Pedro Gonzales,which was situated at the foot of the mountain, on theopposite side of the Rillito Valley, about three milesfrom the road.

The mule, as an animal, is often both misrepresentedand misunderstood. No creature tamed byman has keener instincts or greater sagacity, or isgoverned to so great an extent by intelligent self-interest.A mule is always logical. His ordinary reasoningis a syllogism without a flaw. A horse impelledby high spirit, and patient even unto death, will traveluntil he drops from exhaustion, and will pull or carrywithout complaint a load that causes his every muscleto pulse with the pain of weariness.

But where lives the man who was ever able to imposeupon a mule? Strap an unaccustomed or unjustload upon the back of this animal of unillustrious paternity,and he will not move except in the direction oflying down. Attempt to ride or drive him past hisrightful and usual resting-place, and there may beretrogression, and there may be a circus, but therewill be no advance.

128In addition to his other virtues a mule has an exceedinglykeen scent. He seeks no close acquaintancewith either grizzly bears or Indians. He will get thewind of either of his aversions as quickly as a houndwill whiff a deer, and, like the hound, he will givehis knowledge to the world, in a voice that is resonant,magnetic, and—on the whole—musical. The bray ofan earnest mule is not after the Italian but the Wagnerianschool. It is not the sweet, tender tenor ofManrico, it is Lohengrin sounding his note of power.It is not, perhaps, equal to an orchestra of nightingales,but it has a rhythm, and passion, and power, and sweetness,nevertheless.

The quick instinct of Julia caught the scent of theApache assassins, and as they crept up she was engagedin a struggle with her rider, who, with voice andspur, was vainly endeavoring to induce and compelher to proceed along the usual road.

“Why, Julia,” soliloquized Morning, “you musthave been browsing on rattle-weed! What is thematter with you?”—and he tugged vainly at herbridle.

Whizz! whizz! went the arrows. With one shaftquivering in her flank, the mule fairly sprang into theair, while the other transfixed the left arm of DavidMorning, and pinned it to his side.

And then his question was answered, and he knewwhat was the matter with Julia.

The frenzied animal leaped the Rillito at a bound,and swept across the valley to the corral adjoining theGonzales ranch house. Once within the inclosure,she stopped and uttered her most melodious notes of129delight. With a crescendo of welcome a dozen ofher kindred greeted Julia, and the swarthy major-domoof the ranch, accompanied by half a dozenvaqueros with lights, rushed out, and Morning, weakfrom pain and loss of blood, was half-led and half-carriedinto the ranch house.

The Señor Don Pedro Gonzales a year before hadjourneyed into Paradise, from the effects of an attackof mountain fever, aggravated by too copious use ofmescal, and left his ranch houses and corral, his twohundred mules and horses, his two thousand cattle,his brand of G on a triangle, and his rancho SantaYsbel to his señora, the Donna Maria, who, with herfamily, continued to occupy the place.

Messengers dispatched to Tucson returned withphysicians, who cut out the arrow and found that thewound was severe, and its result might be fatal. Theyagreed that for Morning to endeavor to travel with sucha wound would be simply suicide, and that he mustnot attempt to leave the shelter and care which thehospitable Gonzales family were glad to accord him.

A long, low, adobe building, roofed with tiles ofpottery clay, situated near the banks of the riverSanta Cruz. Long rows of cottonwood-trees spreadtheir branches nearly over the little stream, and thegraceful masses of pepper, combed to a fringe, droptheir courtesied obeisance to every passing breeze,and throw their uneasy shadows well over the walls,neatly stuccoed with cobblestones.

The air curdles with the heat rising from the aridplain, and hangs, a shimmering sheet of translucentvapor, between the eye and the ever-lengthening distance,which softly melts into the Santa Rita Mountains.

Is that a lake out of which rises the well-outlinedrange of nearer hills? or a sea, throwing up billows offoam and shadow, with islands of green glimpsingtheir shapes in the placid waters that encircle theirfeet? And ships, with well-fashioned hulls and wide-spreadingsails, and pictured rocks, and beatingbreakers, and lifeboats with men tugging at the oars.No! it is only mirage, a pretty picture written withthe electric pen of nature upon the parchment hotfrom the press of her untongued fancies. In her luringtale strong men have trusted themselves to fatal131deception, and beasts, with lapping tongues, andknotted with water greed, have gnashed their teeth ather beautiful garments of fateful film, and lain downto die. Art has been outvied in pictorial effects, forshe filters her shadows from daintiest clouds, andborrows her bath of oscurial glints from the unfathomeddeeps of heaven. Even austere science hideshis forged shackles shamedly away, and turns withunsatisfied scorn from the flitting gleam of her mockingbrow.

“It is only mirage, one of nature’s cleverest tricks;and what more is life?” comes once and againfrom parched lips and longing eyes. For, althoughwater, sweet and cool, drips from an olla near athand, yet, stretched upon a bed carefully prepared offinely-stripped rawhide, placed upon the well-beatenand smooth earth, under the sheltering roof of aramada connecting two sections of the Gonzales casa,lies David Morning, hot with fever, and still unable toleave his couch.

A little apart, and softly swaying in her hammockof scarlet and gold, one foot lightly touching theground, half reclines the small, undulating figure ofMurella Gonzales.

The ancient blood of Castile had never been sufferedby the Gonzales family to mingle, with the sanction ofthe church, with ignobler currents. The late SeñorDon Pedro, although only possessed of the estate ofa prosperous Mexican cattle rancher, was yet aHidalgo of Hidalgoes, who could have covered thewalls of his casa with his quarterings. As for hiswife, was she not an Alvarado? and—Santa Maria!—what132more would you have in the way of blood?Certainly, from her arched instep to her wealth ofblue-black hair, the Señorita Murella was a wondrouslybeautiful maiden.

“Murella,” spoke the sick man, turning his emaciatedface toward the girl, “during the early days ofmy illness, I gave you a letter to mail, do you remember?”

“Si, señor.”

“Do you remember how many days ago, Murella?”

“Si, señor, seventeen day,” and the small earsdeepened red behind the creamy oval face.

“Did you give Jose the letter to post?”

“Si, señor.”

“You are very kind, señorita, and I thank you.”

The girl glanced swiftly across the court at an opendoor wherein stood the madroña, the customaryshawl of black Spanish lace drawn tightly across hermouth, leaving two shining black eyes fixed steadilyupon her.

“A few days more, and I shall be leaving yourhospitable roof,” continued Morning.

“Why will you not take a me with you?” saidMurella, with imperturbable gravity, and with nochange of expression.

The man illy concealed his look of surprise, as hetucked the richly embroidered pillow more firmly beneathhis head, and replied kindly:—

“Such a thing could not possibly be, little girl, formore reasons than your pretty head could contain.”

“Then you do not a lof me, and you told a me alie,” and the dark eyes lit with a flame of Vesuvianfires like the red light in those of a tiger.

133“What do you mean, señorita?” and a faint flushoverspread his own pale face.

“I mean you call me your beloved Ella, such nameas Americans give a me, and you hold me close in yourarms, and say you will never part from me, not forone hour—only ten day ago—and now you leave ame!”

This was an awkward situation, and Mr. Morningrecognized its full significance upon the moment. Inhis delirium he had used the too familiar name, andhad coupled with its use endearments which had beencompromisingly misappropriated. He reflected amoment. There was nothing left but to tell the truthand accept the consequences. Another girl wouldlaugh. What would Murella do?

“Señorita,” he began slowly, “I have, as youknow, been very ill, and on several occasions havelost my way in delirium, and have been wanderingover scenes belonging to other days. Can you notforgive me if I have called you by a name which youmistook for your own prettier one? Can you notpardon me if in my fevered imagination I gave youfor the moment a place long ago sanctified and dedicatedto forgetfulness?”

“Then why cannot you lof a me? Am I not aslofely as she?”

“You are very beautiful, Murella.”

“Machacha!” shrieked the duenna from the entranceto the ramada, “what are you saying?” andthen followed invective in every key, and words ofscorn in every cadence, until, pale with anger andchagrin, the girl sprang from her hammock and ranswiftly away.

134For a long time our hero lay lost in speculation.After all, it was only a misunderstanding, and not liableto be remembered overnight. In any event, hehad not compromised the maiden, and finally he concluded—aswas indeed the truth—that the cunningseñorita was all the while cognizant of the situation,and not at all deceived, and so he dismissed the subjectfrom his mind.

And what was the first move of the panic-strickenmaiden? Speeding swiftly over the ground, she sankin the shadow of the ocotilla hedge inclosure, whichformed the corral, and drew cautiously from herpocket the letter committed to her care by Morning.Reopening it, for the envelope, sealed only with mucilage,had been carefully broken, she drew forth apicture of the Baroness Von Eulaw, older by manyyears than the name she now bore, and much thumbedand worn beside.

This unconscious incendiary Murella first regardeddisdainfully for an instant, and then deliberately spatupon it. She then proceeded to possess herself of thecontents of the letter, which was brief, and, regardedas a wholesome irritant for a recent wound, rather ineffectual.She spelled it out laboriously, and it readas follows:—

You may have forgotten that several years ago, andthrough wholly legitimate means, let me say in self-defense,a specimen of art, of inestimable value to me,came into my possession. I have hitherto deemed itno breach of honor to retain it. Finding myself veryill, however, and warned by my physicians of the probable135fatal termination of my malady, I esteem it prudentand not less just to return to you the last tokenof a mutual recognition which I have the faith to believeis among the things that are undying.

It is, perhaps, unwillingness to pass the veil whichenshrouds the great mystery, without first vindicatingmyself in your esteem, that impels me to tell you thatwhich I have heretofore thought to keep secret—thatyour letter, written in February, 1883, was accidentallymislaid in an old desk, and was never opened or perusedby me until the day after you became the BaronessVon Eulaw.

Murella spread the letter upon the ground and pondered.Plainly it was not a love letter, as she had expected—almosthoped! for she missed the ecstasy andexhilaration of that desire for vengeance which is thestimulus to passion in the breast of any true scion ofthe Spanish race, and devoid of which life has littlezest.

It might have been written to his grandmother forall she could gather from its contents, and the thoughtsuggested the duenna, with her cruel eyes and hard,wrinkled mouth, whose duty it was to watch her fromall points of the compass. So she folded the letter,and, taking up the picture, again scrutinized it. “Devil!devil! devil!” she broke out, as she smote the pasteboardwith her tiny soft fist. Then, folding it awaywith the letter, she slipped them into her pocket, and,gliding around the ocotilla palings, she entered herapartment through an outer door, where she resealedthe missive, and, summoning the messenger Jose, bade136him forthwith journey to Tucson, and deposit it inthe post office there.

The sun was sinking behind Tehachape Mountains,and its parting rays, full of the color of leaf and bough,fell brightly upon the prostrate form of the invalid,and as Murella dropped softly to the ground before alow window, which opened upon the ramada, sheparted her muslin curtains and gazed devouringlyupon the well-knit, shapely form, and the broad-browed,tinted face, while the light faded, and softvoices grew higher as the family supper hour approached,and tinkling sounds from mandolin andguitar filled the night with music. Then, taking alast look, she arose, and, stamping her foot upon theground, impatiently she ejacul*ted:—

“Oh, bah! He too good for anyting.”

She joined the family group at supper with a lookof high disdain on her beautiful face, but otherwise undismayed,and ate her frijoles and tortillas, andscrambled for the whitest tomales among her youngerbrothers, very much as if David Morning had overruledhis physicians, and departed for Tucson in an ambulancethe day after he was wounded, as he had oncedetermined to do, instead of having lain there for amonth, drawing first upon her pity, and then uponher fancy, and stirring things in her imagination generally.

Late in the moon-lit night, the soft summer windsstill busy among the boughs, a sweet girlish voice,melodiously attuned to the notes of the mandolin, ranthrough the dreams of David Morning, carrying thepassionful refrain, “Oh, illustrissimo mia,” and he137awoke, and still the sweet refrain, “Oh, illustrissimomia.”

Several days went by, summer days full of work andgrowth and promise outside, and still Morning wasunable to leave the Gonzales ranch. His pulse, whichthe doctors declared had never regained its normalbeat, was low and intermittent, and the hectic flushnever left his cheek. At length typhoid fever wasdeveloped, and for weeks he lay at the verge of death,and for as many weeks Murella Gonzales sat at hishead by day, and made her bed at the foot of hiscouch by night. The señora, the madroña, even thecocoanut brown machacha of all work, each broughtfruit and drink and delicacies to dissuade him from hisdelirium and tempt him back to health, but Murellasat always with her graceful head resting lightly againsthis pillow, silent, languid, and lovely.

Sometimes the doctors remonstrated and begged herto leave him, but she only said, “Mañana, mañana,”and to-morrow never came. But it proved to be onlya question of time, and before the gray linings of thepoplar had slid into umber, or the pomegranate hadgained its full meed of sweet juices, David Morningwas brought a picturesque basket of Indian workmanship,quite filled with letters which had found him out,calling him back with the imperative voices of businessdemands, to take his place again with the rank and fileof affairs.

So the last day came, and Murella, abandoning hercustomary hammock, sat all the morning upon a thickrug spread upon the ground, exhibiting her irritablefeeling by nervously tossing the clinging folds of her138lace mantilla back over her shoulder, or tracing thefigures of the rug absently. Morning seemed lost inreverie for a long time; finally he spoke, evidently alittle doubtful where to begin.

“I do not need to tell you, señorita,” said he,“that I feel the greatest gratitude toward the inmatesof this household, and I ask you to tell me, not whatyou would wish me to do for you, but what is the wishmost dear to you if I were not in the world?”

“Oh, if Señor Morning die, I shall die too.”

“Oh, no! if some fairy should wave its wand, orsome Fortunatus should drop uncounted gold at yourfeet, what would you do first?”

The soft eyes of Señorita Gonzales flamed as nevereyes of Saxon maiden burned, and she quickly replied,rising and drawing nearer:—

“I would have a casa grande.”

“And where would you have a grand casa, here?”

“No, no!” giving her hand a truly Delsarte sweepof motion. “Long time ago my mother take a me toYuma, and there I hear much talk about Castle Dome;it is twenty, thirty miles up the great river Colorado.One time we sail up there in steam a boat, and sucha rancheria—beautiful! Great trees, and rocks, andthe Indians have been show how by the padres longtime ago, and they have beautiful trees of figs, andoranges, and lemon, and great vines. And I havetink about it always. When I am rich a I shall drivethe Indians away, and give money for make a themnot hungry, and make a casa all like a same in picture.”

“We all have our castles in Spain. Why not you,139Murella?” and he drew forth a pencil, and, spreadingpaper upon the table, asked her to sit down.

“Now,” said he, “we will build this fine houseupon paper. What shall we do first?”

“We shall have a dance-house.”

Morning smiled grimly; the mining camps enjoy amonopoly of literary phrasing, and the compoundword was familiar, so he only said, “All right, asalon for dancing.”

“Si, señor, saloon,” repeated Murella gravely,“and a grande saloon for beautiful flowers.”

“A conservatory, of course, though that will be superfluous,”he added, “in a country itself a hotbedfor tropic bloom. Why not hanging gardens likethose of Babylon?”

“Oh, beautiful!” clasping her little fingers in ecstasy.

“Very well,” looking into her face, pencil suspended.

“And a beautiful room for a you,” and she pausedfor a moment, “with, with what you call, wall likethe sky before the sun a come, and morning gloryflower go all around the top,” pointing to thefrieze, “a like a your name, Señor Mia.”

Morning suddenly discovered something upon thetoe of his boot, and the girl struggled on in very badEnglish, but with charming enthusiasm. She plannedand he interpreted. They first laid out the grounds,availing themselves of the groves already planted bythe Indians. They covered acres of ground withrare exotics, studding them with statuary in creamiestmarble, chiseled from designs of their own, with a140Psyche and Cupid to guard the main entrance to thepark.

“What is that ting she a hold in her hand?”

“That is a torch,” explained Morning. “Psycheis the soul, and Cupid is love, and she is going insearch of him.”

“And did she find a him?” archly questioned thegirl.

“I think not,” said Morning, gloomily drawingforth a fresh sheet of paper.

“And about the casa grande,” continued Morning,“of what shall it be built?”

The señorita rested her pretty chin between hertwo palms and meditated. Finally she decided itshould be like the cupids, of shining marble, with agateor onyx for columns, and garnets—found in quantitiesin Arizona—for smaller decorations. This mostelaborate plan having been at length crudely completed,Mr. Morning folded it, quietly saying hewould submit it to an architect.

“Not truly?” said the girl, springing to her feetwith shining eyes and hands crossed upon her breast.

“Yes, really and truly, for your own sweet self, andfor your hospitable family; and with my kindest regardsand deepest gratitude.”

Murella turned very pale. Dreams were not dreamedto be so realized. Was he teasing her?

Hitherto her self-love had made her the centralfigure in her own mind. All things about her hadbeen dwarfed and become inconsequent in her egotisticlife, because she was wholly ignorant of any possibilitiesoutside of the power she wielded through herbeauty and her grace.

141But a new element had been added to her limitedexperience, and it had developed into a magician,or had it done so really? The doubt took momentarypossession of her, and she arose in an attitudeof defiance, her flashing eyes resting upon theamused but open countenance of David Morning.

Then she knew that she looked into the face of hergod, and she fled to her room, and, sinking upon thefloor, she covered her face with her mantilla, andsobbed convulsively.

It was October when Morning arrived in New YorkCity. Steel had been prompt in shipping the goldnot covered with copper, and Morning’s bank accountsin New York now amounted to sixteen millions of dollars,while the fame of the Morning mine as a producerof four millions of gold bars per month hadalready created a marked sensation in financial andbusiness circles, and in the newspaper world, but nonesuspected the immense actual production.

Morning visited Washington, and bought a stonewarehouse near the foot of Sixth Street. He purchaseda similar building in Philadelphia, near thePennsylvania Railroad freight depot, and he bought athird warehouse alongside the track of the New JerseyCentral at Hoboken. He caused switches to be constructedinto each of these warehouses, and providedeach of them with heavy iron shutters and doors.He employed four watchmen for each building, dividedinto day and night-watches of six hours each. Hearranged that the copper-pigs containing gold shouldbe loaded on the cars at Tucson by his own men,who were themselves unaware that they were handlinganything but copper, and the cars locked and sent intrain-load lots through, without change or rehandling,143to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, wherethey were run into his warehouses and there unloaded.It was given out that he was at the head of a coppersyndicate, and was storing the surplus product of themines for higher prices. His plans worked with perfectsmoothness, and his wealth accumulated openlyat the rate of four millions per month, and secretly atthe rate of one hundred millions per month, with avast amount of newspaper comment concerning thefour millions, and no suspicion anywhere as to thereal sum.

The advocates of free coinage of silver, who weredefeated in the Congress of 1889–90, renewed theircontest in the Congress of 1891–92, and in February,1892, a free coinage law passed, but it was vetoedby President Harrison. The silver men carried thefight into the presidential election of 1892, and were sofar successful that Congress, in February, 1894, enacteda law the text of which was as follows:—

“From and after July 1, 1894, any person may depositat the treasury of the United States in Washington,or at either of the sub treasuries in Boston, NewYork, Philadelphia, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans,Denver, or San Francisco, gold or silver bars of standardfineness, and receive the coined value thereof inUnited States treasury notes. The secretary of thetreasury is authorized and directed to prepare andkeep on hand a sufficient amount of treasury notes tocomply with the provisions of this act.”

The influence of Morning as the largest single producerof gold in the world, as the owner already ofthirty millions of dollars, and, if his mine should hold144out for five years, of a sum that would cause him tooutrank any millionaire in the world, was very great,and that influence, legitimately exercised in behalf offree coinage, proved very potent with senators andrepresentatives, and did much to reconcile the adherentsof a single gold standard to the overthrow oftheir system.

It was argued that if the gold supply of the worldwas to be increased forty per cent per annum by theyield of the Morning mine, that would diminish relativelythe production of silver, and the ancient parityof the metals might be restored “without danger toour financial interests, Mr. Speaker.”

Thus reasoned the Honorable Senile Jumbo, whor*presented a New England district in the House.Jumbo was a banker at home, and because he wasa banker was supposed to know something aboutfinance, and was, in consequence, accorded a leadingposition on the House Committee on Banking andCurrency.

In fact, Jumbo only knew a good discount from apoor one. His definition of a banker would have beenthat of the Indiana editor, who described such a functionaryas “a gentleman who takes the money of oneman without interest, and loans it to another upon interest,and places both depositor and borrower underobligations.”

By his small shrewdness Jumbo had gained a largefortune, and secured a seat in Congress; but of thelaws which govern finance in its politico-economic relationshe had no more knowledge than has a locomotivefireman about the law of dynamics, or a drygoods145clerk about the culture of the silkworm. Yetthe Honorable Senile Jumbo looked wise, and talkedfrom the pit of his stomach, and respected the viewsof other rich men, and as a congressman he averagedwith his colleagues.

What strange distortion of brain is it that causesmen conspicuously unfit for public life, to seek elevationswhich can only expose their intellectual poverty?One who does not comprehend the French tongue orknow anything about science, would be laughed at forseeking to be elected a member of the French Academyof Sciences, yet senatorial togas and congressionalseats are constantly sought by gentlemen whoseprevious pursuits have unfitted them to “shine in thehalls of high debate,” and who, indeed, would be puzzledto put together, while on their feet, ten sentencesof grammatical English.

The great and growing wealth of Morning causedhis society to be courted, and many a managingmamma was not unmindful of the fact that the “ArizonaGold King,” as he began to be called, was abachelor. This man did not “wear his heart uponhis sleeve,” and did not proclaim that his bachelorhoodwas confirmed, or had any special reason for itsexistence, but all plotting against him was in vain, forthe Ellen lost to him was the constant companion ofhis thoughts, and to all movements and plans and purposesof life he applied instinctively the test, “Whatwould she think of it?”

It was the anniversary of one of the great victoriesachieved by Germany in the war of 1870, and Berlinhad scarcely known a day so filled with noise, andglitter, and color, and esprit as this day had been.

The Baroness Von Eulaw, the beautiful American,was more sought for than ever, and the too arduousround of social duties and engagements were beginningto tell upon her delicate constitution. Cardshad been received by the baron and his wife for a receptionat the palace, and such an invitation couldscarcely be overlooked, especially as no entertainmentseemed acknowledged by her friends to be completewithout the presence of the baroness. Therefore, retiringa little earlier this evening than was usual fromher own drawing rooms, the baroness was well advancedwith her toilette when she discovered letterswhich the footman had left upon her table during herabsence, and among them one bearing the postmark ofTucson, Arizona, and addressed in a well-known hand.

She felt too excited to trust herself farther, and, beforetearing the envelope, she sent her maid with amessage of her sudden indisposition, which she beggedthe baron to deliver in person to the emperor, andasked, furthermore, not to be disturbed.

147It was all one to the baron at this hour, and thoughhe speedily departed for the imperial palace, it isdoubtful whether the high officials in waiting deemedit advisable to admit him to the imperial presence.

Dismissing her servants, the baroness was left alonefor the night. Then she turned to her dressing-tableand stood while opening the letters, glancing hurriedlyat their contents, all but one, and this she turned overmany times. What was the burden of its mission,and what did it contain? Finally her trembling fingerspicked absently at the envelope, as if she hadforgotton how to proceed. She might be unafraid,for there was his own handwriting before her.

With this thought a thrill went through her heart,and with a sudden motion she tore the envelope quiteapart, and her own photograph fell to the floor. Shedid not stoop for it, for her eyes were fixed upon thepage. Slowly she read word by word, lingering overthe last, and cutting it away from its context, as iffearful that another word should overwhelm her reason.

She finished, and an awful silence fell upon her.She could hear her heart beat against her rich corsage,and her breath crackled as it came through her drylips. What was the purport of that letter? She hadalready forgotten. Something surely had left a heavypain at her heart. Just as slowly she read it throughagain.

Then he was not dead—or, stay, he might be, fordid he not say “probably,” not “possibly”? Then,still standing before the dressing-table, she leaned forward,and, putting her face close to the mirror, she148muttered, looking into her own deep eyes the while,“Great God! what did I do?” For a full momentshe stood thus, then, lifting the powder-puff from thejeweled case, she mechanically swept her cheeks andbrow and sat down. Then she caught the letter andread it again, this time more clearly and calmly, “theprobable fatal termination,” and again, “until theday after you became the Baroness Von Eulaw.”

She looked at her toilette. What was she doingbejeweled and brocaded that night? Where were thesackcloth and ashes she had earned? She arose andpulled the diamonds from their places, and the beautifulrobe from her lovely shoulders, and put on agown of creamy plush, bordered with some dark, richfur, and, slowly tying the cords, her eyes fell upon thepicture at her feet.

She took it between her fingers as if it were a deadthing, and thought at the moment that it weighed apound at the least. And this was Ellen Thornton!Then she thought how old-fashioned her dress looked,and for a moment she felt glad that she had gottenthe picture back. Another revulsion of feeling as shelooked upon the torn envelope. What would she notsuffer for the hope, the uncertainty, she had clung towhen she tore that paper half an hour ago?

If only the doctors could have said “possibly,” not“probably;” perhaps that was what they meant, andnot “probably,” she repeated. Doctors are so clumsy—especiallysome—and they do so exaggerate inorder to magnify the importance of their case, andfor a moment she took unction in such logic.

Suddenly a new thought took possession. The149baron—“where did he come in?” as he himselfwould have expressed it, and she half smiled at thegrotesqueness of the thought. Was she not married?and did she not owe him allegiance as a woman ofhonor? If she had told him all that her soul held inkeeping for another, would he have made her theBaroness Von Eulaw?—Very likely, but she was notprepared to believe it. She had no right to hold himresponsible for offenses against her while she washolding perfidy to her heart, and she marveled thatshe had failed to make this argument a shield againstthe shafts of her great sorrow and her almost greaterchagrin.

She would destroy both the letter and the picture,and put away all thought of the unhappy occurrence.But, examining the picture again, she discovered twolittle punctures just through the pupils of the shadowyeyes, and she thought and queried for the cause ofsuch an accident.

Finally she concluded that her old lover had madethem inadvertently in fastening the picture to his wallor mirror frame, and so, pressing her lips warmly tothe tiny wounds on the unconscious paper, where shefancied his fingers had rested, she locked both thephoto and letter in her desk, and, just as daylightbroke, long after the clanging of the locks had ceasedand the brightness was withdrawn, she braided herhair as she had worn it so many years ago when theimage was made, and, with a long look in the mirrorto find a trace of her old self, she turned away to hercouch, and disposed herself for an hour of sleep.

But the last among her sea of speculations was this:“I wonder who made those pin-holes in my eyes!”

The Hod-Carriers’ Union and Mortar-Mixers’ ProtectiveAssociation, of San Francisco, adopted a resolutionin February, 1894, to fix the rate of wages ofits members at $3.00 per day, and admitting no newmembers for a period of one year. The immediatecause of this resolution was the letting, by certain capitalists,of contracts for the construction of severalblocks of buildings on Market Street, including thenew post-office building.

Phelim Rafferty, in proposing the resolution, said:

“The owners and the contractors, Mr. Prisidentand gentlemen, are min of large means, sor, yit theypropose to pay us, the sons of honest toil, sor, widoutwhose brawny muscles they could not build at all, sor,they propose to pay us a beggarly $2.00 a day, sor.Why, the min in the public schools who taich the piannyto our gurls, sor, recaive more nor that! Now,sor, if we pass this risolution we put our wages to$3.00 a day, and hould them there. We have themortal cinch on the contractors, sor, for if any mimberof our union works for less than $3.00 we’ll expelhim; and by passin’ this risolution we’ll keep minfrom the East away, and keep the mimbership in SanFrancisco shmall, and we’ll be sure of a job.

151“Faith! the bosses will have to be mighty civil to usto git us at all, sor. And if they thry to put to workmin who are not mimbers of the union, their buildingswill niver rise out of their cellars, sor, for the otherthrades are compilled to sthand by us, sor.”

Mr. Lorin French, the millionaire contractor andowner of the great San Francisco Iron Works, readin the journal next morning an account of the actiontaken by the Hod-Carriers Union and Mortar-Mixers’Protective Association, and he smiled a grim smile.That day he sent invitations to a number of capitalistsand contractors to attend a meeting at his offices, andthe result of the conference was the formation of aManufacturers’ and Builders’ League, of which Mr.Lorin French was chosen permanent president.

The daily papers the next morning contained thefollowing advertisem*nt:—

On the first day of next month, two hundred hod-carriersand mortar-mixers to work on the new post-office block.Three dollars per day will be paid until further notice.Men who have applied for and been refused admittance tomembership in the Hod-Carriers’ Union will be preferred.

This base attempt of capital to coerce or bribe theworker into allowing another worker an equal chanceof obtaining employment, was denounced by Raffertythe next night in a ringing speech at a special meetingof the Hod-Carriers’ Union, which meeting resultedin a convention of the Federated Trades beingordered.

152At this convention it was resolved by a three-fourthsmajority, after a hot debate, that no member of anytrade organization would, on penalty of expulsion, bepermitted to work in or upon or in aid of the constructionof any building, or in any shop, mill, foundry, orfactory, or in or upon any work where any personnot a member of some trade-organization was employed,or where any material was used which hadbeen manufactured by non-union labor.

“My frent from the Plumbers’ Association speaksof this resolution, Mr. President, as a poomerang,”said Gustave Blather, a labor lecturer, who on thisoccasion represented the Dishwashers’ Lagerbund.“I don’t know as such languitch is quite bropercoming from him, for a goot many beople haf theirdoubts whether plumbing is really a trate or only alarceny. But, my fellow pret-winners, if the resolutionis a poomerang, it is one that will knock the arroganceout of the ploated wealth-owners, and teachthem that in this republic—established by the ploot ofour fathers [Blather’s great-grandfather was a Hessiansoldier in the British army, and returned to Darmstadtafter the surrender of Cornwallis]—in this republicthe time is close at hand when suppliant wealth willbe compelt to enture the colt and hunger it has gifento labor for many years.” And, amid a storm of applause,Blather sank to his seat.

The post office block was begun on the day appointed,with a force of men, all of whom were membersof the trade organizations, and the work progressedsteadily for a week. At the Saturday-nightmeetings of the several trade organizations, the members153congratulated themselves that “old French” hadconcluded not to carry out his programme, and inseveral lodges it was proposed to signalize the magnificentvictory of labor over capital by demanding ageneral advance of twenty per cent in the wages ofall mechanics; but some of the wiser heads discouragedthe movement as premature, and one pessimistichouse carpenter observed, amid expressions of dissentfrom his colleagues, that if all the mechanics followedthe example of the hod carriers, it would “bust wideopen every builder and contractor in Frisco, or elseput a stop to all building.”

On the next Monday morning there appeared onthe scene ten men clad in blouses and overalls. Threeof them worked at mixing mortar, three of them carriedhods, three of them commenced laying brick,while the tenth man directed the labors of the othernine. Each had buckled about his waist in plainsight a cartridge belt from which hung a dragoon revolver.

As soon as their presence and labors became known,word was sent to labor headquarters, and DelegateBrown was deputed to interview the strangers andascertain the situation.

Pap Brown was a journeyman stone cutter on theother side of the sixties, who did not often work athis trade. The salary he received from the tradeunions was sufficient for his support, and he fullyearned his salary. He was shrewd, suave, and persistent,and his fatherly way with “the boys,” anddeferential manner to employers, often secured tothe former favorable adjustments of contests that154would have been denied to the “silver-tongued”Raffertys and Blathers.

Pap Brown approached one of the men who wasengaged in mixing mortar, and inquired whom he wasworking for. The man addressed made no reply,but signaled the foreman, who came forward andcurtly answered:—

“We are all working for Mr. Lorin French.”

“What wages do you get?” asked Brown.

“Well,” replied the foreman after a pause, “strictlyspeaking, I don’t know as that concerns you, but Ihave no objection to telling you. The mortar-mixersand hod-carriers get $3.00 a day, the bricklayers$4.00, and I get $5.00.”

“Them’s union wages,” said Brown, approvingly.“You are strangers in Frisco, I jedge?”

“We arrived last Friday night from Milwaukee,”replied the foreman.

“Have you got your cards as members of the union?” said Brown.

“No,” replied the party addressed, “we belong tono union.”

“Hum! I suppose you are calkilatin’ to jine the unionshere?” inquired Brown in a persuasive accent.

“I am told,” replied the foreman, “that so far asthe Hod-Carriers’ Union is concerned, we cannot join ifwe wish to; that they have resolved to admit no newmembers.”

Pap Brown slowly revolved his tobacco quid inhis mouth, and rapidly revolved the situation in hiswise old brain. “Hum!” said he at length, “I reckonthat can be arranged for ye, so that ye can all jine.”

155“Well,” replied the man from Milwaukee, “I mayas well tell ye that we don’t calculate to jine anyhow.We don’t much believe in unions nohow—too manyfellers a settin’ around drinkin’ beer, which the fellersthat work have to pay for.”

“Mebbe you don’t know,” said Pap Brown, “thatonly union men will be allowed to work here.”

“Who will stop us?” said the stranger.

“There are a good many thousand of the brotherhoodin this city,” said Delegate Brown, still persuasively,“and there are only ten of you.”

“Well, we ten are fixed to stay,” said the foreman,glancing significantly at his cartridge belt.

“Hum!” remarked Pap Brown, as he walkedaway.

That night there was a conference at the laborheadquarters of the Executive Committee of the FederatedTrades, and Delegate Brown was called uponto report.

“I find,” said he, “that these ten men have allworked at their trades somewhere, and our watcherssay that they are good workmen; but clearly theyhave been hired more as fighters than as hod carriersor masons. I jedge, from what I hear, that there isan organized force behind them. They sleep andtake their meals in old French’s building on MarketStreet, and don’t go out to the saloons, and we can’tvery well get at them. Old French is as cunning asSatan, and he has fixed the job upon us, and put thesem*n to work to bring things to a point. There is a bigforce of Pinkerton’s men in the city all ready to be swornin as deputy sheriffs in case of a row, and I reckon it156is put up to call in the soldiers at the Presidio and fromAlcatraz in case of trouble, for the post-office building,where the men are working, is government property.”

“What action do you suggest we should take, Mr.Brown?” said the chairman.

Pap Brown rolled his quid from one cheek to theother, and then solemnly deposited it in the cuspidor.

“It won’t do,” he replied, “to monkey with UncleSam; my jedgment is to jist let them ten men alone.”

“But,” interposed a member of the committee,“old French will never stop there. Those ten menare merely the small end of a wedge with which he intendsto split our labor unions to pieces. He will notgive us the sympathy of the people by lowering wages,but he will put on scabs, a dozen at a time, and dischargeour members, until the city is filled with newworkmen, the unions broken up, and we can all emigrateto Massachusetts or China.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Pap Brown, “but violenceto them ten men would simply be playin’ intoold French’s hand. He has figgered for a fight, butwe mustn’t give it to him.”

“We will carry out,” said the Chairman, “in apeaceful way, the resolution adopted by the Congressof Federated Trades.”

“That,” said Pap Brown, “means a gineral strikeand an all-around tie-up, that’s what it means, jest atthe beginnin’ of the buildin’ season, with our uniontreasuries mostly empty, and our brethren East in nofix to help us, for the co*ke strikes and the shettin’down of the cotton factories and iron foundries thiswinter have dreened them all. I was agin that resolution157of the Federated Trades at the time, and I’mmighty doubtful about it’s workin’ any good to usnow. It was well enough for a bluff, but if we arecalled down we haven’t got a thing in our hands, that’sa fact.”

“Well, what can we do, Mr. Brown?”

“I believe that the best thing all around would beto give in to old French now, repeal that fool resolution,and wait for a better time to strike.”

“What! surrender without a blow? That, Mr.Brown, we can never do.”

“Well, then,” rejoined Pap Brown, “I reckonwe’ve got a long siege ahead.”

The Executive Committee appointed a delegationto wait on Mr. Lorin French and inform him that unlessthe employment of the ten non-union men wasdiscontinued, the resolution of the Federated Tradeswould be enforced, and all Trade Union members workingfor him, or for any member of the Manufacturers’and Builders’ Union, would quit work.

Mr. French received the committee very curtly.

“Those ten men,” said he, “will continue their laborsthough they shall be the only ten men at work inthe city of San Francisco. If one, or one thousand, orten thousand of you are fools enough to quit work atthe high wages you have yourselves fixed, simply becauseI have given work at the same wages to menwho don’t choose to join one of your bullying unions,why, you can quit. You can’t hurt me by quitting asmuch as you will hurt yourselves. My money willkeep and your work won’t. But take notice thatevery man who does quit work will be blacklisted,158and he can never get another job in this city from me,or any of the gentlemen who are members of the associationof which I am president, and we includeabout all the large employers of labor in this city.”

“You know, Mr. French,” said the Chairman ofthe committee, “that if you insist on keeping these tennon-union men at work we can order a general strike.”

“Yes, I know it,” replied French. “I know thatyou can bite off your own noses to spite your ownfaces. I feel sorry for you workingmen at times, youare such unreasoning and unreasonable and everlastingfools. When you order a strike, you order theabsolute destruction of the only property you have—yourlabor—and you do this in order to prevent a fewmen from selling their labor; a few men whose onlyoffense is that they don’t believe with you in the wisdomof harassing and plundering capitalists.”

“Well, I suppose we have a right to strike, haven’twe?” said the Chairman angrily.

“No,” said French, “you have not. The workerwho joins a strike faces at least the possibility of capitalclosing its works and retiring from the field, andthe men who have been extravagant, idle, unthrifty,or unfortunate, and most of you have been one or theother, have no moral right to bring upon themselvesor those dependent upon them, either suffering ormendicancy.”

“Mr. French,” said the Chairman, “you know agood many things, but you don’t know the power ofthe labor organizations of the land. If we willed it,we could in one day stop production and transportationall over the United States.”

159“You would do well to think three or four times,”replied French, “before exercising any such power asthat. You workingmen are overstepping the boundsnot only of moderation, but of common justice andcommon sense. Suppose you should do what youthreaten, what do you suppose the capitalists woulddo in turn? You don’t know? Well, I can tell you.We would say that we were weary of your exactions,your interference, and your airs. We would say toyou: ‘You have stopped the wheels; very well, wewill not start them. You have extinguished the furnacefires, we will not rekindle them. You have disabledthe engines, we will not repair them. With thedownward stab of your vicious knife you have cut oursurface veins, but you have received the force of theblow in your own vitals—bleed to death at your leisure.We will retire for a while and nurse our scratches.’

“You don’t know what you are talking about,”continued the old man. “You don’t conceive themisery and ruin that would result from sixty days’stoppage of labor in the fields and foundries and factoriesand furnaces, and sixty days’ suspension of trafficover the railroads of our land. With the disabledengines in the roundhouses, and the cars covered withdust in the deserted yards; with ships and steamerslying idle at the wharves or sailed away to trade betweenthe ports of other lands, whose governments, wiser ormore powerful than ours, would not suffer the morallaw to be violated by either individuals or societies;with moss gathered upon the turbines; with chimneystowering smokeless to the skies; with the music offorge and anvil hushed; with almshouses crowded,160asylums filled, and jails overflowing; with men sufferingand women growing gaunt from hunger, andlittle children sobbing themselves to the fevered sleepof famine; with the furniture in the auction room,trinkets and clothing in the pawn shop, and familiesonce comfortable wandering shelterless under thestars; with even disease welcomed as a friend who shouldpilot the sufferer to the deliverance of death, wouldyou find consolation for it all in the reflection that youhad, maybe, carried your point and prevented non-unionmen, who are as good as yourselves in everyway, from working alongside you at the same wagesyou demanded for yourselves?”

“Mr. French,” said the Chairman, “what do youwish us to do?”

“I don’t care what you do,” was the response,“but if you have any sense, you will go home and repealyour fool resolution to strike if non-union workersare employed.”

“That, Mr. French,” said the spokesman, “we cannotand will not do.”

“No?” replied the millionaire. “Well, you mustgo to destruction then in your own way. Goodmorning.”

At noon the next day the hod-carriers droppedtheir hods, not only at the post-office block, but at allbuildings in process of construction by any capitalistor contractor belonging to the Builders’ and Manufacturers’Union. The brick-masons stopped work becausethey would not lay brick with mortar mixed orcarried by a non-union laborer. The house carpentersdeclined to drive a nail in aid of the erection of161any building in which a brick should be laid by onenot belonging to the Bricklayers’ Union. No plumberor gasfitter would carry his tools to a building whosetimbers had been put in place by a scab carpenter.The teamsters would not haul sand, brick, lime, orlumber for use in any building to be erected by anymember of the association of which Lorin French waspresident. The iron-moulders abandoned in a bodythe great shops, rather than work on columns or frontswhich had been ordered for the tabooed buildings.Engineers and firemen struck, rather than attend tothe running of machinery in factories where non-unionmen were employed, and all workers engaged in anyfactory, foundry, mill, shop, or business owned, inwhole or in part, by any member of the Builders’ andManufacturers’ Union, joined the general strike, whilethe railroads were compelled, in self-protection, to refusefreight offered by any member of the organizationof which Lorin French was president.

No attempt was made by French or his colleaguesto supply the places of the strikers with non-unionworkers, although every mail from the East broughthundreds of applications for employment, but eachfactory, foundry, and shop was closed, one after theother, as the workers joined the strike. The ten menwhose labors on the post-office building had begottenall this commotion, continued steadily at work. Theywere surrounded each day, while at their labors, byhooting thousands, who gathered in the vicinity, butany near approach to them was prevented by a companyof Pinkerton’s men, armed with Winchesters,who had been sworn in as deputy sheriffs, and who162escorted them to and from their labors, to French’sbuilding, No. 1099 Market Street, where they, as wellas their guards, were accorded quarters, and in theupper story of which Mr. Lorin French had, underexisting circ*mstances, deemed it expedient to establishhis residence as well as his offices.

After a fortnight had elapsed these ten men werewithdrawn from their labors, in deference to the requestof the Mayor of San Francisco and the governorof California.

A committee from the Federated Trades then waitedupon Lorin French, and informed him that, as thecausa belli had been removed by the withdrawal of theten obnoxious non-union laborers, the strikers werewilling to resume work. His reply was that wheneverwork should be resumed generally, the ten “obnoxious”men, as well as all other non-union men hemight see fit to employ, would resume work; andso negotiations came suddenly to an end.

At the close of the third week of the strike the Congressof Federated Trades assembled and declared aboycott against all members of the Builders’ andManufacturers’ Union, and against all who should violatethe boycott; the boycott to run also against anyrailway or steamship line that should accord them ortheir families transportation out of San Francisco.

It was expected that this last and most drastic measurewould bring the capitalists to terms, for its enforcementwould deprive them and their families of thenecessities of life. Their employes left them underthe pressure, and their offices and places of businesswere closed. Their house servants departed, and163they were unable to obtain substitutes even amongthe Chinese, for the Celestial who should labor for aboycotted household was given his choice betweenexile and death. Hotel proprietors were compelledto refuse a boycotted person as a guest, or lose theirown waiters, cooks, and chambermaids. The restaurantproprietor who should serve one of them witha meal would be compelled to close his doors for thewant of help; and the grocer, fruiterer, butcher, baker,or provision dealer who sold supplies for their use,would be posted, and lose his other customers, for theboycott was declared against all who violated theboycott.

Mr. French was equal to the exigency. He causedrepresentations to be made, and influence exerted atWashington, and the United States steamer Charlestonwas detailed for special service. The members ofthe Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Association, withtheir families, were taken on board of the war-ship,guarded by the Pinkerton men, and carried to Vancouver,where they were dispatched East over the CanadianPacific Railroad. Lorin French, with a few ofhis fellow-members, refused to go, but, establishingthemselves comfortably on the upper floor of thebuilding No. 1099 Market Street, they managed toprovision themselves and their guards, despite theboycott, and announced their determination to seethe contest out.

It was the last week in April, 1894, and the tenthweek of the great strike. Business was almost suspendedin San Francisco. Thousands of the strikershad wandered out into the country, and every farmhouse164within a hundred miles of San Francisco wasbesieged by men glad to work for food and shelter,while the highways were crowded with tramps. In thecity the streets were filled with idle thousands, and atthe daily meeting at the sand lots twenty or thirtythousand auditors were addressed by favorite speakers.

The orators made no appeals which were calculatedto incite violence, and there was no police interferencewith the meetings. Indeed, there seemed logically noplace or opportunity for violence. The offendingemployers had done absolutely nothing that theworkers could even denounce. They had dischargednobody, and they had not attempted to fill the placesof those who reluctantly left. They had simply suspendedoperations. They had accepted the refusal ofthe workers to work, apparently, as final. They hadlocked up their factories and places of business, and,with their families, had left the State.

The strikers generally regarded Lorin French as theprime mover against them, but his property they couldnot reach for the purposes of destruction if they hadbeen so inclined. It consisted of mines in Nevada andUtah and Montana, of sheep and cattle in New Mexicoand Arizona, of vineyards and orchards and grain-fieldsin California, of mortgages and bonds, and ofunimproved real estate in San Francisco. On thislatter he was now preparing to erect business blocks.But the buildings were in embryo. The mob couldneither burn nor dynamite an unbuilded structure,and there was no visible property upon which towreak vengeance.

Yet the most ample provisions had been made against165any mob uprising. Two batteries of artillery, withguns shotted with grape and canister, two companiesof cavalry, and four companies of infantry of the CaliforniaNational Guard, were in readiness, a portion beingunder arms, and signals were arranged for callingthe entire force together at the armories, ready foraction, on less than half an hour’s notice.

On Saturday night, late in April, 1894, the Congressof Federated Trades again met, and, after ashort debate, it was sullenly resolved to accept thesituation. The strike was declared at an end, and allthe resolutions adopted since the preceding February,including the original resolution of indorsem*nt ofthe action of the Hod-Carriers’ Union, were rescinded,and it was enacted that hereafter the employment ofnon-union workers should not be a cause of strikeexcept by workers associated in the same work, andagainst the same employer.

A committee of three, to consist of the President ofthe Congress of Federated Trades, the Mayor of SanFrancisco, and the Chief of Police, was appointed towait, early next morning, upon Mr. Lorin French,communicate to him the action taken by the FederatedTrades, and receive his reply.

It was surrender on the part of the workers—absoluteand unconditional. It was a blow to their pride,and a relinquishment of that which, with many of them,was a cherished principle; it was brought about byhunger and suffering, and they gave up the contestutterly, and placed themselves at the mercy of theconqueror. Only a brute could have misused thevanquished, but Lorin French had worked himself166into a relentless fury during the progress of the strike,and, unfortunately, he had been left in full charge andinvested with plenary power by the departed membersof the Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Association.

At nine o’clock the next morning, in the sunshineof an April Sabbath, the committee appointed by theFederated Trades was permitted to pass the Pinkertonguard, and mount the five flights of stairs—for theelevator service had long been discontinued—whichled to the top story of the building No. 1099Market Street, where they were received by LorinFrench, who arose from his breakfast table to greetthem. He listened without changing his countenancewhile the Mayor, as Chairman of the committee, communicatedto him the substance of the resolutionadopted the night before by the Congress of FederatedTrades.

“I expected exactly such a result,” said French;“it would have saved a great deal of money and agreat deal of suffering to these Federated fools if theyhad adopted a similar course two months ago.”

“Well, Mr. French,” said the Mayor, “these misguidedmen, with their families, have been the greatestlosers and the severest sufferers by it all. I will notdiscuss the rights and wrongs of it with you. Thereis more than one side to it, and we might not agree.I am rejoiced, for their sake and yours, and for thesake of the city and State, that it is all over, and thatthe workers can now return to their work, and businessresume its usual channels.”

“These misguided men, as you call them, Mr.Mayor,” said French, “will be compelled to transfer167their opportunities for future misguidance to someother locality. They are all blacklisted here. Theirown signatures to receipts for wages when they quit,constitute the blacklist. Not one of them shall everearn another day’s wages in this city in any enterpriseowned, controlled, or influenced by me.”

“But, Mr. French,” remonstrated the Mayor, “thisis unworthy of you. These men have homes here;they have families to support; the long strike hasleft many of them utterly without resources, either togo away with or to establish themselves elsewhere.The industries of San Francisco need them. Whybring in others to take their places? They have abandonedtheir strike. They have already been sufficientlypunished for that which was, after all, only anerror of judgment. If work be refused them, they willstarve.”

“Let them starve,” savagely replied the millionaire;“not one of them shall ever get a job of work fromme.”

The President of the Congress of Federated Trades,who was one of the committee, had hitherto beensilent. He was an iron worker by trade, who, intwenty years of residence in San Francisco, had almostlost the Scotch burr which, as a lad, he had broughtwith him from Glasgow. In moments of feeling orexcitement it returned to him. He addressed himselfto French:—

“Oh mon,” said he, “but thou art hard; and thouart a fool as well! ’Tis a mad wolf that cooms oot ofthe mountain shingle to make a trail through theheather for the hoonds. Gin ye hae no mercy for168God’s poor, hae ye no fear frae the divil’s dogs thatyour words may loosen on ye? Dinna ye ken therebe ten, aye, twenty thousand men on the sand lots thisblessed Sabbath morn, who love ye not, and who, ifthey get your words just spoken, and get them theymaun, unless ye recall them, would, if they but reachye, and reach ye they will, for a’ your guards andguns, would send ye to God’s throne wi’ your badheart a’ reekin’?”

“Go and tell the loafers and brawlers of the sandlots exactly what I have said,” shrieked French. “Itis what I mean to say, and mean for them to hear.If you don’t take the message I will send it throughthe press. Let them do their worst. I do not fearthe blackguards, and I am ready for any who chooseto visit me,” and the old man snapped his fingers asthe members of the committee sorrowfully departed.

Half an hour later a speaker who was addressingan audience of thirty thousand people from the centralstand at the sand lots, paused as he saw thePresident of the Congress of Federated Trades makinghis way through the crowd. The orator had beencommenting on the resolutions adopted by theWorkers’ Congress the previous night, and had beencongratulating the people upon the approaching endof the distress occasioned by the long strike, and onthe days of peace and plenty which were in store forthem, and it was with beaming faces and glad shoutsthat the multitude welcomed the man who was to announceto them a resumption of their labors in factoryand shop.

“My friends,” said the tall Scotchman, “I have169just come from an interview with Lorin French, and Iam vara vara sorry to bear you the message with whichI am charged. He bids me tell you that the notice hegave to us all before the strike begun shall be carriedout, and that no man who quit work then shall everagain have work in this city, if he can help it.”

The temper of the vast multitude changed in aninstant. Shrieks and yells of anger filled the air, andfor many minutes the crowd gave way to demonstrationsof rage and indignation. All at once there walkedto the front of the central platform a tall, angularwoman dressed in a gown of plain black stuff. Herfeatures were unprepossessing, to the verge of ugliness,but a wealth of white hair crowned a low brow, surmountingeyes of fierce blue. As she stretched fortha long arm, the multitude hushed to silence, for theyrecognized the renowned female agitator, LucyPassmore.

“Friends, brethren, men,” said she, in a voicewhose magnetic quality vibrated to the farthest edgesof the crowd, “it seems that it is the malignant willof one man which savagely condemns thousands tosuffering and starvation. If the rattlesnake is coiledfor ye, will ye strike first or wait for him to strike?If the wolf is waiting upon your doorstep, will you feedto him the babe he is seeking or will ye give him theknife to the hilt in his hot throat? The death of LorinFrench would end this struggle, and your wives wouldcease to weep and your children to cry with hunger.Men, since God has so far forgotten you as to sufferthis devil to live so long, why do you not remedyGod’s forgetfulness? Are you ready to march nowor do you want an old woman to lead you?”

170A yell arose from the surging crowd, as, with onemind, thousands comprehended and were ready toact upon the suggestions of Lucy Passmore.

Most of the men had long before furnished themselveswith arms of some sort, and their lodge organizationshad provided them with elected leaders, whousually attended the sand-lot meetings. As if bymagic they formed themselves into companies andbattalions and marched, an orderly and almost an organizedarmy, forth from the sand lots, and down to thebuilding No. 1099 Market Street, which they speedilysurrounded.

The iron shutters of the upper story were at onceclosed, and the muzzles of rifles pushed through loopholespreviously prepared for such purpose. Anattempt was made from the inside to close the iron gatein front of the main staircase, but the mob surged pastthe guard, took possession of the lower hall, andstarted up the stairs. They were met at the top, justbelow the first landing, by twenty Pinkerton menstanding upon the top five steps—four on each step—who,after vainly warning the ascending crowd to desist,at last lowered the muzzles of their Winchesters,and opened a murderous fusillade, which covered thestairs with dead and dying.

The mob hesitated for an instant, but only for aninstant, for those below pushed forward those whowere above. A hundred revolvers were fired at thePinkerton men, half of whom fell, and the other halfwere borne down, shot, clubbed, and stabbed as themob rushed past and over them, and gained the firstlanding. The crowd continued to push from below,171and in the same way, with great loss of life on eachside, they gained successively the third and fourthstories. By this time, however, the forces on the fifthfloor had opened fire on the mob outside. Two riflemenat each of the eighteen windows commanded themain entrance to the building, and such a rapid andaccurate fire was maintained that Market Street for ahundred feet on each side of the entrance was piledwith bodies, and further re-inforcements preventedfrom reaching those within the building.

At this juncture Battery X came galloping intoMarket Street from Fourth. Two guns were placed inposition, and one, loaded with grapeshot, was firedjust above the heads of the crowd. The whistling ofthe shot in the air above them gave notice to the mobof what was coming, and, with cries of terror, they fled,panic-stricken, into the adjacent streets. The assailantsinside the building, hearing the noise of the cannon,followed by the triumphant shouts of the Pinkertonmen in the upper story, and finding no furtherpressure or re-inforcements from below, desisted fromfurther assault, and, turning from the fourth landing,fled down the stairs.

Lorin French, from a loophole in an iron shutter,watched the firing, and the dispersion of the mob outside,and in a few minutes he was informed by a Pinkertonsergeant that the contest was over.

“It’s a sorry day’s work, sir,” said the officer; “wehave lost over thirty of our best men, and there mustbe two hundred rioters dead and wounded on thestairs and in the halls, beside those killed in the street.”

“I will help you with the wounded,” said French,starting for the passage.

172“Better remain here, sir,” said the officer. “Itmay not be quite safe for you yet in the lower halls.”

“Nonsense,” replied French, “the fight is over,”and so saying, he walked out into the hall, and descendedthe stairs to the fourth story. He paused inhorror at the sight which met his eyes. The floor waswet and slippery with blood, and the cries of thewounded pierced his ears. He stood for a moment asif dazed, and then, turning his back upon the scene,prepared to ascend the staircase and gain his room.

And as he turned, a man who was sitting proppedup against the wall twenty feet away, raised a revolverwhich had been lying in his lap, and, clearing with hisleft hand the blood which obscured his eyes, tookrapid yet careful aim and fired.

The bullet struck Lorin French in his backbone,which it shattered, and, with a cry of agony and fear,the owner of $20,000,000 fell forward upon his face onthe stairway.

“In the matter of the estate of Lorin French deceased,the application of Louis Browning for lettersexecutory is before the court. Who represents theapplicant?”

“The firm of Bruff & Baldwin, your honor,” replieda tall gentleman with spectacled nose and abeardless face.

“Are there contestants?” said the Court.

Then from their seats within the bar of the courtroom there arose a decorous multitude of lawyers,short and tall, old and young, fat and lean, the white-beardedNestors, and the complacent, chirping chipmunksof the bar, and in various forms of expressionit clearly appeared that there were contestants.

“I think,” said his Honor with a weary smile,“that my associates might have sent this case toanother department, for I have had a surfeit of contestedwill cases. Proceed, Mr. Bruff.”

“In behalf of the Society of Bug Hunters, who arelegatees under a former will,” said a sepulchral voice,proceeding from the rotund diaphragm of a bald-headedand full-bearded gentleman, “I have twenty-threeobjections to offer to the admission to probateof the alleged will of Lorin French, and—”

“Will my learned brother Lester permit me to interrupt174him for a moment,” twanged a catarrhal tone,“while I state that I wish my appearance enteredhere on behalf of the recognized natural son of thedeceased, and I protest—”

“On the part of the Australian cousins of LorinFrench,” shrieked a lean man with red hair, “I have apreliminary objection to offer to the will being read incourt at all, and—”

“I object!”

“I except!”

“Will your honor please note the exception of theNevada heirs?”

“I demand to be heard!”

Then from the entire front of the bar came cries ofexcited counsel, learned in all law save that of decorum,while the Court rapped for order.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “you will all please beseated. The Court itself would like to be heard.The will of our deceased fellow-citizen, Lorin French,who was never more regretted by me than at thismoment, or”—and the Court smiled deprecatingly—“thepaper which purports to be his will, is presentedhere by our Brother Bruff. Now, unless some gentlemandenies the death of Lorin French, it occurs tome that the reading of the paper offered as his willcan but tend to our common enlightenment—”

The deep-voiced Lester, with his twenty-three objections,sustained by a “brief” which covered ninetypages of manuscript, arose.

“I have not yet finished,” said the Court. “It isapparent that many of the objections urged will beagainst the reading of the will. Such objections may175be discussed more intelligently if the Court can besuffered to gain some knowledge of the contents ofthe paper offered, and I shall ask, gentlemen, that yoususpend argument or motions while the clerk readsthe will. It will then delight the Court to devote theremainder of the term to hearing arguments why thewill ought never to have been read. Mr. Clerk, proceed,and I will send to jail for contempt any memberof this bar who shall interrupt you until the readingshall be completed.”

There was silence in the crowded court room as theclerk opened and read the document:—

In the name of God, Amen, I, Lorin French, ofSan Francisco, California, being of sound and disposingmind and memory, but being assured by myphysicians that the wound received by me must withina few days prove fatal, do make, publish, and declarethis my last will and testament, revoking all wills previouslymade by me.

The free use of my hand enables me to makethis will holographic, and this labor I undertake inorder to more completely demonstrate to the courtwhere it may be offered for probate, that it is altogethermy own act, and that I am sane, clear of mind,and fully possessed of my own memory and judgment.

The near approach of the world into which myspirit is about to journey, brings, possibly, a clearerjudgment, and I think now that if my decision to employno strikers had not been communicated to themob, I should have reconsidered such decision.However, my approaching death, which will incidentallyresult from that decision, afflicts me less than the176fate of those who fell in the affray, for my own lifewas drawing to a close.

If the example I shall offer in attempting to adjustthe relations of capital and labor shall be followed byothers, it will result in advantage to the workers ofthis land, and great permanent good may thus growfrom the bitter struggle which ended with the woundwhich will terminate my life on earth.

I am unmarried and childless, and my nearestliving relatives are cousins of remote degrees, withwhose names and places of residence I am scarcelyacquainted. No relation of mine has any moral orrightful claim upon my estate, and the disposition Iam about to make of my property will work injusticeto no living creature.

I appoint as executor of this my last will and testament,my friend Louis Browning, to serve withoutbonds, and I direct that for his services as executor,and in lieu of all commissions, he receive the sum of$50,000 out of my estate.

I direct my said executor to forthwith pay to thewidows, or next of kin, of each man slain in the lateriot, the sum of $10,000, to each man permanentlydisabled by wounds received therein, the sum of $5,000,and to each man wounded but not permanentlydisabled, the sum of $1,000.

I direct my said executor to proceed as speedily aspossible to prudently dispose of all my estate, andconvert the same into money, to be paid over by himto the corporation hereinafter named.

I request that my said executor, Louis Browning,shall, in co-operation with the Governor of California,177the Mayor of San Francisco, and my friends DavidShelburn, Lawrence Slayter, George Morrow, andFrancis Dalton, proceed forthwith to form a corporationunder the laws of this State, to be entitled the‘Lorin French Labor Aid Company,’ to which corporation,when organized, I direct that the proceedsof my estate be transferred, to be used by it in providingcapital for the use of such co-operative and profit-sharingcorporations as may, from time to time, be organizedto avail themselves of its aid.

The Lorin French Labor Aid Company will notit*elf engage in any industrial enterprise, but will confineitself strictly to loaning money at three per centper annum to such organizations of mechanics as mayseek its assistance and comply with its rules. Thoserules must require that one-fourth of the wages andall the profits of the members of the borrowing corporationshall be paid to the Lorin French Labor AidCompany, until the debt due the latter is discharged,and that the borrowing corporation shall be organizedand conducted in accordance with certain conditionsand rules.

My meaning may be made more clear by the followingillustration:—

Suppose that five hundred men shall desire to establisha co-operative foundry. They will make apreliminary organization and apply to the officers ofthe Lorin French Labor Aid Company for the capitalnecessary to conduct the enterprise. Those officerswill—after careful inquiry—ascertain that the buildings,land, machinery, and plant of such a foundry willcost $900,000, and that it will require a cash capital of178$100,000 to carry the current business. They will purchasesuch a foundry, taking title in the Lorin FrenchLabor Aid Company in trust, and will select a generalmanager, who will employ and discharge men, fix therate of wages and hours of labor, and have full chargeof the works. After the indebtedness of the FoundryCompany to the Aid Company shall have been fullypaid with interest, the members of the Foundry Companymay elect their own general manager, but, untilthen, that officer shall be chosen by, and be subject tothe control of, the directors of the Aid Company.

Each man employed in the works, from the generalmanager to the lowest-paid helper in the yard, mustbe a shareholder, the number of shares to be held byeach being regulated by his wages. If a workmanshould die, or leave employment, either on his ownmotion or because of his being discharged, his shareswould be turned over to his successor, who wouldbe required to make good to the outgoing man or hiswidow or heirs whatever amount had been paid uponthe shares, and the money for such payment mightbe advanced when necessary out of a fund for suchpurpose provided by the Foundry Company, theshares standing as security for the advance. Noshares could be transferred except to a successor—employedin the foundry.

A portion, say one-fourth, of the shares of the corporationshould be reserved for allotment to workmenwhose employment might be required by the growthof the works, though it will be the object of the directorsof the Lorin French Labor Aid Company to encouragethe continued organization of new co-operative179labor corporations rather than the enlargement ofold ones. Yet such encouragement must be prudentlygranted, having reference to the natural growth ofbusiness and the demands of a healthy trade, and overproductionmust not be stimulated, for it is my mainpurpose to help the laborer to rid himself of the paymentof high interest and large commissions, to bringhim as nearly as possible in direct communicationwith the consumer, to save him the waste of strikes,and the salaries of the brawlers who foment difficultiesbetween laborers and their employers, to make himhis own employer and his own capitalist, to encouragehim in sobriety and thrift and the possession of suchhigh manhood as of right belongs to citizenship of ourrepublic.

The capital stock of such an iron-workers’ co-operationmight be fixed at the sum borrowed from theLorin French Labor Aid Company, say $1,000,000,divided into shares of the par value of $10 each.

Thus, five hundred men properly managed, workingindustriously, and allowing one-fourth of theirwages and their entire profits to accumulate, might beable in five years to own a plant of the actual value of$1,000,000, with the good-will of a business worth asmuch more, and thereafter the worker might receivefull wages and an additional income from dividends,which, if placed in endowment insurance, or in similarsafe investments, would enable him to retire, if he wish,in fifteen years with an assured competence.

The $20,000,000 which will be received from thesale of my property, all of which I hereby give, devise,and bequeath to the Lorin French Labor Aid Company,180ought to, and I doubt not will, be sufficient toestablish co-operative iron foundries, sawmills, woolenfactories, glass works, brick yards, and other industrialenterprises, in San Francisco, sufficient to provideremunerative employment for fifteen thousand men.The fund will be invested safely, for it will be basedupon the security which is the creator and conservatorof all property and property rights, industrious andintelligent labor. The accretions to the fund, even atthe moderate rate of interest of three per cent perannum, will add, probably, a thousand workers eachyear to the number of its beneficiaries, while the repaymentand re-investment in similar ways of theoriginal fund, will add several thousand more each year.

The practical operation of the plans I have endeavoredto outline will work no injustice to the owners ofexisting manufacturing establishments, for it will be inthe interest of the workmen to purchase such plantsand business at their value, rather than to build upnew and rival establishments. It is true that somepersons now making a profit off the labors of otherswill be compelled to enlist their capital and energiesin other lines; but this, if a hardship, will not be an injustice,and individual convenience must be subservientto the general good.

“I think I have made clear the purposes to which Ihereby devote the fortune I have accumulated by fiftyyears of toil and care—yet in the accumulation ofwhich I have found great enjoyment. The details ofmy plans I must leave to those who now are, or whohereafter may be, charged with the execution of thistrust. In the life upon which I am about to enter—for181I have never so questioned the wisdom of the Originatingand Ultimate Force of the Universe as to supposethat the death of this body of flesh will be the end ofall conscious individual existence—in the life uponwhich I am about to enter, I hope to derive satisfactionfrom the fulfillment of the objects of this my last willand testament, to which I hereby affix my signatureand seal, this thirtieth day of April, eighteen hundredand ninety-four.

We, William Jelly and Thompson Blakesly, declarethat Lorin French, in our presence and on the thirtiethday of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-four,in the city of San Francisco, California, signed theforegoing document, which he then declared to eachof us was his last will and testament, and we then, athis request and in his presence, and in the presence ofeach other, sign our names hereto as witnesses.

The voice of the clerk ceased, and for a few secondsthere was a hush in the court room, which wasbroken by the harsh, cold tones of Counselor JohnLyman.

“I submit to your Honor,” said he, “in behalf ofthe Public Administrator for whom I appear, and whoasks that he be accorded administration of the estateof Lorin French. I submit that this so-called will,although rhetorically and otherwise a very interestingattempt at unpractical philanthropy, is—as a will—simplywaste paper. In spirit and in letter it is anutter violation of two sections of the civil code of California.Section 1275 of that code provides that ‘corporations—except182those formed for scientific, literary,or educational purposes—cannot take under a will,unless expressly authorized by statute.’ The proposedLorin French Labor Aid Company is, in its plan, acorporation, neither scientific, literary, nor educational.Considered as a benevolent corporation, it isnot now in existence, and is, of course, not authorizedby statute to receive this, or any bequest—”

“How is it,” interrupted Mr. Bruff, “that the Societyfor the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, theSisters’ Hospital, and other corporations, have receivedbequests?”

“Simply because they have been expressly authorizedby act of the Legislature to do so,” was the reply.

“Then if I wish to leave a sum of money to foundand support an asylum for one-lunged lawyers, orone-eyed baseball umpires, I am unable to do so, amI?” said Bruff.

“You can go to Sacramento and have a law passedto enable your one-eyed and one-lunged corporationsto take your bequest,” said Lyman.

“How much,” said Bruff, sarcastically, “would Iprobably be obliged to pay the statesmen for passingsuch a law?”

“My party is not in power,” rejoined Lyman. “Ido not know the latest market quotations for votes inyour caucus.”

“Order, gentlemen, order,” said his Honor, grimly.

“And suppose,” said Bruff, “the Legislature werenot in session, would it be necessary that I wait a yearor two before I could make a valid will, with thechance of dying in the meantime?”

183“Possibly,” replied Lyman, “you might make abequest to a corporation not empowered at the timeof such bequest, to receive it, but which might subsequentlybe expressly authorized by statute to do so.”

“I have led my learned friend to the very pointdesired,” said Bruff. “Why, then, I ask him, can thecorporation which the will of Lorin French proposesshall be created, not be authorized by the CaliforniaLegislature, at its next session, to receive his bequest?I do not apprehend that the most docile Democraticlamb, or the most fearless Republican boodle hunter,would dare to refuse his vote for such a law.”

“But the corporation proposed by the late LorinFrench,” said Lyman, “is not only unempowered toreceive, it is not yet in existence as a corporation. Itmay never be created, and a bequest to either a naturalor an artificial being, not even quickened with incipientlife, not even conceived at the time of the bequest,may be questioned as of doubtful validity. But it isprofitless to discuss these questions, because there isanother section of the civil code which disposes completelyof this so-called will. I refer to section number1313. Thirteen is certainly an unlucky numberfor the workers of San Francisco. By that section itis provided that no will devising property for charitableor benevolent uses, shall be valid unless made at leastthirty days before the death of the testator, and thatin no event can a man bequeath more than one-thirdof his estate for such purpose, if he have naturalheirs. It is also provided that all dispositions ofproperty made contrary to the statute shall be void,and the property go to the residuary legatee, next ofkin, or heir, according to law.”

184“That was one of the wise laws that the sand-lotstatesmen gave us,” said Bruff, sarcastically.

“Deed, and it wasn’t a sand-lot law at all,” interrupteda stalwart, red-bearded attorney with a slightMilesian accent. “It was passed away back in theseventies. Old Moriarty was down with typhoid fever,and Father Gallagher was pressin’ him every day tosave his soul by lavin’ his millions to the Jesuit Collegeand Hospital. But before the priest could get the oldman in condition, Mike Moriarty slipped Nat Bronton—theking of the lobby—up to Sacramento with $20,000rint money that Mike collected while his fatherwas ill, and the bill was rushed through under suspinsionof the rules. Two days after the bill became alaw, Father Gallagher coaxed and dhrove old Moriartyinto signing a will that cut Mike off wid $50,000, andleft $3,000,000 to the church, and the next week theyburied the old man, with masses enough to put himthrough purgatory in an express train. They saythat there was a scrappin’ match between Father Gallagherand Mike when the priest found that he had beenoutgeneraled, and Mike lost the top of his left ear,but he saved his father’s estate. Sure, the whole caseis reported in the fortieth California, under the title ofthe Society of Jesus against Moriarty, and it decidesthis will of French’s sure enough.”

When the ripple of laughter which this interruptionprovoked had subsided, Mr. Lyman resumed:—

“My learned friend Casey is right, your Honor; thecase he quoted does decide this one. If this will hadbeen made more than thirty days before the death ofMr. French, it could at most have disposed of but one-third185of his property. But it was made only two daysbefore his death, and, under section 1313 of the code,is utterly void,” and the speaker resumed his seat.

The Court turned to the attorney who had offeredthe will for probate.

“What have you to say to this, Mr. Bruff?” he inquired.“All the claimants for the estate will doubtlessagree with the position taken by the attorney for thepublic administrator. They are joined in interest inoverturning the will. You alone defend the beneficentpurposes of the dead man. What have you to say?”

“What can I say, your Honor?” said Bruff, bitterly.“It is another instance of a man conceited and obstinateenough to attempt making his own will. If myold friend French had called me in, I would have toldhim that courts and juries in California seldom allow aman to dispose of his own estate, if it be a large one,and he must give his savings away in his lifetime ifhe wishes to prevent his sixth cousins from rioting onthem. I would have had Lorin French convey hisvast property to trustees to carry out his plans, andhave affected the transfer completely while he was yetalive. But he, great and simple soul, supposed, naturallyenough, that he had a right to do as he pleasedwith his own, and that, being without near kindred,and no person having any claim upon him, he couldhelp the poor with the money it had taken him half acentury to accumulate. He was originally educatedto the law, and, although he had been out of practicefor thirty years, he knew how to formulate a will.But he was not aware of the ravages committed by aCalifornia Legislature among the time-honored principles186of the common law. Mark the result of legislativefolly and individual inadvertence. Twenty millionsof dollars, which their owner proposed to devoteto a grand and comprehensive experiment for adjustingthe vexed relations of labor and capital, will nowbe consumed in court costs and witness fees, dividedamong a horde of attorneys, and finally scattered inselfish enjoyment, and in ways unuseful to man, allover the world from Australia to Elko. It’s the law,I suppose, and neither your Honor nor I can help it,but it’s an accursed shame, nevertheless.”

And Mr. Bruff, pale with excitement, resumed hisseat.

“The Court can not only pardon your emphaticlanguage, Brother Bruff,” said his Honor, “but indorsesit. If I could discover any loophole whichmight be crawled through, or any way by which Icould break down or climb over the legislative barrier,and validate the bequest of Lorin French, I wouldcertainly do so. I will reserve for further considerationthe question of the validity of the legacies to thewounded, and the families of those killed in the riot.I am inclined to think that portion of the will may begood, and so carry with it the right of Louis Browningto letters testamentary. For the present, however,I am reluctantly compelled to sustain the objection ofthe attorney for the public administrator, and refusethe will admission to probate. It is ordered accordingly.Mr. Clerk, note the exception of Mr. Bruff tomy ruling. I will take my summer vacation now, andgo fishing. I shall adjourn court for one month, andthe further hearing of this case for two months. In187the meantime, if the gentlemen who represent the variousapplicants for letters of administration, will leavetheir papers with the clerk, I will, upon my return,give them careful attention.”

“Does your Honor desire that I leave all my papers?”queried the sepulchral-voiced Lester.

“All,” replied his Honor and he paused for a moment,and glanced at the ninety pages of manuscriptlying in front of counsel learned in the law, “all exceptyour brief, Mr. Lester.”

The proceedings of the day in the superior courtwere reported fully, and commented upon freely, bythe newspapers throughout the country, and a fortnightafterwards the proposed executor of the rejectedwill received the following letter:—

Mr. Louis Browning, San Francisco, Cal.—MyDear Sir: Such a wise and noble plan as that of thelate Lorin French ought not to lack accomplishmentfor want of money to execute it. If you, and the gentlemennamed by him as your associates in the trustwhich he vainly endeavored to create, will organizesuch a corporation as he proposed, I will devote to ita sum equal to the value of his estate, which I understandto be, in round numbers, twenty millions of dollars.

[From the New York World, July 15, 1895.]

Manhattan Island, west of Broadway and south ofTrinity Church, was, during the last century, occupiedby the substantial mansions of the ancient Knickerbockers,and as late as the first third of the presentcentury was not relinquished as a place of residenceby people of aristocratic pretensions. Before the civilwar, the annual fairs of the American Institute wereheld in Castle Garden, within whose walls Grisi andMario and Jenny Lind sang, and on summer afternoonschildren, accompanied by nursemaids, rompedupon the grass under the grand old trees on the Battery.Then the Bowling Green Fountain, with itspicturesque pile of rocks, was still an ancient landmark;and the goat pastures above Fifty-ninth Streetwere being cleared for the planting of Central Park.

After the war the few remaining occupants of pretentiousresidences fled to the northward of MadisonSquare, and the sightliest and most picturesque portionof New York City was abandoned to saloons,emigrant boarding houses, warehouses, and shops, for,unlike the down-town section east of Broadway, itwas not invaded and colonized by bankers, brokers,and importing houses.

189Mr. David Morning, now widely known as the ArizonaGold King, selected this portion of New YorkCity for the experiment of organizing pleasant andeconomical home lives for a class of dwellers in citiesnot ordinarily the subject of elemosynary effort.

The poverty of the very poor, who sometimes lackeven for food or shelter, is hardly more distressingto the sufferers than the poverty of men who struggleto maintain a respectable position upon incomes inadequate,even with the most economical management,to meet their expenses. How is a married man, havingan income of one, two, or even three thousanddollars per annum, derived from work which must beperformed by him, as clerk, journalist, physician, orlawyer, upon Manhattan Island, to live there withsuch surroundings as are befitting his education andposition?

He will be compelled to pay one-third or one-halfof his income for a flat; an entire house is out of thequestion, unless he betake himself to such a localityin the city as will exile his family from social consideration.If he live in the suburbs, he must arise atdaylight and stumble along unlighted lanes to therailroad station, and pass two or three hours of histime each day standing in a crowded ferryboat, orhanging to the straps of a jammed car, alternatelyfrozen and roasted, and always stifled with the reekingperfume of unventilated vehicles and unsavoryfellow-travelers, for while it may be true that all menare politically equal, they are not always equally wellwashed.

The alternative is to bring up his family in the190brawl and small scandal of a boarding house. Hiswife requires always a certain amount of dresses andbonnets to maintain herself in a respectable positionin the estimation of her friends, and dresses and bonnetsentail an uncertain amount of expenditure. Aman’s tailor will inform him in advance exactly howmuch his garment will cost, and one can contractfor a bridge across the Mississippi at an agreed sum,but there is no force known in nature that will induceor drive a dressmaker into foregoing an opportunityfor advantage taking, or persuade her to fix in advancea price for the making and trimming of a gown.

The married bookkeeper or salesman on a salaryin New York City, is forever upon the ragged edgeof embarrassment, unable to save the amount of thepayments necessary for adequate life insurance, or toprovide a fund for a rainy day. The laborer ormechanic who earns six hundred to nine hundred dollarsper annum is, in comparatively easy circ*mstances,for he can live in a tenement house in a cheapneighborhood without loss of caste, and caste is ofalmost as much consequence in free America as in thePunjaub.

After some thought, Mr. David Morning devised atrial scheme for the relief of married men of small incomes,whose duties required their daily presence inNew York City, below Canal Street, and in the autumnof 1894 his agents began to quietly purchase the realestate between Rector Street and the Battery, andbounded by Greenwich Street and the Hudson River.Some months were consumed in the acquisition oftitle to the realty, and in a few instances long prices191were exacted by sagacious and selfish owners, whoheld out until the others had sold, but the bulk of theproperty was purchased at about its value, and thebrokers were finally instructed to close with all personswilling to sell, without haggling as to price.

It required about $15,000,000 to complete the purchase,and for this sum sixteen hundred lots weresecured of the orthodox dimensions of twenty-five byone hundred feet each. Electric lights turned nightinto day, and several thousands of men and hundredsof vehicles, divided into three armies of eight-hourworkers, were at once employed in the work of demolition.Temporary railroad tracks were laid fromthe land to the North River piers, and the materialand débris not needed to fill cellars and vaults wascarried on cars to barges, which were towed to theJersey flats, where their contents were dumped uponground previously acquired by Mr. Morning for thatpurpose, and by the first of February, 1895, the lowerpart of Manhattan Island west of Greenwich Streetwas as bare as a picked bird.

The work, although generally prosaic, was notwithout its romantic and interesting incidents. In astone house on Greenwich Street, which was once thecolonial mansion of Diedrich Von Wallendorf, awalled chamber was opened. The rugs and hangingsit had contained were fallen to shreds, but theQueen Anne cabinets, tables, and bedstead were in asgood condition as when the room was closed with solidstone masonry, two centuries ago, without any reasonnow apparent for the strange proceeding.

Under the cellar floor of another house an earthen192“crock” was found filled with sovereigns, coined in thelast century, and through the destruction of an oldwall cabinet, there came to light a package of lettersfrom Lord North to Sir Henry Clinton, letters whichindicated that the British Ministry of that day hadbeen in negotiation with other patriot leaders thanBenedict Arnold for a surrender of the revolutionarycause.

The consent of the city authorities to a resurveyand remodeling of the streets and avenues of the destroyedsection of New York, was obtained withoutdifficulty since Mr. Morning was now the sole ownerof the land affected thereby, and the rearrangementsproposed by him were made at his own cost, and insuredgreater uniformity and greater convenience tothe public than those which were superseded.

The land was platted into blocks four hundred feetin length and eighty feet in width, running northand south, thus giving to the occupants of the newbuildings either the morning or the afternoon sun.These blocks are divided by streets of a uniform widthof one hundred feet, having a park thirty feet wide inthe center of each street, with lawn, shrubs, ornamentaltrees, and a fountain in the center of eachblock. Gas, water, and sewer pipes, and electriclight and pneumatic tubes, have been laid in the newstreets, and by means of a powerful pumping engine,erected on the Battery, the sewers are flushed everyday with sea water. The new streets are paved withasphalt, with sidewalks of cement. The city receivedfrom Morning land at the foot of Canal Street purchasedby him, in exchange for Castle Garden and193vicinage, and the Battery—filled with fountains, statues,and increased acreage of lawn and garden—isrestored to its ancient functions, and more than its ancientglory.

The buildings erected upon each of the one hundredblocks thus created, are of uniform size andstyle. Each building—occupying an entire block—isfour hundred feet long, eighty feet wide, and seventeenstories high. The roofs are covered with glass,making the structures eighteen stories aboveground.One-half of the area of the eighteenth story in eachblock is laid out in plots filled with ten feet of rich soilin beds of perforated cement, the other half in broadwalks of plate glass—guarded by copper netting—soas to admit light to the seventeenth story and to thelarge air shafts.

In each of the buildings are one hundred and fiftysuites of five rooms, each suite having a floor area ofsixteen hundred square feet, and every room havingan outlook upon the street. A broad hall runsthrough the center of the building on every floor,lighted by means of plate-glass windows at each end,and also by three shafts, one hundred feet apart, runningfrom cellar to roof. Every room is providedwith steam, dry, and gas heat, and with gas and incandescentlights. Each suite has a household pneumatictube service connecting with the store rooms in thebasem*nt, and with the kitchen and dining rooms inthe seventeenth story. Each suite has also a cookingcloset, with gas range, hot water, and steam pipes,porcelain-lined sinks, and pneumatic tubes for carryingaway garbage.

194Six hydraulic elevators furnish ample accommodationsfor reaching every floor at any hour of the dayor night. A network of perforated steel pipes is concealedin the walls and floors, with separate connectionsfor each room with the great tanks on the roof,which are in turn connected both with the Croton watersystem, and with the great steel water main bringingwater from Rockland Lake. In case of fire the wallsand floors of one room, or of any number of rooms,can instantly be saturated with water, and twice ineach week, at an appointed hour, a warm, gentle rainis made to descend for a sufficient length of time uponthe trees and shrubs in the roof garden.

Each suite has separate sewer connections, and eachroom is provided with registers in the wall, from whicheither hot air or cold air can be turned on or off atwill, the hot air ascending from the furnaces, and thecold air being forced by a pumping engine from therefrigerating room in the basem*nt. Those whosefate it has been to swelter on Manhattan Island in thedog days can appreciate the latter luxury. The fortunateoccupant of a room in one of the MorningBlocks commands his temperature. Whether thethermometer registers thirty degrees below or onehundred degrees above zero outside, he can arrangethe climate in his own room to suit himself, and paterfamilias can connect a wire with the register in theparlor, and, if “Cholly” protracts his visits to Gladysto an improper hour, he can shut off the hot air, turnon a current from the refrigerator, and in ten minutesmake the young man choose between departure andcongealment.

195These buildings were planned for the relief ofwomen. The great source of waste and care in ourAmerican domestic life is in the kitchen, and it is impossibleto organize a more advantageous trust forboth producer and consumer than a “kitchen trust.”The daily history of every American family is one ofalmost unavoidable waste. In food, in fuel, in thelabor of cooking, and in many other details of housekeeping,there is uneconomic use of both labor andmaterials. Probably one-fourth of the expenditureof every American householder who is able to keepone or more servants is unnecessary and wasteful,and where only one servant, or none at all, is employed,the health and beauty and life of the wife areexpended in kitchen drudgery, and her opportunitiesof growth and culture are lost.

The Morning Blocks were designed as theaters ofexperiment, which, if successful, will be copied elsewhere,for freeing the household from the waste andvexation and tyranny of the kitchen. Mr. Morning’splan for bringing about this beneficent result is bothsimple and effective. The kitchen, or general cookingroom for the block, is situated in the seventeenthstory, where there is one large, and one hundredand fifty small dining rooms. Each dining room islighted either from the street or the roof, is perfectlyventilated, and has an electric bell and pneumatictube service connecting it with the kitchen, with themarket house in the basem*nt, and with the suite ofapartments below, of which it is an adjunct.

The happy householder in one of the MorningBlocks will have his choice of methods. He and family196may take their meals at the restaurant or general diningroom in the seventeenth story, either by the carte,meal, or week. He may use the general dining room,or his private dining room, or dine in his apartmentsbelow—the pneumatic tube service extending to all, anda private waiter will be furnished at a fixed price perhour. He can purchase cooked provisions by weight,delivered at either place, or purchase his own suppliesat the market house in the basem*nt and have themcooked in the general kitchen, or use his own cookingcloset, where, without waste of fuel—gas being used—hisselections may be prepared for the table and servedeither there or sent by pneumatic tube to his diningroom above.

Prices for everything furnished, whether of materialsor labor, are fixed from time to time by the manager,and all bills are required to be paid every Monday,on penalty of the tenant losing his privilege ofoccupancy. The prices charged are less than thosedemanded for similar service or material elsewhere.An account will be kept of each householder’s disbursem*nts,and his proportion of the profits madewill be returned to him at the end of the year, accordingto the usual co-operative process, the object beingto furnish each occupant of the block with whatever heneeds of food or service at actual cost.

The rent asked for the apartments in the MorningBlocks has been adjusted upon the basis of payingtaxes, insurance, repairs, and three per cent per annumupon the capital invested in the enterprise.

Mr. Morning has conveyed the one hundred blocksto the governor of New York, the mayor of New197York City, and the president of the New York Chamberof Commerce, who, with their official successors,are made perpetual trustees of this munificent gift.In the trust deed it is provided that the three per centinterest on cost, received from tenants, shall be investedin an endowment fund, payable, with its accumulations,to the tenant whenever he leaves the building, or to hiswidow or legal representative in the event of his deathwhile a tenant.

The tenant in a Morning Block will be supplied withhot and cold air, hot and cold water, steam, gas, electriclight, food, and service at actual cost. His roomswill be provided him at the cost of taxes, insurance,and repairs, and he and his family will be made thebeneficiaries of a fund, which he will be required tocreate for the contingency of his death or departurefrom the building. To guard against overcrowding,no one suite of apartments will be rented to anyfamily of more than five adults, and no subletting orhiring of apartments will be permitted.

The cost of the land is estimated at $16,000,000,and of clearing it and erecting the new buildings at$30,000,000. The taxes, with insurance, repairs, employes,and such other expenses as are in theirnature incapable of apportionment among the tenants,will amount to $810,000 per annum. This sumdivided by fifteen thousand, the number of suites ofapartments in the one hundred Morning Blocks, willgive $54 as the annual sum to be paid by each tenantfor his apartments, and he will pay $108 additionalannually toward a fund for his own benefit. Inall he will pay about $14 a month for accommodations198that it would be difficult to obtain elsewhere forfive times the amount.

The manager of each block will receive a salary of$3,000 per annum, and will, in the first instance, be selectedby the Board of Trustees, but on the first Mondayof January, 1897, and each year thereafter, theoccupants of each block, by a majority vote, can electa manager, who will, however, in the discharge of hisduties, and in the employment of assistants, be subjectto the direction and supervision of the trustees.

Mr. Morning in the trust deed conveying the MorningBlocks has named the qualifications of tenants asfollows: The applicant must be of good moral character,married, over the age of twenty-five and undersixty. He must have been at the time of his applicationfor more than one year previously in the employmentof some person, firm, or corporation engagedin a reputable business in the city of New York southof Canal Street, and be in receipt of a salary of notless than $1,000 or more than $3,000 per annum. Ifa lawyer, physician, dentist, architect, or civil engineer,author, clergyman, or journalist, his net incomemust be of a similar amount.

Applicants for suites of apartments must file theirapplications and references at the office of the MorningBlocks prior to 12 o’clock noon on the fifteenthday of August, 1895. The credentials of all applicantswill be examined and careful inquiry made as to theirhabits, characters, and antecedents, and only those willbe accepted as eligible for tenancy who can strictlycomply with the requirements.

Should there be, as is most likely, approved applications199in excess of the suites to be rented, the fifteenthousand who can be accommodated will be selectedby lot, and the others registered, and whenever vacanciesoccur a tenant to fill such vacancy will be selectedby lot from the list. Apartments will beapportioned by lot among the successful applicants.Tenants will be permitted to exchange apartments byamicable arrangement, but no transfer of apartmentsfrom a tenant to one who is not a tenant will be permitted.The tenant can surrender his right to occupyhis apartments at pleasure, but he cannot assign it, orsublet the whole or any part of the premises accordedhim.

Should six tenants who are heads of families onany floor make complaint against one of the otherfour tenants on that floor that he is obnoxious, andthat in the general interest his tenancy ought to beterminated, a jury of fifteen tenants of that building,selected by lot, one from each of the other floors, shallbe made up to try the accused, who shall have opportunityto cross-examine the witnesses against him, andto present his defense. The manager shall presideand preserve order, and if twelve of the fifteen jurorsshall concur in finding that the tenancy of the accusedought to terminate, he may appeal to the Board ofTrustees, and unless they unanimously exonerate him,his tenancy must cease.

Our reporter interviewed Mr. Morning, who wasfound at his offices in lower Broadway, and inquiredof that gentleman if it were true, as rumored, that heintended to erect similar buildings on another part ofManhattan Island.

200“I have secured,” replied that gentleman, “all theland for a hundred blocks in and about the localityknown as ‘the Hook,’ and I propose the erection ofbuildings there that will accommodate forty thousandfamilies of mechanics and laborers. There will, ofcourse, be less room for each occupant than in theblocks just completed, and less expensive arrangementsin many particulars, but the rent and cost ofliving will be less, and the premises will be rented andconducted substantially on the same plan, with onlysuch difference in rules as may be necessary.”

“What will be the cost of these latter buildings, Mr.Morning?” said our reporter.

“With the land, about $30,000,000,” was the reply.

“It is a pity,” commented our reporter, “that everycity in the land cannot count a David Morning amongits citizens, with a gold mine at his command.”

“The mine is not necessary,” said Morning.“There are a dozen men in every large city of our landwho, without any gold mine, could do what I havedone. I hope,” continued the speaker, “not to bealone in the work of helping the people both to employmentand homes.”

“None of our millionaires,” said the reporter,“have thus used their money.”

“It must be remembered,” rejoined Morning,“that the very, great fortunes of this country havemainly been created during the last twenty-five years,and in the eager and necessarily selfish strife incidentto their acquisition, their owners have not always consideredthat their possession is a great trust whichbrings with it duties as well as rights.”

201“But I see the dawn of a better day and a betterfeeling,” continued Mr. Morning. “I hear of manygentlemen in different parts of the country who areproposing to use millions for the erection of homes,and the secure establishment of co-operative industriesfor the benefit of the workers of the land. My ideais that no man should be accorded an unearned dinnerwho has refused a chance to earn it, but that it isthe duty of society to provide every man with an opportunityof earning. Of what value at last is wealthunless one can use it for the benefit of his fellow-men?Charon will not transport gold across the Styx at anyrate of ferriage. Of what use is money here exceptin one form and another to give it away? No mancan expend on his own legitimate and proper comfortsand pleasures the interest on $1,000,000 at fiveper cent per annum.”

“There are many men, Mr. Morning, who expenda good deal more than $50,000 a year.”

“Not in the sense of personal expenditures. Mansions,laces, diamonds, furniture, horses, carriages,and the like are investments rather than expenditures.Receptions and banquets may be classed with gifts.He must be an industrious man who can, with hisfamily, eat, drink, and wear out $50,000 worth eachyear.”

“But is there not the pleasure of accumulation itself,Mr. Morning?”

“I suppose so,” replied that gentleman, “or menwould not pursue it; but it is a cultivated and not anatural taste. Every man for instance, requires apair of trousers and a hat, but after he has acquired202enough of such articles for the use of himself and hisfamily for life, and a generous supply for his descendants,why work the balance of his days to fill warehouseswith trousers and hats? I do not know,” continuedMr. Morning—and our reporter thought thatthere was a deeper shade in his sea-gray eyes—“I donot know that I shall ever marry, but if I had boys Iwould leave them no fortunes larger than would sufficefor a generous support.”

“Will you, then,” queried our reporter, “expendin your own lifetime all the great revenues of theMorning mine?”

“All that I can find time, strength, and opportunityto expend in ways that will help the world,” rejoinedthe Arizona Gold King.

[From the New York Times, July 17, 1895.]

Mr. David Morning is engaged in works of apparentcharity, which to many thoughtful men will seeman injury rather than a benefit to the world. Capitalistsare entitled to receive interest upon their investments,and if inducement to accumulation be takenaway by the competition of such Utopians as Mr.Morning, then frugality may cease to be accounted avirtue.

On the whole, wouldn’t it be better for the businessworld, and the stability of property and propertyrights, if the tenants of the Morning Blocks were compelledto pay the full rental value of their apartments?

[From the New York Socialist, July 19, 1895.]

Dave Morning is endeavoring to throw dust in theeyes of the working masses of the country, by erecting203seventeen-story palaces for boodle bookkeepers,and twenty-story tenement houses for mechanics.He has filled San Francisco, Chicago, and severalother cities with his humbug Co-operative Labor AidSocieties. He is evidently plotting for the presidencyin 1896, and expects to reach the White House by agolden path.

“The poor of this country should accept no employmentas a boon, nor consent to engage in any wage-savingand profit-sharing corporation that will forcethem to accumulate, and they should take no suchfavors from the rich as cheap rents or free homes.Let the unnatural accumulations of rich scoundrels bedistributed among the people. No man is honestlyentitled to have or hold anything except the fruits ofhis own labor. It would be better for the world, andfor the great cause of socialism which the pseudophilanthropy of Morning delays and obstructs, if thisArizona Gold King could be tumbled head first downone of his own shafts, and his seventeen-story marble-pavedEdens be dynamited out of existence.”

Morning’s business offices were on the west sideof Broadway, below Trinity Church, but he gave attentionto his large and increasing correspondence inhis rooms at the Hoffman House, where he had a suiteof apartments fronting on Broadway.

The largest room of the suite had always been reservedby the proprietors for a private dining room,but Morning insisted upon its constituting a part ofhis suite, and as he permitted the hotel keepers toname their own price, it was reluctantly surrenderedto him. In this room Morning had a large-sizedphonograph receiver fitted into the wall opposite hisdesk, the instrument itself being placed upon a longtable against the partition in the adjacent room. Acord which swung over the desk was fastened to alever connected with an electric motor, also in thenext room.

It was Morning’s habit each day after breakfast toseat himself at his desk, open his letters, pull the cordwhich started the electric motor, and “talk” his repliesto the phonograph receiver. The instrumentin the next room was arranged to hold a cylinder ofsufficient length to receive a communication an hourin length. After Morning had completed this portion205of his daily labors, it was the duty of his secretary toremove the cylinders, and place them in other phonographs,where two and sometimes three clerks receivedtheir contents, and reduced the same to typewritermanuscript.

This simple contrivance had still another use.Morning knew that there was no such fruitful sourceof business difficulties and consequent litigation asthat which emanated from misunderstanding or misrepresentationof verbal communications. He endeavored,therefore, to conduct all important business conversationsin this room, and all the utterances of eitherparty were recorded by the faithful and unerringphonograph, and the cylinders upon which they werereported were properly labeled, dated, and storedaway. He did not fail in any instance to inform theperson with whom he was conversing that all theirwords were thus finding accurate record.

One day in October, 1895, while Morning was inChicago—where he had gone to perfect the organizationof a Labor Aid Corporation—the great financier,Mr. Arnold Claybank, stopped at the Hoffman Houseon his way down town, and ordered a choice dinnerfor three to be served at seven o’clock that day.

“And have it served in the room fronting uponBroadway, where we always dine,” said the millionaire.

“Very sorry, Mr. Claybank,” answered the clerk,“but that room is at present rented to Mr. DavidMorning, as a part of his suite, and when he is intown he uses it as a room in which to receive andanswer his correspondence; at present he is in Chicago.”

206“If he is in Chicago,” replied the Wall Streetmagnate, “you can have our dinner served in theroom as usual. It will not disturb him, certainly, evenif he should know of it, and he is not likely to know ofit unless you tell him. I have dined in that roomwith my friends at least once a week during the lasttwenty years, and, not supposing you would ever rentit for other purposes, I have already invited them tomeet me there this evening. I don’t like to change,in fact, I won’t change, and if you will not accommodateme I will take my patronage elsewhere.”

After some hesitation, the clerk agreed to have dinnerserved in the room desired, and at seven o’clockthat evening Mr. Arnold Claybank, with his guests,Mr. Isaiah Wolf and Mr. John Gray, assembled todiscuss both the menu and the subject of their gathering.

Not until the last course was removed, the Burgundyon the table, the cigars lighted, and the waiterexcused from further attendance, did the great capitalistsapproach the real object of their meeting. Mr.Claybank observed that they might need writingmaterials, and, stepping to Morning’s desk, he seatedhimself thereat, and pulled what he supposed to be abell cord that would summon a waiter. No waiterappeared in answer to the supposed summons, andClaybank, taking a notebook and pencil from hispocket, remarked that they would serve his purpose.

These three gentlemen had dined well, and shouldhave been in a pleasant frame of mind toward theworld, for good dinners are, or ought to be, humanizingin their tendencies. Yet there are natures which207will remain unaffected even by terrapins, Marylandstyle, and roasted canvas-back duck, assimilated withthe aid of Lafitte and Pommery Sec., and no tigerscrouching in the jungle were ever more merciless andconscienceless in their rapacity than these three black-coatedcapitalists.

Mr. Arnold Claybank was the leading spirit of theconclave. His wealth was popularly estimated at$100,000,000. He had inherited none of it. Atthirty-five years of age he was a dry goods merchantin an interior city in Ohio, possessed of less than$100,000. During his frequent visits to New York topurchase goods he was in the habit of “taking a flyer”in the stock market. These flyers proved so continuouslysuccessful, and added so largely to his capital,that in a few years he closed out his dry goods business,removed permanently to the metropolis, boughta seat in the stock board, and soon became known asone of the boldest and shrewdest operators in thestreet.

He was rapid and usually accurate in judgment,and always possessed of the courage of his convictions.He was as cunning as the gray fox, to which he wasoften likened. He was suave in manner but mercilessin the execution of his plans. He was identified inthe public mind with several of the boldest and mostunscrupulous operations in the history of Wall Street,and his millions had steadily and rapidly increased,until now, at sixty years of age, he was one of theacknowledged kings of New York finance.

Isaiah Wolf was, as his name indicated, of Hebreworigin. He was about the same age as Claybank,208and had many of the qualities of that gentleman,lacking, however, his courage and his quickness ofcomprehension and movement. He was a gamblerby birth, education, and instinct, and a gambler whonever failed to use all advantages possible.

Thirty years before he had been a clothing merchantand dealer in city, county, and legislative warrantsat Portland, Oregon. He furnished the impecuniouslegislators, when they came down from themountain counties, with an outfit of clothing; he discountedtheir salaries at three per cent per month; hewas usually the custodian of the lobby funds, and hecould always introduce senator or assemblyman to aquiet game of “draw,” where, whenever a huge“pot” was in dispute, Isaiah could usually be foundsafely entrenched behind the winning hand.

When the Comstock mines began to yield theirgreat output of silver in 1875–77, the Wolf Brotherslocated in San Francisco, made their homes onPine and California Streets, and gambled in miningstocks from the vantage-ground of secret knowledge,for in every mine were one or more miners under pay,not only from the mining company, but from IsaiahWolf. In 1879, when the transactions in the stockboard of San Francisco had dwindled to a tithe oftheir former magnitude, and when the sand-lot agitatorssucceeded in grafting their ideas of financeand taxation upon the organic law of California,Isaiah Wolf and his brother Emanuel gathered theirassets together and joined the exodus of millionaires.In New York City they opened a bankers’ and brokers’office, and were now accounted as jointly the209possessors of $80,000,000, the management of whichwas left almost exclusively to Isaiah.

John Gray was an insignificant-looking old man ofseventy. From his unkempt beard, watery eyes,shrinking manner, and small stature, he might havebeen taken for a congressional doorkeeper who hadseen better days. In truth, there was, under his ignobleexterior, one of the broadest, wiliest, and best-informedminds in America. He was the acknowledged leaderof Wall Street in ability and resources. His wealthwas estimated at quite $150,000,000, and it had beencreated by himself in about forty-five years.

He began life as a Vermont peddler, but at the ageof twenty-five carried his New England education, hiscapacity for calculation, his retentive memory, hisfrugal habits, and his tireless energy into New YorkCity, where he began as porter and messenger in theoffice of a broker. He soon learned the history andmethods of the principal operators of the Wall Streetof that day, and his savings were shrewdly, quietly,and boldly invested on “points” which he picked upwhile delivering messages or awaiting replies. Hesoon accumulated a large sum of money, yet he kepthis humble place, and his employer never suspectedwhen he paid the faithful porter his $40 at the end ofeach month, that the quiet and deferential young mancould have purchased not only his employer’s business,but the building in which it was conducted.

Gray remained as porter and messenger for fiveyears, declining all offers which were made to him ofpromotion to a desk and a higher salary. The place heheld gave him opportunities which could be obtained210in no other way. None suspected the quiet and stolid-lookingman, who seemed so dull of comprehensionwhen any verbal message was intrusted to him; andwords were dropped and conversations held in hispresence which, when fitted by his quick and comprehensivebrain into other words and conversationsheld in other offices, often enabled him to forecastevents. The man who by any means is accuratelyadvised of the real intentions of the leaders of WallStreet a day or even an hour before their execution,has a key to wealth, and Gray used this key, conductingall his operations through one broker, who waspledged to secrecy.

At the time of the great deal in Harlem, so successfullyengineered before the war by Commodore Vanderbilt,Gray was still occupying his place as messenger.He overheard a conversation held in thecommodore’s private office between that gentlemanand his confidential clerk, and, comprehending themagnitude of the opportunity, he directed that all hisresources, which then amounted to nearly $200,000, beplaced in Harlem stock. He was enabled, under thesystem of margins which prevailed in Wall Street,to purchase $2,000,000 worth of the stock, which hesold at an average advance of fifty per cent, clearing$1,000,000 by the operation.

The old commodore, who had himself made $6,000,000by the deal, found that somebody had beensharing profits with him to the extent of $1,000,000,and, not supposing that this was the result of guesswork,he used means to discover who was the cunningoperator and what were the sources of his information.211Without much difficulty he traced the transactions toJohn Gray, and, remembering the presence of thatyoung man in the anteroom at the time of givingdirections to his confidential clerk, he was not at aloss to determine how it came about.

The commodore considered that Gray had gained$1,000,000 which should have come to his own coffers,and he determined to “give the young fellow a lesson,sir,” as he said to his confidential clerk. That morningGray’s employer received—to his great surprise—acall from Vanderbilt, who, to his greater surprise, informedhim of the true status of his messenger, whohad become a millionaire. Gray’s employer readilypromised to assist in the scheme which Vanderbiltformed for punishing Gray and “stripping him of hisill-gotten gains, sir.” Vanderbilt required only thatGray’s employer should next day send Gray to Vanderbilt’soffice, with a verbal message, inquiring,“What is to be done about Erie?”

The next day Gray called and delivered his messageto the commodore in his private office.

“Take a seat, young man, until I can write a reply,”was the direction, and Gray deferentially seated himselfupon the edge of a chair, and gazed at the carpetstolidly, while the commodore penned the following:“Buy all the Erie offered at market rates up to fifty-three.C. V.” This note the commodore placed in anenvelope, which he directed, but apparently forgot toseal, and handed it to Gray, who thereupon departed.As the door closed behind the messenger, the veteranbull smote himself upon the sides, and threw his headback and laughed.

212Gray noticed that the envelope was not sealed, andbefore he reached the bottom of the stairs, he possessedhimself of its contents.

Then he fell into a train of thought. Erie was sellingat $37, and Gray was thoroughly posted as tothe resources, liabilities, and business of the road,and knew very nearly who were the principal stockholders.He knew that the commodore held fullyone-third of the capital stock of Erie, which had costhim not more than $30 a share, and he also knew thatthe old gentleman had been for some time selling hisstock at $37 as fast as he could do so without breakingthe market. Thirty-seven was really a nursedprice for the stock; it was more than the conditionand prospects of the road warranted, and Gray didnot believe that Vanderbilt intended to purchase anygreat quantity, even at $37, or that it would be possiblefor him to run the stock to $53 without purchasingthe entire amount.

Gray delivered the note to his employer, and askedthat gentleman if he might be excused for half an hourto attend to some matters of business of his own.Leave of absence was graciously granted, and Graywas watched to the door of the office of the brokerwho had bought and sold his Harlem stock. ThenGray’s employer walked to the office of the expectantcommodore and informed him that the young manhad swallowed the bait, for he had gone to the officeof his broker, probably to order large purchases ofErie.

Vanderbilt thanked the broker, assured him that inthe division of the spoils he should not be forgotten,213and authorized him in furtherance of their project topurchase all the Erie offered up to $42, to which figureVanderbilt proposed to run the stock before lettingit drop.

Gray directed his broker to purchase Erie in one-hundred-sharelots, beginning at $37, and to follow themarket up to $53 if it reached that figure, but not topurchase more than five thousand shares in all. Havinggiven this direction, he walked into the back officeof a firm of brokers, who, although leaders in the market,had never succeeded in obtaining any businessfrom Vanderbilt, and between them and that gentlemanthere was a business feud of long standing. The quietmessenger was well known to the head of the firm,who greeted him pleasantly.

“What can I do for you, Gray,” said he.

“I would like to take your time for not more thanfive minutes,” said Gray.

“I am pretty busy,” said the gentleman, “but Iwill try and oblige you,” and he led the way to aninner office.

The broker’s eyes distended with astonishment asGray rapidly told how he had made such use of hisopportunities as porter and messenger as to accumulate,by speculation, a large sum of money, and thathe desired now to employ their firm in an operationwhich, for reasons of his own, he did not care to intrustto his regular broker.

The gentleman smilingly agreed to accept Mr.Gray’s business, and opened his eyes still wider whenGray took from his pockets large packages containingbonds and securities to the amount of half a million214dollars, and, depositing them as collateral, directedthe broker to sell all the Erie for which hecould find buyers at forty and over, and to buy it wheneverit went below thirty-three.

That day Erie mounted, under the pressure of Vanderbilt’spurchases, and the flurry created thereby, to$43, at which figure an immense quantity changedhands. Then it fell rapidly, point by point, back to$37, and, under the influence of a temporary panic,went down to $32, at which figure it rallied andmounted to $35, where it stood at the close of the day.

Mr. Gray’s regular broker reported to him purchasesof five thousand shares Erie at prices rangingfrom $37 to $42, and averaging about $39. He regrettedthat Mr. Gray had not authorized a sale at$43.25, which was the highest point reached, and atclosing figures Mr. Gray must lose about $20,000.

And Mr. Gray’s new brokers reported to him salesof eighty thousand shares of Erie, at an average of$41.50, which had been repurchased at an averageof $34.50, with a profit to Mr. Gray of $540,000,which they held, subject to his check.

And when the returns were all in at the office of theold commodore, and that white-whiskered, choleric,kind-hearted, and courageous old bull found that heowned more Erie than ever, at higher prices thanthose for which he had sold a small part of his holdings,and that the rattan which he had prepared forGray had fallen upon his own shoulders, he stormedfor a while and clothed himself with cursing as with agarment, and then he cooled off and laughed. Thenhe sent a note, this time not to John Gray’s employer,215but to John Gray himself, which read as follows:“Young fellow, you are a genius. Come and dinewith me at six o’clock to-day, at Delmonico’s. C. V.”

The friendship cemented at that dinner, betweenthe great capitalist and the ex-messenger—for Grayreturned no more to his duties as a porter—continueduntil the day of the commodore’s death.

Gray continued to operate in Wall Street, both insmall and large ways, and seldom made a loss. Whenthe first loud mutterings of the civil conflict began toshake the land, he became a heavy purchaser of tar,resin, and cotton, and, later, of gold. When theUnion armies were defeated and the day looked darkest,and gold mounted to two hundred and eightypremium, he never faltered in his belief in the ultimatetriumph of the nation, and he sold gold andbought government bonds, and margined one againstthe other, and risked little and gained much.

A year after the sun went down upon Appomattox,the Yankee peddler was worth $20,000,000, and tenyears later he was worth $50,000,000. He abandonedsuch stock operations as were dependent fortheir success upon other men’s movements and plans,and only engaged in such as he could absolutely control.He gambled only with marked cards andloaded dice. He bought a control of the stocks andbonds of badly-managed and bankrupt railroads. Heconsolidated them, re-equipped them, built feeders,opened new sources of traffic, and so doubled, trebled,and quadrupled his investments. He sold short thestock of a prosperous railroad, and obtained, by purchaseof proxies, the control of its management. He216cut rates, diminished traffic, enlarged expenses, andpassed dividends until he depreciated the value of thestock to a point where he could gain millions by coveringhis shorts, and other millions by again restoringthe road to prosperity. In one instance, by hispaid emissaries, he promoted a general strike, until,through riot and fires and suspension of traffic, thestock of the afflicted corporation was depreciated tothe price at which he desired to purchase a controllinginterest.

John Gray was an exemplary father and husband, agood neighbor, and, in a small way, generous andcharitable; but in his larger dealings with mankindhe was a moral idiot, without conscience or perception.The world is no better for his life; the youth ofthe land are the worse for his example of successfulscoundrelism, and those who wish well to their countryand their kind, will have a right to stand besidehis coffin and thank God that he is dead.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Arnold Claybank, “that weall understand the general outlines of our project, andthat this meeting is for the purpose of talking overdetails.”

“Our purpose,” said Mr. Wolf, “of I gomprehentit, is to use the bower dot we haf in our hants, tomake for ourselves about fifty millions of tollarsapiece. Is not dot apout vot it vas, eh?”

“We need not, I think, discuss that question,” saidGray suavely.

“Exactly,” said Claybank. “Now I propose thatwe list the securities which we shall place in our pool,at the closing quotations of the Stock Exchange to-day,217each one of us being credited with his contributions.The stocks contributed will aggregate in valueabout $150,000,000, at present market prices, and, asnearly as possible, will be contributed by us equally.It is also understood that the stocks and bonds placedin the pool will constitute the entire holdings of eachand all of us, in that class of property. Am I correct?”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Gray.

“Dot is also my unterstanting,” said Wolf.

“Very well,” resumed Claybank, “these securitiesare to be placed in the offices of different brokers, andturned into cash as rapidly as possible without breakingthe market. The public will, I think, take themeasily in a week, for the market is rising, and permanentas well as speculative investment is in order.”

“Ont then we lock up the gash for which we sellsthe stock, ain’t it?” said Wolf.

“Not immediately,” rejoined Claybank, “it mustbe left in the banks in the usual channels for a time, orthere will be no money for them to loan to the buyersof stocks. Having sold our own securities, we will nextproceed to sell short at ruling prices to as large an extentas possible.”

“Your plan is admirable,” said Mr. Gray. “Wewill next arrange at the banks for borrowing all themoney that they can spare without suspending payment,and we will compel them to withdraw all loansnow out. Through our joint and separate control of,and influence with, the officers and directors, we oughtto be able to borrow in this city, and in Boston andPhiladelphia, as much as $150,000,000, which, added218to $150,000,000 received from sale of our stocks, willgive us control of $350,000,000 in cash.”

“Will dey loan so much as $150,000,000 evenupon the personal security of such men as we?” saidWolf.

“They will not be asked to do so,” said Gray.“The money borrowed can be sealed up and left asspecial deposits in their vaults as security for itself,with a small margin of one or two per cent to coverinterest.”

“Dot inderest, of we borrow for thirty days at sixper cent, on $150,000,000 will amount to three kevawtersof a million of tollars; ont that amount we lose outof our bockets; ont the interest on our own $150,000,000which will be itle for a month will be another threekevawters of a million. It makes US$500,000 each tolose. It is a great teal of money to lose,” said Wolf.

“That,” said Claybank, “is all we lose, and ispractically all we risk. It is essential to the successof our plans that for a brief period we shall withdrawfrom the channels of commerce a large portion of themoney of the country. We cannot withdraw it unlesswe control it; we cannot control it unless we borrowit; and we cannot borrow it without paying bank ratesof interest upon it.”

“How,” said Gray, “do you propose to supplythe necessary margins for the stock which we sellshort? When you borrow stock on a rapidly-fallingmarket, the loaner expects at some time a reaction,and an equally rapid advance, and you will have togive him a pretty big margin beyond the money whichyou receive from a sale of the borrowed stock.”

219“We shall have for that purpose,” replied Claybank,“the $150,000,000 received from the sale ofour own stock. This, at fifty per cent fall in prices,will margin borrowings of three hundred millions ofstock, and this money we can arrange to have lockedup in special deposits as well as the money we borrow.”

“Ont to how low a point shall we put brices beforewe commence to cover?” said Wolf.

“That,” replied Claybank, “will be a matter forfuture consideration. My present impression is thatwe can by thus locking up the currency bear the marketone-half. We must not proceed so far as wemight go, or we will ruin everybody, so that there willbe no investors to purchase stocks when we wish tosell them again after we have loaded up for a rise.”

“Ont how much we makes by bearing fifty percent?” asked Wolf.

“It is easily calculated,” replied Claybank. “Ifour plans succeed, we sell one hundred and fifty millionsof our own holdings at present prices. In orderto bear the market fifty per cent below present prices,we must continue to sell down, diminishing the quantitywe sell as prices recede, and when we begin tocover, we must buy all we can at the lowest point,diminishing our purchases as prices advance. Thosenot familiar with such things would be surprised toknow that the ebb and flow of values in the stockmarket is almost as regular, and can be almost as certainlypredicted, as the movement of the tides. Sucha movement as we propose is artificial, yet, to an extent,it will be similarly controlled by the influences of220human nature. If we sell one hundred and fifty millionsof stock at an average of say one hundred, andthree hundred millions at an average say of eighty,and buy it all back at an average of sixty, we will gainone hundred and twenty millions, and that, I think,is about all we can calculate upon.”

“But have you considered, gentlemen, the otherside of the question?” said Gray. “Have you fullyconsidered whether there may not exist influencesthat will defeat us? Depend upon it, once we inauguratethis raid, our rivals in business will plot to overthrowus. Such great newspapers as are not in ourcontrol will denounce us. The Treasury Departmentat Washington, which is under the control of theFarmers’ Alliance party, will use every effort to breakdown our combination, and we shall be howled atgenerally as ghouls and villains. I do not care muchabout the public or the newspapers, but we must takeevery possible precaution against failure.”

“That is right,” said Claybank. “I have consideredall these things and I do not see how our plancan be defeated. The newspapers may denounce usbut cannot overthrow our plan, which, at last, is verysimple. We produce a panic and depression of pricesby locking up the circulating medium, and prices canonly be advanced by unlocking the money and restoringit, or other money in its place, to the channels ofcommerce. The money which we lock up in specialdeposits must remain in the bank vaults until werelease it. No bank officer would for any reason orunder any pressure dare to touch a special deposit.It would be a penitentiary offense to tamper with it.”

221“Are you sure,” said Gray, “that other capitalistsmay not combine, and provide other money to takethe place of that which we lock up?”

“The only other very large sum of money in thecountry within the control of anybody,” replied Claybank,“is $300,000,000 in the treasury vaults at Washington.The laws authorizing government deposits inbanks, as well as the law authorizing bond purchasesin the discretion of the secretary of the treasury, have,as you know, been repealed. There are absolutelybut two ways to get that $300,000,000 out of thetreasury vaults. One is by the ordinary disbursem*ntsof government, which would take a year or more, andthe other is by somebody depositing, under the law of1894, gold or silver bars to that amount, and nobodyin the world is able to command three hundred, orone hundred, or even fifty millions of dollars in goldor silver bullion.”

“The new mining capitalist, David Morning, mightsupply the bars from his mine in Arizona if we gavehim a few years’ time,” said Gray.

“Yes, and if we gave him time he would be crankenough to do it,” replied Claybank. “But we won’tgive him time. How much does his mine yield, anyhow?”

“Four millions a month in solit golt,” said Wolf.“It has yieltet that sum now for teventy months. Ihear that it is nearly worked out, but nopoty can getinto it, and you can’t tell anything apout it. If it continuesto yielt at that rate for a few years, dot fellow isgoing to make us all some trupple. He is crazy as aloon, though he has taken out of his mine overeighty millons of tollars.”

222“Even his $80,000,000, if he has them in money,might disarrange our plans,” said Gray.

“He has plown them all in, puilding plocks forglerks ont poor people, ont he disgriminates againstHebrews, or his trustees do. A Jew knows a gootthing when he fints it, ont there were eighteen thousantapplications from Jew glerks for the prifilege ofrenting apartments in the Morning Blocks, ont thecommittee made up a mean drick to get rit of them.They requiret every man who applied for rooms toanswer whether it was easier to fill to a bob-tail flushor a sequence, ont those who answered the questionthey refused to pass, on the grount that they knewtoo much apout draw poker to haf goot moral characters.”

“I do not see,” said Claybank, after the laughterat Wolf’s indignation had subsided, “that we needtake Mr. Morning into consideration as a disturbingelement in our present plans. If the present outputof his mine shall continue, it must, by and by, greatlyadvance prices of stocks and all other property, butthat is in the future.”

“Have we anything further to consider?” saidGray.

“I think,” replied Claybank, rising, “that weunderstand each other perfectly. I will have triplicatememorandums made of our agreement, which wecan execute in my office to-morrow morning at nineo’clock, where we will have our stocks brought at thesame time. This Burgundy is the genuine article,Clos Voguet, vintage of 1875. I propose as a partingtoast, ‘Success to our enterprise.’”

223And the phonograph needle in the adjoining roomwrote in mystic scratches upon the wax, “Success toour enterprise.” Then came the shuffling of feet, thesound of a closing door, and the faint buzz of theelectric motor until it ceased, and silence reigned.

David Morning returned to New York threedays after the dinner party described in the last chapter.His typewriters were in attendance as usual,and he began opening his accumulated correspondance,when his secretary knocked at the door communicatingwith the next room, and, entering, said tohis employer:—

“Mr. Morning, pardon me for disturbing you, butwill you please step into the phonograph room.There is a good deal of matter on the cylinders whichhas been placed there by others in your absence, and,I judge, placed there inadvertently. I think you hadbetter hear it yourself before it is transcribed.”

Morning walked into the other room and was for halfan hour an interested auditor of the revelations of thewonderful phonograph. He directed his secretaryto remove, label, and lock up the cylinders containingthe dinner-party conversation, and said in conclusion:—

“Mr. Stephens, somebody has evidently been havinga dinner party in this room during my absence.It was not a nice thing for the proprietors to do, butI shall not notice it. Try to find out who dinedhere, without disclosing that I am aware that the room225was occupied. I think I recognize the voices of theoccupants, but I wish to be sure.”

By inquiring among the waiters, the secretary ascertained,and reported to Mr. Morning, that the guestswere Claybank, Wolf, and Gray.

That night our hero departed for Washington, andearly next morning he was closeted with the secretaryof the treasury, to whom he revealed the knowledgegathered from the phonograph cylinders.

“It is an infamous piece of business,” said thesecretary warmly, “but what, Mr. Morning, can I doabout it?”

“Mr. Secretary,” said Morning, “will you pardonme for saying frankly that it is your duty to bafflethese conspirators and restore values to their normalcondition. It is the business of the government toprovide a supply of money for the needs and uses ofcommerce. These scoundrels will bring about a panicby locking up in the vaults of New York, Philadelphia,and Boston banks, $300,000,000, which ought tobe in circulation among the people. You have threehundred millions of coin and paper money in thetreasury. Why not pour this money into Wall Street,break the back of this conspiracy, and relieve the people?”

“But I have no authority, Mr. Morning, as youmust know, to use one dollar of this money for anyother purposes than those designated by law. If Ihad the power, believe me, I would be only too gladto exercise it as you desire.”

“Does not the Act of Congress of February, 1894,known as the free coinage law, permit you, Mr. Secretary,226to substitute gold or silver bars of standard fineness,for the coined money and paper money in thetreasury vaults?”

“Yes,” replied the secretary, “but I do not see howthat law can be invoked to relieve the situation.There are not three hundred millions of gold and silveringots in private ownership in the country, or,probably, in the world. The very large output of$1,000,000 in gold per week from the Morning minewill not serve us in this exigency. It would requiresix years’ yield of your mine, Mr. Morning, to furnishenough gold to release the money now in the treasury,and baffle Messrs. Gray, Claybank, and Wolf.Three hundred millions of dollars is a good deal ofmoney, Mr. Morning—a good deal of money.”

“Relatively it is, Mr. Secretary, but I have fivetimes that sum in gold bars here, in Philadelphia, andNew York.”

The secretary glanced at the Arizona Gold King,and looked uneasily at the bell cord which hungabove his desk.

“No, I am not crazy,” said Morning with a laugh,“though I do not blame you for thinking so. Thetime has come somewhat sooner than I expected forintrusting you with my secret. The Morning mineis a phenomenal deposit of gold. It is so large that,fearing any general knowledge of its extent mightcause demonetization of gold by the nations, I tookmeasures to conceal its true yield, and for everyounce of gold which I shipped to New York or Londonas the ostensible product of the mine, I shippedtwenty-five other ounces disguised as pig-copper to227this city, or New York, or Philadelphia, or Liverpool.In the latter place $1,000,000,000 are stored, and thereare $500,000,000 in each of the American cities I havenamed. A month ago I sent four of my trusted menfrom the mine to this city, where they have sincebeen busy with cold chisels, releasing the gold barsfrom their copper moulds. They will go from hereto Philadelphia and New York, and thence to Liverpool,for similar labors. I did not intend, Mr. Secretary,to offer any of this gold for coinage or sale untilable to present it simultaneously at European andAmerican mints. But the present exigency inducesme to turn over to the United States for coinage, thefive hundred millions of gold bars now ready for deliveryin this city. I may add, Mr. Secretary, toquiet the apprehensions which your deep interest inthe commercial prosperity of the country might leadyou to entertain, that I have not intended, and do notnow intend, to throw $2,500,000,000 of new moneyimmediately into the channels of commerce. I shallchange the gold bars into money at once, in orderthat the present value may not, by demonetization,be taken away from gold; but, once transformed intomoney, it will be fed gradually to the world, and notprecipitated upon it.”

“But, Mr. Morning, it will require the constantlabor for a long time of the mint and all its branches tocoin this large sum, and you require the money atonce.”

“I propose, Mr. Secretary, to avail myself of thelaw of February, 1894, and claim treasury notes formy ingots. That Act of Congress will enable you to228print in two or three days enough bills of large denominationto cover the whole sum.”

“You astound me, Mr. Morning, but I suppose Imust believe you.”

“If you will ride with me to the foot of Sixth Street,Mr. Secretary, I will exhibit to you $500,000,000 ingold bars.”

“But, Mr. Morning, even $500,000,000 suddenlypoured into Wall Street will create a wilder panicand precipitate worse results, than those which maycome from the pending conspiracy.”

“I do not think so,” said Morning quietly. “Itis contraction and not inflation that hurts. A floodmay be disastrous to the crops in places, but a generaldrought will surely kill them all.”

“If Congress were in session, Mr. Morning, itwould be likely to demonetize gold. It would neversuffer fifteen hundred millions of money to be thusadded to the present currency. Why, such anamount will double at once the entire paper and metallicmoney of the country!”

“But Congress is not in session, Mr. Secretary,and you will pardon me for saying that, whatevermay be your individual opinion as to consequences,you have no power to refuse to issue gold notes asfast as you can cause them to be engraved, for anyamount of gold bars that I may offer.”

“True,” replied the secretary.

“But I repeat, Mr. Secretary, that I hope to guardagainst the evils you apprehend. I should be an unworthycustodian of the great trust which has comeinto my hands, if I could misuse it to harm either mycountry or my fellow-men.”

229“I believe you, Mr. Morning.”

“For the present I can only use the ingots whichare here in Washington. The New York and Philadelphiahoards will be ready in about a month, whenI shall require treasury notes for them, but before Ioffer them to you, and before their existence shall beknown generally, I shall endeavor to place in themints at London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Milan, Vienna,and St. Petersburg, and in the banks of theprincipal cities of Europe simultaneously, in exchangefor metallic and paper money of those countries, theone thousand millions now in Liverpool.”

The secretary bowed.

“Will you order three hundred millions of goldnotes, of the denomination of $1,000 each, printed atonce, and arrange to weigh, test, and receive the fivehundred millions of bars in my warehouse at the footof Sixth Street? If it be not irregular, you might receivethe ingots where they are, deliver to me at oncethe two hundred millions of paper money now in thetreasury vaults, and the remaining three hundredmillions when printed. The gold bars can be removedto the treasury vaults at your convenience. Iask that this method be followed because, if I am torelieve the situation in New York, I must be on handthere with the actual currency. Ordinarily treasurydrafts would answer the purpose, but, under presentcirc*mstances, they would be useless, as no bankcould cash them, and they are not a legal tender.These bandits will have locked up all the money inspecial deposits, and their well-devised scheme canonly be baffled by one who has—outside of any channel230within their control, and outside of their knowledge—avast sum in actual money.”

“How, may I ask, do you propose to defeat theirplans, Mr. Morning?”

“My brokers will purchase for cash all the stocksthey offer, and, on deposit of sufficient margin, loanthem the stocks back again, to be again sold to me.In brief, I will take all their ‘shorts,’ and all thestocks sold by others which their conspiracy will forceupon the market. When they have forced pricesdown to a point where they are ready to cover theirshorts and buy for an advance, I will suddenly jumpprices to the level they occupied before the conspiratorscommenced their operations, and thus commendto their own lips the bitter draught they have preparedfor others. I shall know—for I have manysources of information, Mr. Secretary—I shall knowwhat portion of my purchases of stock will come fromthe conspirators, and what portion from men whowill be forced by the panic to part with their holdings.I shall subsequently make good to those others alltheir losses. The one or two hundred millions whichI may by this process extract from Mr. Gray, Mr.Claybank, and Mr. Wolf, I shall not”—and Morningsmiled—“restore to them. I shall devote it tofounding and maintaining industrial schools.”

“Your plan, Mr. Morning, is a brave and giganticone. Is there no chance of its failure?”

“Not if I can have your co-operation, Mr. Secretary,in keeping secret for a week or ten days the factthat you have, under the law of February, 1894, receivedfive hundred millions of ingot gold, and issued231treasury notes therefor. These scoundrels will havelocked up all the available money in the great financialcenters. They know that, under the present law,the three hundred millions of paper and coin moneyin the government vaults cannot be released so as toflow into the channels of commerce except by depositsof gold or silver bullion to take its place. Mysecret has been carefully kept, and they do not dreamof the existence in private ownership of five hundredmillions, or even fifty millions, in gold bars. If I cankeep this secret from them until the hour to strikearrives, I will give them a lesson that will cure themfor the future of any disposition to lock up moneyand constrict the arterial blood of commerce for thepurposes of private gain.”

“But will not their losses be largely on paper, Mr.Morning? What if they refuse to pay?”

“I shall not go into court with them, Mr. Secretary,and it will not be necessary. Let me furtherillustrate. They sell one thousand shares say ofNorthwestern at $110, and I buy it. They take the$110,000 received by them from my broker and addto it ten or twenty thousand dollars for margin, andborrow from me the one thousand shares of Northwesternjust sold me, depositing the one hundredand twenty or one hundred and thirty thousand dollarsas security for the return of the borrowed stock.When Northwestern, under the pressure of their sales,descends to $100, they put up additional margin forthe stock borrowed, and borrow more stock on thesame terms. If they continue this process untilthey have forced Northwestern down to $80 or $70,232and could then buy enough to replace the borrowedstock and call in the money they had deposited as‘margin,’ they would make as profit the difference betweenthe low price at which they purchased and theaverage of their sales. But if Northwestern shouldsuddenly jump in price to a point higher than thevalue to which they had margined it, then my brokerswould purchase, at this high rate, enough Northwesternto make good the stock loaned to them, using forthat purpose the money deposited by the conspiratorsas ‘margin.’ I propose to let these gentlemen haveall the rope they want, and when they attempt to turnand become buyers, I will spring stocks at once totheir original price, and confiscate all their margins.”

“I will aid you, Mr. Morning, as you request, bykeeping our transactions secret as far as possible,though I can’t promise you success in that. At leasta dozen men will be required to print the gold notesin the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and thosem*n will know of the issuance of so vast a sum as $300,000,000.Half a dozen more must know of the removalof the two hundred millions of paper moneynow in the treasury vaults, and at least a dozen menwill be needed to weigh and remove the gold bars fromyour warehouse. What is known to thirty men willsoon, I fear, be known to the world. I will detailonly discreet men, who shall work under pledges ofsecrecy, the violation of which shall cost them theirplaces, but, after every precaution shall have beentaken, who shall baffle the ubiquitous newspaper reporterin search of a ‘scoop’? He will crawl throughthe coal hole or the area railings. He will walk with233the cats on the top of spikes and broken bottles. Hewill act as a car-driver, a barber, or a purchaser of oldclothing. I verily believe that if he had lived in theolden days he would have coaxed Cæsar to revealthe plan of his next campaign, and wrested from theEgyptian Sphinx her secret. I fear, Mr. Morning,that the reporters will prove too much for us.”

“I have had some experience in keeping secrets,Mr. Secretary, and if you will permit me to direct thedetails of the movement, I will undertake that no inklingof it shall reach the ears of the reporters.”

“How will you avoid it, Mr. Morning?”

“Anticipating your consent and co-operation, Mr.Secretary, I directed the captain of my steam yacht,the Oro, to come here from New York withoutdelay, and by to-night she will be moored in thePotomac, opposite the warehouse at the foot of SixthStreet. I propose that, with the officials and menwhose duty it will be to test and weigh the gold bars,you shall examine them where they are in the warehouse.You will take the keys and take possession,and, if you desire, will detail guards for the warehousewho will not know what they are guarding. As soonas satisfied of the quality and quantity of the gold, youwill direct the printing of three hundred millions oftreasury notes, and will deliver me the two hundredmillions of paper money now in the treasuryvaults. The three hundred millions can be printedin bills of the denomination of $1,000, and may bepacked in five good-sized trunks. The $200,000,000now in the treasury, being in bills of smaller denominations,will require fifteen trunks for their accommodation.234My four trusted men, who have been busyhere for the past month cutting the gold bars out oftheir copper jackets, will procure fifteen trunks of differentmakes and marks, and after they have been filledwith currency at the treasury vaults, will carry themin an express wagon, which I will purchase, to therailroad depot, and check them for New York in fourdifferent lots, purchasing two or three passage ticketsfor New York for each lot of trunks. They will goas ordinary baggage to New York, and there be takento my office on Broadway, without exciting suspicionor comment. Two of the men will return from NewYork here, and a similar plan can be pursued withthe $300,000,000, which will be printed in the meantime.”

“I do not yet see, Mr. Morning, how you proposeto close the mouths of the treasury officials engagedin the business here.”

“I ask, Mr. Secretary, that for all this work youwill select reliable men, unmarried, and who can be absentfrom their places of abode for a fortnight withoutcomment. Inform each man selected that he will beemployed in a matter requiring secrecy, and that itwill involve an ocean trip. I propose that every manconnected with the transaction, except yourself, Mr.Secretary, every man, from the official who tests thegold, to the official who packs the currency into thetrunks, shall, from the time he enters upon the performanceof his duty, until it is completed, remain inplace. I will have food, and, if need be, cots for sleepingat the warehouse, and the placing of the currencyin the trunks will not require more than an hour or235two of time. Each man, as he completes his duty, willgo on board the Oro, and when all are on board, thesteamer will put to sea, with orders to cruise for twoweeks and then return here. Each of the gentlementaking this voyage will be presented by me with thesum of $1,000 for his services. The examination andweighing of the gold bars in the warehouse, and thepacking and shipment of the two hundred millions ofpaper money now in the treasury, can, I think, becompleted by to-morrow, and the Oro steam out to-morrownight, with a passenger list including thenames of all those who have any knowledge of thefact that two hundred millions of treasury notes areon their way to New York, and that the governmenthas $500,000,000 worth of gold bars in its vaults.”

“And how about the three hundred millions ofnotes ordered printed?”

“Those engaged in the printing can be similarlydetailed, similarly instructed, and similarly dealt with.I have chartered the New Dominion, now lying atNorfolk, for a voyage to Port au Prince, on the islandof Santa Domingo. She has steam up, awaiting orders.She will be here in time, and all those whohave knowledge of the printing or shipment of theother three hundred millions, will, on the completionof their duties, go on board of her for a trip to Hayti,and, on their return a fortnight afterwards, receivethe same gift of $1,000 each for his services.”

“Your plan is ingenious, yet simple, Mr. Morning,and seems likely to be effective. So far as this departmentis concerned, its execution will involve adeparture from all rules and precedents, and I shall236not escape hot criticism if I order it, especially fromthe New York papers controlled by the conspirators.But I see nothing really wrong or objectionable in it,and ‘nice customs courtesy to great kings,’ and youare a great king, Mr. Morning.”

“Say rather that the exigency is a great king,Mr. Secretary. You will then aid me as I ask you.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Secretary. In the future anyfavor you may ask of me, personal or official, willnot be denied.”

It was blue Monday in Wall Street. It was the beginningof the second week of the most disastrouspanic ever known in the history of finance. Capitalfled, affrighted, to its strong boxes, and refused tocome forth at any rate of interest, or upon any security.Values had been going downward without reactionfor six days. The yellings and shoutings inthe stock board were such as might have been indulgedin by escapees from an asylum for violent lunatics.Fortune after fortune had been swept into thevortex in a vain attempt to stay the current. Stockswhich had ranked for years as among the most reliableof investments, descended the grade as rapidly asthe “fancies.” Northwestern had fallen from $112 to$60; Western Union from $80 to $45, and Lackawanafrom $138 to $70, and even at these prices more stockwas apparently offered than found purchasers.

The conspirators were, apparently, successful.Three men whose combined wealth already aggregated$300,000,000, had produced this storm of disastermerely to increase their millions, regardless ofruined homes. They sold their own stock as they hadplotted, seventy-five millions of it at full rates, and seventy-fivemillions at an average reduction of fifteen238per cent, early the preceding week, and before Morninghad perfected his arrangements, or appearedupon the scene. Their subsequent short sales weremade at lower prices than they had estimated, forothers came in competition with them, as vendors.They locked up both the currency received from theirsales, and the currency they had borrowed, so effectuallythat merchants, brokers, and others, who wereunable to obtain the usual banking accommodations,were compelled to throw upon the market their holdingsof bank, railroad, and telegraph stock.

Wolf, who personally led the bear raid in the board,followed prices down with fresh lines of shorts, to anamount beyond that originally intended, and at theclose of the previous week, the short sales of the conspiratorsamounted to $400,000,000. In one particularthey had miscalculated, for, after stocks had fallentwenty per cent, the brokers who purchased them refusedto loan them again for resale on the customarymargin, but believing, or affecting to believe, thatprices would advance with greater celerity than theyhad receded, they demanded an amount of money asmargin equal to the difference between the existingmarket price of the stock loaned and the marketprice that ruled before the break.

This demand was made under the direction ofMorning, who did not appear in public, but, from hisprivate office on Broadway, sent orders to a dozen differentbrokers whose services had not been engagedby the Gray-Claybank-Wolf syndicate. After thefirst break, Morning was the purchaser of nine-tenthsof the stock sold, and after each purchase the money239paid for the stock, with the margin added, was lockedup in the vaults of one of his brokers, or in banksnot under the control of the conspirators. In thisway the syndicate had been compelled to add $60,000,000to the $140,000,000 they had received fromthe sale of their own stock.

On the morning of the second Monday of November,1895, the “Gold King” was the owner, by purchase,of stocks which had cost him $400,000,000,but which were worth, at the prices which prevailedbefore the raid, $600,000,000.

These stocks had been loaned to the conspiratorsby Morning, repurchased by him, loaned and repurchasedagain, until he now held in his control two hundredmillions of money, put up by the syndicate asmargin, or security, for the delivery to him of stockswhich needed only to be restored to their formervalue to cause the conspirators to lose $200,000,000,and Morning to gain that sum. If, however, pricescould be kept at panic figures until the conspiratorscould turn buyers, and cover their shorts, they wouldgain $200,000,000, which would be filched from whomsoeverhad been compelled to sell.

There were $400,000,000 at stake on the game.The bear syndicate thought they were playing withloaded dice, and so they were, but the load was againstthem, instead of being in their favor.

On Sunday night a private conference was held atMr. Claybank’s residence, on Fifth Avenue.

“To-morrow,” said Gray, “let us stop selling andbegin buying, and cover as rapidly as possible. Thereare some features of the situation which fill me withuneasiness.”

240“Ont so I thinks, Misder Gray,” said Wolf. “Idon’t gomprehent where the money comes from onFritay and Saturtay with which our sales were met.As I figure it, we hat every tollar locked up on Thurstaythat was anywhere available, but so much as ahuntret, or, maby, a huntret and fifty millions of newmoney came into the street on yesterday and Fritay.”

“It probably came from Chicago,” said Claybank.

“No,” replied Wolf. “Chicago sent only fiftymillions, ont it vas all here by Wednesday. It buzzlesme, ont I ton’t like it, ont I believe it is full timeto commence closing the deal.”

It was, accordingly, agreed to close it, and on Mondaymorning these three worthies appeared in theirseats in the Stock Exchange, for they were all membersof that body, although they seldom or neverparticipated in its proceedings, preferring to transacttheir business through other brokers.

Morning was also a member of the Stock Exchange,having purchased a seat a year previously, but hedid not often appear there, and had never boughtor sold a share of stock himself in open board. Evenamid the excitement of the panic, his presence gaveinterest to the occasion, for his sobriquet of the“Gold King” attached legitimately to his ownershipof a mine that was yielding $4,000,000 per month,with the probability of making its owner in a fewyears the greatest billionaire in the world.

There were probably few among the active membersof the Stock Exchange who did not, at this time,know nearly as much about the causes of the panic as241even the three men who produced it, and among allthe brokers, except those in the employment of thesyndicate, only indignation was expressed at the operationsof Wolf, Claybank, and Gray. The New Yorkstockbroker is neither a Shylock nor a miser. He isusually a genial, generous sort of fellow, who prefersa bull market to a bear raid. He likes to makemoney himself and have everybody else make it. Aboom is his delight, and a panic his abhorrence. If amajority of the board of brokers could have had theirway, they would have hung the members of the syndicateto the gallery railings, and the question ofreaching them in some lawful way, and relieving theboard from the effects of their conspiracy, had beeninformally discussed.

But nothing was attempted, because nothing seemedreally practicable. It was well known that the existingcondition of things had been produced by locking upthe currency. So long as it remained locked up,prices must remain at whatever figures the conspiratorsmight choose to place them. Only the power thatwithdrew the money from circulation, could restoreit to the channels of commerce. There was absolutelynothing for those not already ruined to do except tohide in the jungle until the three tigers should havefully gorged themselves. When Claybank, Gray,and Wolf should graciously permit the money to beunlocked, then stocks would advance to their realvalue, business would resume its proper channels, andthe panic would be over—and not until then.

In the Exchange, stocks were called alphabetically,and the first upon the list of railroad securities was242the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe. This was nota dividend-paying or favorite investment stock, and,probably, three-fourths of it had been held in the streetfor years, in speculative and marginal holdings. Morninghad special reasons for securing control of this roadin addition to his general purpose of thwarting theconspirators. Prior to the panic, Atchison, Topeka,and Santa Fe had vibrated for months between $27and $33, and on the Saturday previous to the Mondaywhich saw the beginning of the bear raid, it hadclosed at $30. Under the operations of the conspirators,it had been hammered down to $15, at whichfigure it closed on the previous Saturday.

One of the syndicate brokers who sat by Wolf,opened the ball by offering two hundred shares ofAtchison at $15.

“Taken,” cried Morning, from his seat.

“Five hundred Atchison at $15½,” said the broker.

“Taken,” replied Morning.

A shade of uneasiness covered the features of thebroker, but, in response to a gesture from Wolf, hecalled again:—

“One thousand Atchison offered at $16.”

“Taken,” said Morning.

The broker dropped into his seat and mopped hisface with his handkerchief.

“Any further offers of Atchison for sale?” criedthe caller.

And there was no reply.

“Two hundred Atchison, Brown to Morning, at$15; five hundred Atchison, Brown to Morning, at$15½; one thousand Atchison, Brown to Morning, at243$16. Are there further bids for Atchison?” said thecaller.

Wolf arose and cried, “Fifteen dollars is offered forone thousand Atchison.”

There was no higher offer, but the caller did notproceed to cry the next stock on the list. Somehoweverybody seemed to feel that a crisis had beenreached; it was in the air, and, amidst a hushed andexpectant silence unprecedented in the history of theNew York Stock and Exchange Board, the voice ofDavid Morning rang out like a trumpet.

“I will give,” said he, “$30 per share for the wholeor any portion of the capital stock of the Atchison,Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company.”

Then pandemonium reigned. The quick wit of thestockbrokers comprehended the situation in an instant.It was all as clear to them as if it had been writtenand printed. They knew that Claybank, Wolf, andGray had joined forces, locked up the currency,brought about a panic, broken down the market, andruined half the street. They knew that the countrywas prosperous, the mines prolific, and the crops good.They knew that the depression in prices was whollyartificial, and that it must, sooner or later, be followedby a reaction and restoration of values, and they hadso advised their customers, but they supposed that theperiod of such reaction was wholly within the controlof Gray, Claybank, and Wolf.

They had no reason to expect that relief wouldcome from any other source, and the appearance andaction of Morning burst upon them like a revelation.Here was a man who was a new-comer to fortune and244to finance, a man who had devoted the immenserevenues of his mine to beneficent rather than businesspurposes, and who was above the necessity orthe temptation of increasing his wealth by speculation.His presence in the Board, and his bid of $30 a sharefor Atchison, demonstrated that he knew of the Claybank-Gray-Wolfconspiracy, and that he proposedto baffle it. He must have measured the forces of themembers of the syndicate and be advised as to theamount of money necessary to meet them. Possiblyhe had found a way to unlock the federal treasury, orhad from some source obtained the necessary millions.Certainly he had obtained them or he would neverhave thus challenged the magnates of Wall Street tocombat. Clearly, the panic was at an end, the manfrom Arizona was about to lead them out of the wilderness.

And they shouted, and roared, and cried, andhugged each other, and mashed each others’ hats, andmarched up and down and around the floor, andjoined hands and danced around Morning, and disregardedall calls to order, and were finally quieted onlywhen Morning, escorted by the President of the StockExchange, ascended the stand.

The President, as soon as silence was secured,said:—

“Gentlemen, it seems to be the general wish thatthe regular call shall be temporarily suspended, andthat we shall hear from Mr. David Morning.”

That gentleman, after the roar of greeting had subsided,said:—

“Gentlemen: I think you will agree with me in245believing that the prices of securities listed on thisexchange have, during the past week, ruled altogethertoo low. I propose to put an end to this condition ofthings, which ought never to have been brought about,and I have authorized my brokers here to offer, duringto-day and to-morrow, and for the rest of this week,to purchase, to the extent of $700,000,000, any andall railroad stocks listed on this Exchange, at theprices which ruled at the close of the board on Saturdayweek, before the panic began.”

A great cheer went up from the throats of themultitude, and, after it subsided, Isaiah Wolf, lividwith rage and excitement, arose and exclaimed:—

“Does this lunatic then expect to make fools of usall? Is it to be beliefed dot this crazy man has gotseven huntret millions of tollars in cash to buy stocksmit? His golt mine has turned his prain. It vosbetter dot we don’t all pe too fresh apout this pizness.”

Morning quietly continued:—

“Anticipating that my purchases of stock mightpossibly be large to-day and during the week, I havemade arrangements to dispense with the customarymethods, and so will avoid the usual delays in receivingand paying for stock. I have quadrupled myusual force of clerks, and my offices on Broadway willbe open every day this week from nine o’clock in themorning until nine o’clock at night. No checks,certified or otherwise, will be issued by me, but thestocks bought by my brokers will be paid for ondelivery at my offices at any time during the hoursnamed, and paid for in treasury and national banknotes.”

246“Where,” roared Wolf, “did you get such a sumof money as seven huntret millions of tollars? Youare either a liar, a lunatic, or a counterfeiter.”

“Two hundred millions of dollars of the moneywhich I hold,” replied Morning, “was deposited byyou and your colleagues in the conspiracy, as securityfor the return of stocks which I bought of you, andthen loaned to you to sell to me again and again.Under the rules of the stock board these $200,000,000will be forfeited to me unless you restore the borrowedstocks on the usual notice. The notices will be servedon you to-day, and when you begin to buy in to coveryour shorts, you will be compelled to pay full value.I think I can count upon your $200,000,000 to aid inpaying for to-day’s purchases, Mr. Wolf.” And, amidcontinued cheers and laughter, Morning descendedfrom the caller’s stand, and started for his seat.

Claybank and Gray had left the hall, but Wolfremained, and as Morning passed along the aisle, theJew, with face white and twitching, and with foam onhis mustache, stepped out and confronted him.

“You have made a beggar of me,” said he with acurse, “but I will have your heart’s blood for this,”and he reached for Morning’s throat.

But the man from Arizona stepped backward andthen forward, and at the same moment his right armwent swiftly forth from his shoulder.

“Smack! smack! smack!” and the nose of Wolfwas spread over his face, and the crazed man washustled and hurried by the crowd, and greeted withoaths and blows as he went, until, with torn clothingand battered face, he was literally kicked into thestreet.

Holders of stock and bonds in the Atchison, Topeka,and Santa Fe, Denver and Gulf, Kansas Cityand Chicago, Lakeshore and Michigan Southern,New York and Erie, and New York and New EnglandRailroads, who desire to dispose of their holdings,will find a purchaser in me at the rates prevailingat the close of the Stock Exchange yesterday. Ialready own a majority of the capital stock of theroads named, and intend to consolidate them in onecompany without any bonded indebtedness, with theintention of providing the public with a double-trackroad between Portland, Maine, and San Francisco,California, via Boston, New York, Buffalo, Detroit,Chicago, Kansas City, and Denver, with a branch toGalveston. This consolidated road will not be runwith a view to profit beyond four or five per cent perannum above operating expenses. In making thisexperiment I deem it only right to relieve the presentholders of stock and bonds from loss, and this offer ofpurchase will remain open for one month.

We copy from our advertising column the foregoing,which presages the most important event of the248century. Whatever may be thought of the wisdomof Mr. Morning’s plans in any direction, there can nowbe no question as to his ability to carry them forward.The brilliant strategetical movement by whichhe bagged two hundred millions of piratical moneyfrom Gray, Claybank, and Wolf, and, while defeatingthem, restored values and prosperity, is still fresh inthe public mind, and his subsequent course in searchingout all other persons who lost by the panic, andreimbursing them the amount of their losses, will notsoon be forgotten.

The brave and sagacious action of the Secretary ofthe Treasury in going outside of the channels markedby red tape in order to promote Mr. Morning’s plans,is generally commended by the public, and meetswith no criticism except from the baffled syndicate ofscoundrels.

Whatever action, if any, Congress may take nextmonth when it assembles with regard to the demonetizationof gold, and whatever may be the course pursuedby the German Reichstag, the French Chamberof Deputies, and the British Parliament, all of whichare now wrestling with the great economic problemwhich the vast gold yield of the Morning mine presents,yet one thing is certain, David Morning hasquietly and shrewdly placed two thousand five hundredmillions of gold in the mints and treasuries ofEurope and America, and obtained therefor money,the legal tender quality and value of which, no futurelegislation can impair.

It is fortunate for the world that this vast sum is inthe hands of a man who seems to comprehend the nature249of the problems which its existence, its introductionto circulation, and its subsequent use, will create,and who also seems disposed to treat his great treasure-troveas a public trust rather than a personal possession.It is a curious fact that some statesmen who have,without much reflection, been characterized as visionary,urged vainly for years upon the public attentionthe wisdom and feasibility of creating vast sums offiat money, which were to be loaned upon land andcrop values. It will not escape notice that the Congressof the United States might, at any time withinthe past few years, by passing a land and propertyloan law, have created the same conditions, whetherthey prove to be conditions of prosperity or disaster,which are now upon the world by reason of Mr.Morning’s gold discovery. But it is not our purposeto attempt discussion of the situation generally. Weintend only to give to the public a reliable account ofthe railroad projects of Mr. Morning. On readinghis advertisem*nt, we dispatched a reporter, who foundhim, as usual, frank and communicative. No commentof ours would add force or importance to theutterances of the Arizona Gold King, and we will lethim tell his story in his own way.

“My plan,” said Morning, “is not complicated,and not original with me. I only supply the meansto try an experiment which it has often been suggestedshould be tried by the United States Government.If successful it will be of incalculable benefit to thepeople of this country. It will require not more than$250,000,000 to carry it out, and its failure would notinvolve a loss of more than $50,000,000.

250“I marvel,” continued the gentleman, “that publicopinion did not years ago act upon Congress so asto cause it to deal with the transportation question inthe interest of the people. I marvel that some of ourgreat capitalists have not joined efforts, and devoteda portion of their possessions to providing the peoplewith cheap transportation. Suppose that a dozen ofthem should have together made a pool of $200,000,000,and undertaken a work—not of charity, but ofhelping the toilers to help themselves. It would nothave taken one-third of their possessions; it wouldhave deprived neither them nor their children of asingle luxury, and yet it would have allayed the disquietand antagonism of multitudes, and, more thanbronzes or marble shafts, it would have linked theirnames to immortality.”

“Will not Messrs. Gray, Claybank, and Wolf havesupplied the funds for your experiment?” queriedthe reporter.

Morning laughed as he answered: “Well, in a way,yes; and if I had not already devoted their contributionsto founding and maintaining industrial schools,there would be a sort of poetical justice in makingsuch application of that fund.”

“Will you give me, for the Times, the details ofyour plans, Mr. Morning?”

“Certainly,” replied that gentlemen. “I havenothing to conceal. The railroad lines of this country,especially the transcontinental lines, were built whenmaterial and labor were much higher than now, andsome of them when gold was at a high premium.Stock and bonds of many roads have been watered,251and in paying present market prices for them I shallprobably pay much more than the sum for which theroads could be duplicated if constructed honestly andeconomically at present cost of labor and materials,and allowing nothing for subsidies, bounties, stealings,and profits of speculators, contractors, and legislators.But it would not, I think, be right to punishpresent holders of stocks and bonds for the sins oftheir predecessors in interest, and I therefore proposeto pay the present inflated value of these securities.I shall not, however, attempt to make the reorganizedroad carry the burden of paying interest anddividends upon the sums which I shall pay.”

“What do you estimate to be the present marketvalue of the roads you propose to purchase, Mr.Morning?”

“At present market rates, and I shall pay no more,the total amount that will be required to buy in bothstocks and bonds, will be, in round numbers, $150,000,000.I am advised by experts that the cost ofwidening roadbed and bridges, and laying additionaliron, so as to make four tracks from New York toKansas City, and a double track from the MissouriRiver to the Pacific, will, with the necessary buildingsand shops, be about $70,000,000.”

“Then the proposed line, when completed, willhave cost you about $220,000,000?”

“Exactly, less the sum which may be receivedfor rolling stock, which I propose to sell. But I aminformed by my engineers that a similar line mightbe built now for $150,000,000, and I therefore take$150,000,000 as the actual value of the roadbed, station252buildings, and shops for repairs, and I estimatetraffic charges upon that basis.”

“Why do you sell the rolling stock? How cana road be used without locomotives or cars?”

“I propose that the company I will cause to beorganized shall, except in certain contingencies, runno trains whatever on the road except repair trains.The roadbed will be open at uniform tolls to anyperson, firm, or corporation who may wish to runtrains upon it. The tolls will be fixed upon such abasis as will provide means sufficient to keep the roadbedup to the highest standard, and pay five per centper annum upon the actual value of the road, which,in the first instance, will be fixed at $150,000,000.”

“Will not the value of the road advance, Mr.Morning?”

“I expect so,” was the reply. “All values will advancewith the increase of standard money, caused bythe yield of the Morning mine, and there will be a revaluationof the roadbed each year, by disinterestedand competent engineers. If the amount received fortolls in any one year shall exceed the sum of five percent on the valuation of the previous year, the tollswill be reduced for the next year. If it shall fall shortof that sum, the tolls will be increased for the nextyear.”

“Will not the ownership of the roadbed by onecompany, and the ownership and management ofrolling stock by a dozen or a hundred other companies,be productive of confusion and accidents?”

“Not at all. On the contrary, accidents will be almostimpossible. Switches and side tracks, capable253of accommodating from one to a dozen trains ormore, will be provided every five miles, with buildingsfor receiving freight and passengers, at everystation. Between Boston and Kansas City two trackswill be devoted to passenger trains and two to freighttrains, and a uniform rate of speed be established,of thirty-five miles per hour, including stoppages onthe main track, for passenger trains, and fifteen milesan hour for freight trains. Between Kansas City andSan Francisco, so long as there shall be only onedouble track, on which both freight and passengertrains must run, a uniform rate of speed of twentymiles an hour for both freight and passenger trainswill be established, except on mountain grades, wherethe speed must be lessened. There will be an intervalof not less than fifteen minutes between trains eastof the Missouri, and half an hour west of it, and whenevera train leaves or passes by a station, its passageover the rails at that station will, through an electricwire, be made to ring a bell, set a signal, and close aswitch at the next station behind it, and no train willbe allowed to leave or pass by a station until a signalshall be received that the preceding train has passedby the station ahead.”

“Suppose a train conductor or engineer shouldproceed without receiving the signal, and in defianceof orders from the station master?”

“His train would be automatically shunted offupon a side track, where it would run up againstelastic buffers of rubber, filled with air. The maintrack would not be clear until the train passed thestation ahead. Until then the switch leading to theside track would be open.”

254“And how would that switch be again opened,after being closed?”

“Automatically, by the passage of the train overthe rails ahead of it.”

“That is a very ingenious and original idea, Mr.Morning.”

“Ingenious and simple, but it is not my own. Asimilar contrivance was in use on the Italian roadstwenty years ago, although the idea was suggested tome by an Arizona rancher, who was averse to havingcattle straying in his alfalfa fields, through which severalpublic roads ran. In order to avoid the cost offencing the roads, he put up automatic gates. Theweight of the horses and vehicle upon a platform afew yards from the gate, on either side, operated upona lever, and swung open the gate, which was releasedautomatically by the passage of the wagon, and soswung shut.”

“You seem, by these arrangements, to have securedthe safety of passengers and train hands, buthow about the speed? Will the traveling public becontent with twenty miles an hour between KansasCity and San Francisco?”

“I do not know. If they shall not be, still thespeed would be satisfactory to the freighters. Myown belief is that the greater safety and lower ratesof passage that will prevail on this road will attractto it a large share of the passenger traffic. Thosewho are in haste can travel over one of the otherlines.”

“Your object seems to be to give to the publiccheaper railroad service.”

255“It is partly that and partly to give the railroademployes better pay and greater regularity and permanencyof employment. I will try to divide thebenefits equitably.”

“Will not those who run trains upon your roaddefeat your object by combinations among themselves,to put up the price of freight and passage, and putdown the wages of railroad hands?”

“It will be practicable, I think, to guard againstboth these things. If the Brotherhoods of LocomotiveFiremen, and Locomotive Engineers, and TrainHands, will establish and maintain reasonable rates ofcompensation and hours of labor, and will enable allqualified workers to become members at will, then thedirectors of the company owning the roadbed willonly allow its use to trains managed by Brotherhoodmembers. If persons or companies owning rollingstock shall advance freight or passenger rates beyondmaximum, or reduce them below minimum, rates, fixedby the directors of the Railway Company, they willlose their right to run trains, and if a combinationshould be made to diminish facilities to shippers ortravelers, then the Roadbed Company will itself placea freight and passenger service on the track.”

“Will you expect to personally superintend thisgreat work, Mr. Morning?”

“No, I must leave it to others. Once it shall bewell started I have other projects which will requiremy attention.”

“Who will run it, Mr. Morning?”

“The Board of Directors will, in the first instance,consist of the governor of each State through which256the roadbed shall be constructed, from Maine to California.To these fifteen or sixteen governors will beadded thirty experienced railway managers, who willbe selected by me. Each governor will serve asdirector only during his term as governor, and will besucceeded as director by his official successor asgovernor. The thirty directors appointed by me willreceive liberal salaries, will not be permitted to beinterested in any other railroad, and will serve untilthey resign, or die, or are removed for cause by a two-thirdsvote of the other directors. Vacancies thusoccurring will be filled by a similar vote. Subject tothe principles of management I have endeavored tooutline, the control of the affairs of the company willbe with the Board of Directors.”

“Will not the vast sums of money which the yield ofthe Morning mine must add to the standard currencyof the world so inflate values as to make difficult anyequitable adjustment of freight or passenger rates, orof the wages of railroad workers?”

“Freight and passenger rates, and wages, willnecessarily advance with the increase of all values.It will be like the tide at the Dardanelles, which neverebbs. No man who has any knowledge, or exercisesany care, need be overwhelmed or hurt by it, and allmen who try can guide their barks to prosperity uponits swell.”

“Would you consider it really a healthful state ofaffairs if, by an inflated currency, prices were soincreased that a dinner which one can now buy forfifty cents should cost $5.00, and a $20 coat sell for$200?”

257“Why not if prices were similarly advanced overall the world? People indulge in a good deal of loosetalk about inflated currency, debased currency, andfiat money. In truth, all money is fiat money, for abar of gold is not a legal tender, and inflation ofvalues is the law of commercial growth. In the middleages a penny was the price of a day’s wages orof a bushel of wheat. Money which has for its basiseither precious metals or substantial property in landsor merchandise is good money, while money lackingsuch basis is bad money. Clipped shillings, Frenchassignats, and Continental and Confederate currency,were no more fiat money than are American doubleeagles or five-pound Bank of England notes. It isthe stamp of the government, the fiat of its power,that turns the metal or the paper into money.”

“But do not all financiers consider inflation adisaster, Mr. Morning?”

“Inflation,” replied the gentleman, “whether ofmetallic or paper currency that is accepted by theworld or by a great commercial nation as a legal tender,can do no harm except to those who loan money. Adollar is a mere term. You pay now five dimes, orfifty cents, or five hundred mills, for your dinner.Suppose by large continued increase in the productionof gold and silver, the money of all countries shallbe inflated so that you must pay fifty dollars insteadof fifty cents, or five hundred dimes in place of fivehundred mills, for your dinner. What of it? Youcould carry as much paper money as now. It wouldneed only to increase the denomination of the bills.All property and services would advance proportionately.258Only the loaners of money would be left, andthey would soon find it to their interest to put theirmoney into property, which would necessarily advancein value, rather than in loans, which would, in theirrelation to property, necessarily decrease in value.Under such conditions interest would not compensatethe money owner for the depreciation of his principal,and the loaning of money, except for brief periods,would cease, while property of all kinds would alwaysbe saleable for cash, because always sure to increasein value, while idle money would not so increase.”

“What will be the effect of your project on theother railroads, Mr. Morning?”

“My hope and expectation is that the successfulworking of my project will induce large aggregationsof capital to acquire and conduct all the railroads inthe country under one management, which shoulditself be under the direction and control of the FederalGovernment. Four thousand millions of dollarswould purchase and free from bonded indebtednessall the interstate railroad and telegraph lines in theUnited States, and $1,000,000,000 more would improvesuch property to the highest point of efficiency. Acompany with a capital of $5,000,000,000, having nobonded debt and economically and honestly managed,could pay dividends of five per cent per annum onits stock, which stock might be increased in amountas other values increased. Present railroad bondholderswould be transformed into railroad stockholders,and the stock of the United States ConsolidatedRailroad Company, guaranteed by the United StatesGovernment to pay five per cent per annum, and so259conducted as to earn that dividend, above cost of repairsand construction of new lines, would be a favoriteinvestment. Such stock might be made the basis ofcurrency issued thereon to national banks. It couldbe held by benevolent and educational institutions,and trust funds could be invested in it. It would takethe place of the present United States bonds as a lazyfund, and it would not be a lazy fund, for it would bean investment in earning property. It would substitutethe earned increment of labor for the unearnedincrement of interest. Interest on money at bestbelongs to conditions which are passing away. Itis an attribute of a former civilization, and I predictthat during the next century it will come to an endaltogether.”

“How would the United States Consolidated RailroadCompany affect railway patrons and railroademployes?”

“By adjusting freight and passenger charges, andwages of employes, so as to produce an income offive per cent on the investment, and by discontinuingnon-paying lines, building new ones, and developingprofitable connections—in brief, by running all therailroads in the land as one company under one management,in such manner as to produce from earningsa net income of five per cent, on a capitalization ofall existing stocks and bonds at their market valueto-day—the prices of freight and passage would bereduced, and the wages of railroad workers increased.”

“I think,” continued the Arizona Gold King,“that the entire system should be under governmentsupervision, or even under government direction, and,260depend upon it, nobody would be harmed, exceptabout forty thousand people, who now own sixty percent of all the real property in America, and even thedamage to them would be slight, for they could purchasestock in the Consolidated Company, and learnto be satisfied with five per cent and no stealings.”

“You spoke of a provision being made in yourcompany for the future of railroad employes. Howwould that be done?”

“In the company which I propose each employewill be required to agree that not less than fifteen percent of his wages shall be withheld from him and annuallyinvested in the stock of the company, whichstock shall be non-transferable. It will be deliveredwith its dividends, likewise invested, at his death towhomsoever he may designate, or, if he live to the ageof sixty, it will be paid to him.”

“Do you think that the worker needs this sort ofcompulsory guardianship, Mr. Morning?”

“I certainly do. For one of them who lays up fora rainy day, nine are possessed by the very genius ofunthrift. I have known miners to work for months,and mining is the hardest work in the world, and thendraw their wages and expend hundreds of dollars inone spree. Where the worker uses liquor—as mostof them do—he lives from hand to mouth, and evenamong the temperate, it will be the rare exception tofind one who has enough savings to support his familyfor six months.”

“Is it only the workers who are imprudent, Mr.Morning?”

“No, the habit of careless unthrift is common to all261men. It is not confined to the worker. It appearsmore frequently in him only because his necessitiesare more urgent and apparent, and, in this respect,he lives more in public. But extravagance is a partof the original savage man, the leaven which has survivedall civilization. I have known lawyers, anddoctors, and divines, and journalists who, with theirfamilies, might have been saved from embarrassmentand suffering if there had been some power everymonth to seize a portion of their earnings or incomeand make a compulsory investment of it for their futurebenefit.”

“But,” said the speaker, “to return to my subject.There is yet another advantage to be considered. Ifthe United States operated, or even supervised, all therailroads, it would not be difficult—by requiring eachrailroad hand to report for drill and practice one dayin each month—it would not be difficult to providethe nucleus and material for a great army, if suchshould ever again be necessary.”

“Will the time ever come when armies can be dispensedwith, Mr. Morning?”

“I think it has come. I am about to have madesome experiments with the new explosive ‘potentite,’which, if successful, will, I think, demonstrate to theworld that hereafter war will mean simply mutual annihilation,and that in conflict there will be small oddsbetween the weakest and the most powerful of nations.But I wander into the domain of speculation, and younewspaper men require only facts.”

“Do you propose any reform or changes in thepresent methods of railroad management, Mr. Morning?”

262“Several.”

“For instance?”

“There will be a uniform rate per mile for passage,all tickets will be transferable, no inducements will beoffered to travelers to perpetrate falsehood and forgery,and freighters will not be required to expose theirbusiness secrets to the officers of the railroad company.

“Do you know,” said Mr. Morning, “that a demandhas actually been made upon me by the railroadcompanies for freight at regular express goldbullion rates on $2,500,000,000 worth of gold barswhich they carried from Arizona to the East disguisedas copper? For freight on the supposed copper Ipaid their regular rates of charges, amounting toabout $200,000. They say that if I had shipped it asgold their charges would have been six and one-quartermillions, and they claim the difference.”

“But you shipped it as copper at your own risk,did you not, Mr. Morning?”

“Of course I shipped it as copper at my own risk,and on ten bars, worth really $400,000, which werelost from the ferryboat in transporting freight duringthe flood at Yuma, I collected from the companyonly their supposed copper value of $320, and I hadno end of trouble and delay in making the collection.But they assert that in covering the gold bars withcopper sheaths, I worked a ‘gold brick swindle’ onthem, and they want the difference.”

“Will you pay the $6,000,000 claimed, Mr. Morning?”

“Not if I can help it,” smiled the gentleman. “I263have other uses for the money. I have in view severalother reforms in railroad management. Railroademployers who, through no fault of their own, arehurt in railroad accidents caused by the negligence ofa fellow employe, shall have the same right of recoveryat law against the company as an injured passengerwould have. Train men, in stopping at countrystations, shall consult the convenience of passengersrather than their own, and shall not halt the baggagecar in a sheltered spot, while they compel disembarkingpassengers to wade through the mud. Brass-mountedconductors shall not glower at question-askingpassengers, and, to all requests for information,answer flippantly, ‘Damfino,’ and small dogs shall notbe torn from their friends and suffered to wail theirstrength away in mute despair in a strange and comfortlessbaggage car, without bones to beguile orfriendly faces to encourage them; but every reputablelapdog who pays his fare, and abides noiseless andcontented in the same seat with his mistress, shall beleft in peace.”

It was a bright, warm day in December, 1895,when a tall man, with iron gray hair surmounting awrinkled and careworn face, paused for a momentbefore the plate-glass front of the Tenth NationalBank of Birmingham, Alabama.

Making his way into the building, he walked to thecashier’s office in the rear, which he entered withoutknocking. A short, stout gentleman of forty yearslooked up from the desk at which he was writing, andinquired of the stranger who it was that he wished tosee?

“I kem in, suh, to see the Kashyea,” was the reply.

“I am the cashier of this bank, sir. What can Ido for you?”

“Well, I allowed to bowwow some money foh tostock my fahm foh a cotton crap, and to cahy meovah the season, suh, and I heard as how the moneymight be had heah.”

“Take a seat, sir. What is the name?”

“John Turpin is my name, suh.”

“And what amount do you wish to obtain, Mr.Turpin?”

“I reckon about $3,000 would answer the puppus,suh.”

265“Where is your property, Mr. Turpin, and whatdoes it consist of?”

“It is on the White Creek, in Madison County.There are foh hundred acres of cotton land. Thereis a house, bahn, and outbuildings in faih condition,suh, but I don’t count them as much, in a moneyway.”

“What do you estimate to be the value of theland?”

“Befo the wah it sold for fohty dollahs an acre.Land went very low aftahwuds, but the land has notbeen crapped, and of late yeahs, business has pickedup mightily in old Alabama, and it ought to be wuthas much now as it ever wor.”

“How long have you been farming it there?”

“Well, not at all, suh. The place was owned bymy uncle, and he jest lived there since the wah, andnever tried to make a crap. He was Captain of CompanyK of the Ninety-third Alabama. He waswounded at Chickamauga. Both of his sons werekilled at the second battle of the Wilderness; his wifedied while they were all away, and when he kem backhe seemed to lose all interest like. He couldn’t abidefree nigg*hs ever, and there were no othahs, and fohtwenty-seven yeahs he jest moped around the oldplace, raisin’ only a little cohn, and a few hogs andsome geyahden truck. Last spring he died, and theplace has fallen to me. There is no debt on it, andit’s prime cotton land, but it will take right smahtof money to clean off the land and put in a crap.”

“Are you farming elsewhere, Mr. Turpin?”

“No, suh, I have been wuking for several yeahs for266the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, astheir station agent at Coosa, but I was raised on a cottonplantation, and I know all about the wuk. Ihave two likely boys; one is twenty and the othaheighteen. My wife is a wohkah, and so is our daughtah.We all want to go on the old plantation andlive thar.”

“Will $3,000 clear the land and stock it?”

“Yes, suh. It will buy us mules and fahm implements,and seed, and supply us with provisions andfoddah, and pay the wages of such nigg*hs as we willhiah to help us.”

“How soon could you repay the $3,000.”

“Well, in the old times we could moh than pay itwith one crap, but thar ain’t the money in cotton thatthar used to be. Cotton is powerful low, I do allow.”

“And it costs more to raise it now than it did whenyou had slaves to work for you, does it not, Mr. Turpin?”

“Well, I allow that don’t make much diffahence,suh. I can hiah nigg*hs now for $16 a month, andthey find their own keep, while befoh the wah we hadto pay that much and moah, and feed them beside.The interest on the value of a good nigg*h then wasnigh onto as much as we pay him now foh wages.The nigg*h don’t get much moah now than he didwhen he was in slavery. He just gets his keep and afew clothes: No, suh, I can raise cotton now cheaperthan I could befoh the wah, but cotton kain’t be soldfoh no such prices. Still, thar is some money in cotton,and my boys and I can pay off the $3,000 with267interest, out of the profits on the craps, in threeyeahs, and if we live powerful close mebbe we can doit in two yeahs.”

“Why do you not get the money you want fromthe bank at Huntsville?”

“Well, suh, I went thar before I kem yeah, and thekashyea thar tole me that they wah not fixed to makeany but shote loans. He said as how they wah anayshunal bank, and couldn’t loan money on landnohow, and he advised me to come heah, suh.”

“But this is also a national bank, and subject tothe same restriction, Mr. Turpin.”

“Yes, suh, I know; so he tole me, suh. But hesaid as how you wah also loan agents for Northerncapitalists, who had money to invest in long loans, ongood security.”

“We are such agents, but our instructions do notpermit us to loan on anything but improved cityproperty. Our clients do not like to put their moneyin plantations.”

“But, suh, what will become of the cities if the peopledo not help those in the country? My place iswuth easily foh times the money I want to bowwow,and every dollah of the money bowwowed will gointo the place.”

“It does look, Mr. Turpin, as if money ought tobe had for such purposes. But all of our local capitalistshave their money tied up in the city, and outsiderswon’t loan on farms.”

“Then I kain’t bowwow the money, suh?”

“I am afraid not, Mr. Turpin. You might try elsewhere,but, to be candid with you, I do not believeyou will succeed.”

268“Well, suh, then I will have to go back to my wukat the railroad station, and let the land lie idle. Whykain’t the govuhment loan us on our fahms the moneyneeded to cultivate them? ’Pears like I hearn tellthar was a man out in Calafohnea what wanted thegovuhment to do that likes.”

“Yes,” replied the cashier, “there is such a scheme,but it is totally impracticable. Of course the governmentcannot embark in the business of loaning moneyon landed security.”

“But ain’t the govuhment in the loanin’ businessnow, suh? Whar do you get the circulatin’ notes ofyouah bank? Don’t you bowwow them of the govuhment,without interest, by puttin’ up United Statesbonds as security?”

“Oh, that, you know, is quite a different thing,”answered the cashier, smilingly.

“Whar’s the difference in principle?” persisted theman from Coosa. “If a govuhment bond foh $1,000air good secuhity foh $900, what is the reason that apiece of land wuth $1,000 kain’t be good secuhity foh$500?”

“The bond,” said the cashier, “could always besold at par. It is not so easy to find a purchaser forland, even at half its value; it might be worthless, youknow.”

“I am not supposin’, suh, that the govuhmentwould loan money on wuthless land any moah thanon counterfeit bonds. I’m talkin’ about sich land asain’t wuthless, and kain’t evah be wuthless. I’m talkin’about land that has an airnin’ capacity, when humanlabor is applied to it. I allow that sich land, when269valooed honestly, and not countin’ any buildings orimprovements, or anything that can be burned up orcarried away—I allow that sich land is just as goodsecurity foh a loan of half its value, as any govuhmentbond is security foh a loan of nine-tenths itsvaloo. If the land ain’t wuth nothin’, I’d like to knowwhat the bond is wuth? As I argefy, all the valoo’son the yearth, suh, bonds and banks and govuhmentstheyselves rest upon the land and the labah that tillsit.”

“But the amount of national bank notes that can beissued on government bonds is limited by law,” remonstratedthe cashier.

“Suppose they be. Kain’t the govuhment limit theamount of greenbacks it would loan on the fahms?Kain’t it allot jest so much to each State or to each county,or to each numbah of folks? I don’t see no use of alimit nohow. Govuhment don’t limit the bales of cottonor bushels of cohn, or numbah of hogs a man canraise, noh the tons of ihon he shall smelt, noh thenumbah of days’ wuk he shall do in a yeah. Whatfoh do they want to limit the numbah of dollahs thatshall be made? Why not leave that to be settled outsideof papah laws? If you raise cohn for which thereis no demand you kain’t sell it, and if you print dollahsfor which there is no demand you kain’t lendthem. A dollah ain’t got no nateral valoo nohow.Ye kain’t eat it, noh drink it, noh weah it. Ye kain’tsleep on it, noh ride it, noh drive it around. A dollahis just a yahdstick foh the cloth, a scale foh thesugah, a quart measure foh the vinegah. Supposegovuhment went to limitin’ the numbah of weighin’270scales and yahdsticks and gallon cans thar should bein the land, and then didn’t allow enough to be madefoh to go around!—A nice fix the country stohs wouldbe in wouldn’t they? You city folks would corral allthe yahdsticks, and all the scales, and all the pintpots that the govuhment allowed to be made. You’dorganize measurin’ companies and bowwow all thescales that the govuhment made, and pay nothin’ tothe govuhment for the use of them; and then you’dhiah them out to folks at a big rent, and make thefolks as hiad them leave half the measures on depositwith you, and you’d hiah that half again to otherfolks, and you’d squeeze the people, and squeeze ’em,and squeeze ’em, until you turned every man whowasn’t an ownah of measurin’ tools into a puff*ckslave to them as was ownahs. That’s what you hevbeen a doin’ with us right along. I mean no disrespeckto you, suh, puhsonally, for you have treatedme moh politely than a bankah usually treats his bowwowin’customahs; but you bankahs and capitalistshave jest been a monkeyin’ with the currency untilyou have got every fahmah, and wukin’ man, andstoahkeepah in the country tied hand and foot, withno chance to wuk at all unless they wuk foh you. Wehave been a lot of everlastin’ fools, suh, to stand it,and we aint a goin’ to stand it much longah.”

“What will you do about it, Mr. Turpin?” said thecashier, quietly, but with a shade of satire in his tone.

“I allow, suh, that we’ll tell the yawpers who runpolitical conventions to get along without our votes,and we’ll elect men to the Legislatoor and to Congress,and mebbe a President, who’ll take their ideahs from271the fahmas and wukahs of the Sooth and West, andwho won’t go to Wall Street foh ohdahs; and we’llgive all the old questions a rest, and we’ll make it lonesomefor the politicians who fight us, and we’ll kind o’resolute that so long as this govuhment won’t let anyState or any puhson go into the business of manufacturingmoney to supply the necessary wants of the people,it is likely that the govuhment itself ought to doit, and we’ll fix it so that no man who is willin’ towuk as I am, and knows how to wuk as I do, and hasland to plow as I have, will have to see his land liefallow, and his boys loafin’ around, just bekase hekaint bowwow from nobody, even at ten per cent ayeah, one-fifth of the valoo of his land, to buy a fewmules, and a plow or two, and some seed cohn.”

“You will compel the government to go into thebusiness of printing and loaning all the money thatanybody wants, will you?” said the cashier.

“Well, suh, I’m no bankah, and no lawyah, but Itake it that it is the business of govuhment to provideall the money necessary foh the use of the people, andif the govuhment itself won’t do it, then let it untiethe cohds it has put around States and people, andsuffah them to do it foh theyselves.”

“You would go back to the days of State banksand unlimited currency, Mr. Turpin, with a wild-catbank at every crossroads, when the man who travelednever knew whether the bank bill he got in change,when purchasing his breakfast in Alabama, would buyhim a supper in Tennessee,” said the cashier.

“Well, suh, I remembah those days, and while theymay not have been so agreeable foh those that traveled,272they war a heap better foh folks as stayed athome. A wild-cat bank at the crossroads on WhiteCreek, that would let me have $3,000 of its missublemoney, which my neighbors would take in exchangefoh mules, and the stohkeepah would take for goods,so that I could put in a crap on foh hundred akahs ofthe puttiest cotton land in Noth Alabama, would be aheap bettah foh me just now, suh, than a nationalbank with a plate-glass front, in Buhmingham, thatwon’t even look at the security I offah foh a loan.Good-day, suh.”

And Mr. John Turpin, of White Creek, arose, and,with a heavy and sorrowful step, walked out of theTenth National Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, andthe rotund cashier smiled at the episode, and adjustedhis gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and resumed his interruptedlabors.

Yet relief was in store for Mr. John Turpin, for onthat very day the mail from New York to Washingtoncarried the following communication:—

Sir: Under certain conditions I will donate to theGovernment of the United States the sum of $2,400,000,000in gold bars, which I will deliver to thetreasury department at the rate of $100,000,000 permonth, during the ensuing two years.

The money coined from, or issued upon, these goldbars, shall constitute a perpetual fund, to be loanedat two per cent per annum to the farmers of the country,the fund never to be diminished or appropriated273for any other purpose, although the interest receivedfrom it may be used to aid in defraying the ordinaryexpenses of government.

The amounts to be loaned may be apportionedamong the several States and Territories, accordingto their populations as given by the last census, butthe loaning must proceed from, and be under thecontrol of a department of the Federal government,to be created by Congress for that purpose. Loansmay be made payable at any time, at the option of theborrower, and may remain indefinitely, so long as theinterest is paid, and must be secured by pledge of productiveland.

Not more than one-half the actual cash value ofthe land, without estimating improvements, must beloaned, or more than $10,000 to any one borrower, ormore than $20 per acre in any case.

The celerity with which Congress, during the Warof the Rebellion, created an effective system of revenueand finance, leads me to the conclusion that itwill be equally apt in the creation of the necessarylegal machinery to speedily effectuate a permanentand safe system for making loans to the people. Ishall trust implicitly to the wisdom and patriotism ofCongress to carry out details if my gift is accepted,as I think I may assume it will be, and I shall attemptno interference with its action, even by suggestion,beyond stating the conditions upon which the fund of$2,400,000,000 will be provided.

It will, possibly, not be out of place for me to assignhere a few of the reasons why I require that loans belimited to the owners of productive land, and why I274do not permit dwellers in towns and cities, and thoseengaged in commerce and manufactures, to share inthe opportunity for procuring cheap money.

To this very natural inquiry I might answer that Ihave already arranged in San Francisco, in Chicago,and in New York, for aiding co-operative labor corporationsto procure, at a low rate of interest, themoney necessary for their use; that I design extendingsimilar aid in other localities, and that I hear ofseveral instances of other gentlemen conveying largesums in trust for such purposes.

But the duty of aiding the farmers to cheap moneyis so great, and so pressing, and extends to so manypersons, and over so large an area, that any concertedeffort in such direction is not only beyond the capacityof individual wealth owners, but requires the machineryand power of government for its adequatedischarge.

The farmers, of all men, most need the aid of capital,and of all men they find it most difficult to securesuch aid. For years before the accidental, or,rather, providential, discovery of an immense depositof gold-bearing quartz in the Santa Catalina Mountainsin Arizona enabled me to attempt alleviation of someof the evils under which the world suffers, I hadobserved that even when the manufacturing and commercialinterests of the land were in a fairly prosperouscondition, the farmers did not share in the generalbounty, and I observed that usually the produceof the farmers’ land could only be sold at such lowprices as left them, at the close of the season, a littlemore in debt, and much more discouraged.

275The official report of the Illinois State Board ofa*griculture for 1889 exhibited the distressing factthat the corn crop of that State for that year actuallysold for $10,000,000 less than it cost to produce it,and conditions since then have only slightly improved.Even as I write, there are thousands of families allover the land, not merely in a few localities where thecrops have failed, but on the virgin prairies of Dakota,on the rich soil of the Mississippi bottoms, and in thefertile valleys of Virginia, who are in distress, not becausethey have been idle or dissolute, but becausetheir last crops did not sell for enough to pay the costof their production and transportation to market, includinginterest at six, eight, and ten per cent perannum on the value of the land.

Low prices, according to all standard writers onpolitical economy, are the direct results of a contractingcurrency, and a consequent increasing scarcity ofmoney, and the cost of production is not only greatlyincreased by inability of the producer to obtain moneyexcept at high rates of interest, but the terms uponwhich money can be had at all are often so exactingas to discourage permanent improvement. Thefarmer will not cultivate except for immediate cropsif he sees no hopeful outlook for the future, and notonly fears but expects that the mortgage he has givenwill, in the end, cause his home to be transferred toa purchaser at sheriff’s sale.

The yield of the Morning mine has already largelyincreased the volume of standard money all over theworld, and this may do much toward removingsome of the unfortunate conditions to which I have276referred; but such yield may also have a tendencyto discourage the loaning of money on long loans, formen who have means to invest may prefer to placethem in property, the value of which must advancewith the increase of the volume of money, rather thanin loans, the value of which must remain stationaryabsolutely, and cannot but diminish relatively.

It has been and will continue to be my purpose touse the gold produced at the Morning mine, either inthe purchase of existing loans, or the making of newloans, so that whatever of loss may come from diminutionof the purchasing power of a dollar may fallnot altogether upon those who have loaned money,but in part upon those who have deliberately or accidentallycaused such increase. I suggest that if suchincrease in the currency be caused by the government,a similar moral obligation would rest upon it.

The addition of $2,400,000,000 to the currency ofthe country will unquestionably largely increase allvalues. It will at the same time encourage—nay,almost compel—capital to seek investment in activeindustries rather than in dormant funds. For the presentit will supply those who can use money to advantagewith a sure and convenient method of obtainingit at a cheap rate of interest, while its ultimate tendencymust be to eliminate interest on money from theworld’s transactions, and bring money to what I conceiveto be its true function—a measurer of valuesonly.

When no interest can be obtained for the use ofmoney, then money will cease to be the most valuableand become the least valuable form of property, and277the investor will be required to share the risk, if notthe labor, of producing values, instead of leaving thisto others, while he absorbs the profits to himself.

I believe that civilization is ready for this forwardstep. The discovery of gold enough to compel it mayhave precipitated the movement, but the movementwould have come all the same if the Morning minehad never been discovered.

There is not a single benefit which the donation oftwenty-four hundred millions of gold will confer uponthe people of the United States that might not equallybe conferred by an act of Congress providing for theissuance and loaning of the same number of paperdollars, not based upon gold at all.

The credit of this great government used for thepurpose of accommodating the business, increasingthe resources, and stimulating the industrial activity ofthis great people, and, supported by the indestructibleand undepreciable security of land, would be quite assolid a basis for twenty hundred millions of paperdollars as five thousand tons of yellow metal.

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.

Dearest Mother: What an insufferable egotistI must appear to you. A life made up of local coloring—acentral figure with no accessories—a recordof ways and means unwisely, perhaps, submitted toyou, since they may only pain you. Better a grayand monotonous sea, without sail or sound, if so Icould spare you the burden of apprehension whichevery anxious mother must feel for a destiny shehas helped to direct. Following the train of argument,think you the loving Father acquits himself ofresponsibility when a helpless soul is launched foreternity? Truly no! and this conviction sustains mycourage, and makes me unafraid to do my heart’sbidding.

It has been an observation that the thing we mostcondemn in others, we shall find in ourselves. Manyyears ago I conceived a prejudice against the popularcry concerning the wrongs of woman, a movementaffirmatively named “woman’s rights,” for while itundoubtedly aided some women in obtaining justice,its aim was largely the gratification of some hystericalambition or some love of conspicuousness.

279Thus I am brought to question if, in my individualcase, I am not exaggerating evils and magnifyingwrongs by placing them under the strong light, ifnot of worldly criticism, at least of self-love and secretpride; if, instead of dealing soberly and wiselywith flesh and blood, I am not following an ideal, orwhether my matrimonial point of view is not interruptedby such inappreciable angles as seldom vexthe eye of faith and perfect love.

All these questions, and many more, I wish tomake clear to my own conscience and your mind,that you may be able to advise me when, if ever, thetime shall come for me to ask your loving counsel.

To speak more personally, I conclude, after mentallyreviewing the characteristics peculiar to my husband,the baron, that his faults are less of malicethan of temperament, and that he would not reallysacrifice any actual interest of his wife, not even herpermanent peace of mind, any more than I wouldcompromise those of the baron. If it were not so, Icould less well afford the many hours of thought Igive toward the fashioning of apologies for him, lestin my own mind I do him an injustice.

But, so believing, I must take many things on trust,and, after all, I am full of faults myself, no doubt of it.You know it is a popular theory over here thatAmerican girls must be broken like bronco horsesbefore they are fit for wives, and I must say that myown mouth is a little tender to the foreign bit already.

We have invitations to a grand ball, although Ihave not yet seen them. Kindest love to papa, and aheart full of devotion for you, as always. When will280you write to tell me you are coming to your affectionatedaughter

From Mrs. Perces Thornton to the Baroness Von Eulaw.

Dearly Beloved Child: In these revolutionarytimes, the air thick with maledictions and curses, “theputrid breath of poverty, and the beetling brow of labor,”to quote the press, hot with greed for theground they are slowly but surely losing—in thesetimes I say, I am thankful that you, my child, areresting in the security of strong and wise rule.

There seems to be no end to the vindictivenessof the common people here. Your father, as youare aware, is president of the new Aerial NavigationCompany, and, although, as he says, his policy is unaggressive,and his weight of counsel unswervinglyin the direction of the interests of the poor and thelaboring classes, they seem determined to make thebreach as wide as possible, and go so far as even to demanda division of the proceeds of every enterprise,based upon the labor of either brawn or brain, andinsolently propose to tax the companies to the extentof what they call their “labor investment.”

What nonsense! It makes me so mad I don’tknow what to do. Papa says—he is always so conservative,you know—that the poor fellow who effectedthe invention of air navigation, really ought to havebeen paid better for it, but that he was a genius, withno common sense—none of them have, you know—and281nearly starved, at that; that there is a man outWest, whose name I have not heard, who is going tomake it very warm for men concerned in such transactionsas this, which he denounces as highway robbery,and in a short speech, wherein he maintainedthat labor was as much a factor and an investment ascapital, in all successful enterprise, he called one JackSpratt, and the other Jack Spratt’s wife, which similepleased me immensely. We don’t know where it isgoing to end, but hope for the best.

Now, my darling, I want to say how gratified Iam at the contents of your last letter. In it I discerna spirit of what Christians call humility, veryconsistent and very encouraging, considering the noblepersonage whom you are so lucky as to havecaptured by your charms and graces alone, for ofcourse your fortune had nothing whatever to dowith it.

If your husband were an American, I would adviseyou to stand up for your rights. American husbands,uxorious though they are, and they have earned thename, bring you no title, have no legitimate entrée toforeign courts, and even the most stupendous fortunesonly inoculate and leave a scar. Really, the onlyclean business is an out and out marriage, love orno love, though, for the matter of that, one must feeltoward the dear baron as the hero-worshiping womansaid concerning the wife of Henry Ward Beecher,that she ought to be proud to bow her head and allowthe great divine to pluck every individual hair outby the roots. “A most touching test of devotion,”I hear you say.

282Do write, my dear, and tell me all the court gossip.Since the California practice of shooting obnoxiouseditors has been introduced in Boston, there hasgrown up a virtual censorship of the press hereabouts,and the newspapers are as dull as death. Everywoman’s character is kept in a glass case, and onewould suppose the men graduated from a meetinghouse.In fact, the reading public who lived uponscandals are dying of ennui, hence, I have no newsto write you to-day. Present me with continuedassurance of high respect to the baron, and receive,yourself, my undying love.

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Mrs. Perces Thornton.

My Dear Mother: The grand ball, the mentionof which seems to catch your fancy, is to be given atthe Chateau d’Or, a magnificent edifice on the heightsoverlooking the river. Its turrets, and domes, androofs, and arches, and balustrades, glitter against thebackground of bluest skies like shining gold—henceits name. Indeed, its architectural device is so cunninglyconceived as to catch and fill the eye withradiant color like the facets of a diamond, while itsproportions suggest all the beauties of form to befound in the scale of harmonized effects.

It is just completed, and is a wonder. Its occupantsare not much talked about; indeed, I do noteven know who they are, though I fancy the barondoes, for I recall that he replied curtly to my questionconcerning them, that I should not wish to knowthem, by which I fancied they might be Americans.

283Neither can I give you any idea of the biddenguests, although, of course, it promises to be a magnificentaffair. As you know, in compliance withcustom, I could, in no event, make excuse for non-appearancewith my husband. Such women as accepttheir titles and position from their lords, are expectedto follow, unquestioning, his leadership throughall social labyrinths, and I am no exception to therule.

Dear mother, forgive me, if I say I feel very disinclinedto these gayeties. Since our experiences atMentone, I decided to give over all control of the exchequerinto the hands of the baron, accepting only aregular stipend. I find this the only means of securingharmony and altercations weary and depress meovermuch. Wherefore it is I have lost interest inhandsome toilets, and therefor it is I shall have nothingnew for the occasion.

Did papa receive my letter acknowledging andthanking him for his munificent gift? and does it occurto you that it is a good deal of money to invest inmethods of pacification? But what is the remedy?This is a question I am puzzling my head about toa much larger extent, let me say, than about what Ishall wear to the ball.

The baron dines at home to-day, so I will close, inorder not to be a moment late. You see I am growingto be a model wife, if not a heroic woman. I seethe baron from my window beating a poor dwarf, atthe entrance of the alley. He has lost at play. Inhaste and love, dear ones, adieu.

Dear Mother: Is there but one depth for acreature like him I call husband? What mockery ina name! What have I suffered for him, and whatconcealed in my pride! And this is my reward!—Tohave been made the dupe of a dastardly plot to ensnarecowardly victims! to have sullied my skirtswith the dust of a usurer’s and gambler’s den! to havemy name blazoned side by side with the modernCora Pearls in every court journal in Europe! tohave been led into the lair blindly, by one who issworn to be my protector! to have followed in faiththe man who could load the dice of his self-imposeddespair, with a wife’s dishonor!

But I must remember that all this is a riddle toyou, and must read like the ravings of a maddenedbrain, so I will give you the story of my shame andrage, albeit it has probably already been telegraphedover two continents. Verily, it is too sweet a morselto escape the newspapers.

As I believe I mentioned to you, invitations wereissued for a ball, to be given at the Chateau d’Or. Inoticed that the occurrence was making rather a stir,and especially that the baron was unwontedly nervousover the event, insomuch that when I proposedsending regrets, he fell into a violent rage, and declaredthat I would ruin him, past and future. Naturally,I did not comprehend his meaning, but, seemingto take it so much to heart, I readily consentedto accompany him, asking no further questions.

285Arrived at the place of what later proved to be ascene of the most disgraceful orgies, we entered thesalon, and instantly my heart misgave me. Therewas present a mixed assemblage of people, amongthem a few whom I had met in the best circles—a fewwho seemed equally out of place with myself—andmany of that nondescript quality found in every society,who defy comment. But not until we were presentedto the receiving party, was my amazement atit* climax. I am not yet sufficiently in possession ofmyself, to describe the magnificent apartments of theinterior of this most superb mansion. All that wealthcould bring from the uttermost ends of the earth, contributedto the sumptuousness of these most artisticapartments. No smallest detail had been forgottenin the programme for this entertainment, even to thegrottoes with singing birds, and floes of ice in seas ofwine.

But the recollection is hateful, and I hurry on. Thehost was a tall, sinewy, middle-aged man, with astrongly-marked Hebraic cast of face, and an oily, obsequiousmanner, quite at variance with his prominentfeatures. He greeted us with an air of the mostprofuse cordiality, and passed us along to a bevy ofmuch-painted and overdressed, or, rather, underdressedwomen, who vied with each other in chatteringsociety phrases.

From the first moment, an undeniable air of dissolutenesspervaded the entire place, and I looked to thebaron for an explanation. He pressed my arm nervously,and politely warned me to hold my tongue.There was no mistaking the animus of this party. It286was revelry, riot, unrestraint. Answering a sign fromthe host, the baron soon left my side, and joined theconvivialists, I being politely led to the main salon,where there was dancing.

Pleading indisposition, I declined to take part, andremained aside observing the dancers. I noticed thatmany of the women were singularly lovely and exquisitelyattired, but generally lacking in grace ofmovement and aplomb. I observed, also, groups ofwomen, some of them deathly pale, others flushedwith indignation, evidently discussing the situation,and the truth slowly dawned upon me that thesewere women of the demi-monde, and that I had beentricked into an attendance upon this reception.

After two or three attempts I succeeded in bringingthe baron to my side, much the worse for wine butquite docile. I demanded to be led to my dressing-room,and at first he temporized. Finding me insistent,he begged me to remain, promising to beamong the first to depart at the proper hour. Hisconduct was unusually conciliatory, and when I referredto the character of the entertainment, his mannerwas full of conscious guilt, while he assured methat he would explain everything later, but that hedared not precipitate a scene by taking me home.

At this juncture Count Volenfeldt, whom we knew,accompanied by the Prince of Waldeck, came ourway, and, saluting, faced us, and, remarking somewhatsatirically upon the unexpected numbers in attendance,gave me an opportunity to ask if his wife were present.

“The countess is not here to-night,” replied thecount, a little dryly. “She is not well.”

287“And my wife is here,” put in the prince bluffly,“but she will not be longer than till I shall have mademy way through this crush.”

“Let us join the prince’s party and leave this placeat once,” said I.

Meanwhile the music had for the moment ceased, andloud laughing and shrill voices, mingled with smoothertones and words of entreaty, were heard, and there wasa simultaneous movement toward the dressing-roomsand places of exit. Suddenly word came back thatthe doors were locked, and the frightened lackeys hadfled from their posts, with orders that no one shouldbe allowed to leave the house. Then followed a sceneof consternation and confusion,—wives demandingredress from their husbands, and husbands denouncingthe violation of hospitality by their host, and throughall the din the guttural tones and the piping tauntsof the unsainted.

Presently the tall form of Herr Rosenblatt showed,a head above the crowd, adding to his length theheight of a fauteuil, upon which he balanced, with adrunken man’s nicety of poise, for he was drunk butcoherent.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “we have met together, as wehave met before, for the purpose of proving which manamong us has the staying qualities, and who is willingto risk his money in this little game. You come tome and say, ‘Open your doors, my lady wishes to go,’but how many of you dare to go when I say to thosewho will go, ‘To-morrow I shall expose you, to-morrowyou will sign over your estates to me, to-morrow youshall be ruined and I shall be winner.’ I did not make288this party for your money—nor that you shall play, atmy tables and lose, for that you have already done,but one thing I want which money will not buy,—socialrecognition,—and that you shall give me. You willnot leave my house, gentlemen, till morning. Theladies will not talk about this entertainment. It is toobeautiful; they will not attempt to describe it. Now,gentlemen, I bid you to stay and I shall make myselfsure that you enjoy yourself. These remarks makeit long for the champagne to wait, and the ladies,poor things, will be wanting refreshments. And suchrefreshments! Oh, mon Dieu, that the gods could supwith us,” and the speaker was helped caressingly tothe floor.

My dear scandalized mother, what did I do? I, anAmerican girl, with the blood of heroes in my veins?Why, I remained and supped and smiled with theothers, for not a man even tried the doors. Thereafterthere was no restraint. It was, as I have said,a night of orgies. Each man felt that he was no moredeeply involved than his neighbor, and that HerrRosenblatt had told the truth when he said to all, thathe held their fates in his fist, otherwise they wouldnot have been there.

He was right, the affair was not talked about exceptamong themselves. But some mischievous astral,—someubiquitous spirit of a reporter,—was floatingabout, and before twenty-four hours had elapsed, thecourt journals had published an account of the wholeaffair, comments included.

Dearest mother, this letter is long, and I can writeno more to-night. I have decided upon nothing so289far. So soon as I have done so, I will write, but I musthave time for reflection. In tears and love adieu.

From the Baroness Von Eulaw to Professor John Thornton.

Berlin, December 5, 1895.

My dear, darling Papa: I have your telegramtelling me to come home without delay, also messagefor the American Minister in case I should need it,as well as that to my banker. Wise and loving provisionsall, for my fortune is squandered, my homedishonored, and my heart more than broken, in that Iperfidiously assumed to give a love which was notmine to give, and if I had obeyed my first impulse Ishould have been on the way to your arms, and to thedear old hearth I so thoughtlessly deserted. But canyou understand me when I say that all this I havebrought upon myself? I was not a child; I had a fittingexperience and was of sound judgment. I knewI did not love this man as it was in me to love, indeed,I felt for him neither the admiration nor esteem whichmust form the basis of genuine passion. I respected,aye, coveted his position, his title, and I brought myselffeebly to hope that some day I should be a devotedwife. I staked my future, as he staked my fortune,and lost. If the money was not his own to lose,neither was my heart mine to lose.

One other test I have applied, and the result is inhis favor. If I did love the baron as I mightlove another, would I be so ready with my revenge?—Verily,no; I would wear my life out in the effort290to cancel or correct the wrong against myself. Sacrificeis the residue found in love’s crucible; passionis the flux which passes off in the process of retorting.In my crucible, alas! I find nothing but dross—themore the pity.

And so I have decided to remain in Berlin for thepresent. I am sketching out my plans for the future,but they are crude and unformed, and are of a sort oflighthouse quality, meant to warn people of the rockyplaces. But more of this anon. Tell my mother,dearest papa, how condemned I feel to give her somuch agony on my account. Don’t worry; I willbe quite happy now that my mind is settled. Possiblywe shall come over in a few weeks, but only possibly.I am sorry I wrote my last to mamma with somuch feeling. Good-night, and good-by.

“Shut that door!” thundered the baron fromover the washbowl in a Pullman car, as he stood half-dressedin a small apartment, taking his morning bath.

“Who are you addressin’?” answered a pale-facedyoung man—who was passing—from under a broad,stiff-brimmed hat, the crown of which was encircledwith the skin of a huge rattlesnake. “I reckon youwant your nose set back about an inch anyhow, andI’m the man that can perform that little blacksmithin’job right here.”

The baron glanced at the gray-clad figure, with itsgleaming silk ’kerchief knotted carelessly, and armsakimbo, then down at the high boots with their fair-leathertops, behind which gleamed the ebony andsilver handle of a bowie knife, and then, meetingthe steady, mild blue eyes of the Arizona cowboy, saidapologetically:—

“Beg pardon. I thought it was the madam.She just left the compartment.”

“You did, did you?” said the youth. “That’swhat I allowed, en that’s why I tuk an interest in ye.Look a yer. That woman ain’t no slouch, and Gilamonsters like you ain’t popular nohow, yearabouts,so you jest keep a civil tongue in your mutton head,292an’ it’ll be all right.” And with the movement of aleopard, he glided quietly away, while the baron, aftersoftly closing the door, sank into the nearest sofa,and awaited the return of his wife.

“Benson,” shouted the keen-eyed brakeman.“Change cars for Tombstone, Nogales, Hermosillo,Guaymas, and all points on the Gulf of California.Passengers for Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, San Diego,Los Angeles, and San Francisco remain in the car.”

The baron’s party consisted of the baroness andher maid, Professor and Mrs. Thornton, Doctor Eustace,who had accompanied the Von Eulaws fromEurope, and Miss Winters, an old friend of the baronessand a graduate of a woman’s law school, whohad left a thriving practice in Denver rather than sacrificeher life in the pursuit of a profession for whichno woman is really fitted either mentally or physically.The party was en route to Coronado Beach—thebaron as one of a score of representatives selected bythe emperor of Germany to attend the “dynamic exposition,”as it was generally designated.

Six weeks or less before the Prime Minister of everyrecognized civilized power had received a lettercouched in the following phrase.

I respectfully invite your government to appoint somany representatives, not exceeding twenty in number,as it may desire, to be present in San Diego,California, during the first week of April proximo,to observe and report upon experiments which will293then be made in aerial and submarine navigation, anduse of the new explosive “potentite.” It is my hopeto demonstrate that hereafter international differencesshould be submitted for adjustment to a Congressor Court of Nations, and that land and naval warfare—asat present conducted—must come to an end.

The gentlemen who may be credentialed by youwill be my guests upon their arrival in San Diego—ifthey will so honor me—and I beg to be informed atyour early convenience, by cable, of the names of thosewho may be expected.

I take the liberty of inclosing exchange on Londonfor twenty thousand pounds, to defray such expensesas your government may incur in complying with myrequest.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, yourobedient servant,

The fame of Morning, as the greatest wealth ownerin the world, was now coextensive with civilization,and his invitation had been promptly and generallyaccepted. The Emperor Wilhelm II. chose for theGerman delegation, five of his most distinguishedfield marshals, five high officials of the German navy,five great civil engineers, and five members of the diplomaticcorps. Among the latter was the BaronVon Eulaw, who was indebted for his appointment—althoughhe did not know it-to an urgent unofficialrepresentation made by the American envoy to theGerman Chancellor, to the effect that, for certain personalreasons, Mr. David Morning greatly desired theattendance of the Baron and Baroness Von Eulaw.294Such a request from such a source was favorably considered,and the baron—greatly to his astonishment,for he had not been in favor at court since the affairat the Chateau d’Or—received the appointment.

Professor Thornton and Doctor Eustace had receivedinvitations to attend, and the baron, finding itconvenient to leave Berlin in advance of the othermembers of the German delegation, sailed from Hamburglate in January, and, after a brief visit with hiswife’s parents at Roxbury, the party journeyed to thePacific Coast, to enjoy its climate and scenery for amonth or more in advance of the “dynamic exposition.”

“I feel,” said the baroness, as the train rolled outof Benson, “as if I had a renewed lease of life; thesedelicious airs stir the blood like wine, and, entrancedwith the perfume of almond and oleander and jasminebloom, I forget that it is still midwinter in the East.”

“You are drugged, madame,” said the doctor,slowly passing his finger scrutinizingly over the softflesh upon his hand. “You could be lured to yourdeath in a few hours by—I wonder what ails myhand?” he broke off meditatively, still feeling forthe insidious and evasive little hair.

“Cactus, sir,” put in an “old-timer” across thecar, “and you ain’t got no use to look for it, if itdoes feel like an oxgad. I could hev tole you whenI see you foolin’ around them fine flowers at thestation, but you fellers hev all got to try it once;another time you’ll know better.”

“This is Mr. Morning’s state, I believe,” observedthe doctor, after the laugh at his expense had subsided,295and all sat dreamily looking away to the dimly-outlinedmountains in the distance, “and we must benearing the place of the wonderful gold deposit, withthe results of which he is rapidly revolutionizing theworld.”

“You are right, sir,” said a bright-eyed, smooth-shaven,portly gentleman, of forty years of age, whooccupied an adjoining seat. “It is Morning’s statein every sense of the word. He has made it—industrially,politically, and socially. His enterprise andmoney have constructed great reservoirs, and lacedthe land with irrigating canals, and changed its wastesinto orchards, and its deserts into lawns. He is theidol of its people, as he ought to be, and his ideasare embodied in our constitution and laws. They areall the product of his thought, from marriage contract-lawsto abolition of trial by jury.”

“Abolition of trial by jury,” said Doctor Eustace.

“Yes, sir; at least the jury is composed of judges,instead of men who don’t know the plaintiff from thedefendant, and we have no Supreme Court.”

“No jury, and no Supreme Court!” observed MissWinters. “What a capital idea. I shall come here topractice.”

“Well, miss, if you practice law here, and wish topatronize the twelve men in a box, or enjoy the luxuryof an appeal, you must bring your case in theUnited States Court, or take it there. In our Statecourts we have dispensed with all that ancient rubbish.”

“Rubbish!” exclaimed the doctor.

“Even so,” rejoined the stranger. “The judicial296system in vogue elsewhere than in Arizona is as mucha relic of barbarism as slavery or polygamy. It is nomore fitted to the wants and enlightenment of the agethan the canal boat for traveling, or the flint lockmusket for shooting pigeons. Suppose you wish torecover a piece of land from a jumper in California orMaine, and one side or the other demands a jury trial.Every good citizen who is busy shirks duty as a juryman.Every intelligent citizen who reads the newspapersforms an opinion and is excused. From theresidue—which is sure to contain both fools andknaves—you get twelve clerks, mechanics, laborers,merchants, farmers, and idlers—none of whom haveany training in untangling complicated propositions,weighing evidence, remembering principles of lawand logic, and according to each fact its just and relativeimportance.

“After these twelve men have listened to a muddleof testimony, objections, law papers, and speeches,concluding with bewildering instructions, which half ofthem fail to remember, and the other half fail to understand,they retire to the jury room and guess outa verdict. The losing party appeals, and, after wearisomedelay, the Supreme Court decides that ‘someonehas blundered,’ and, without attempting to correctthe error by a proper judgment, sends the case backfor another trial, another batch of blunders, andanother appeal.”

“And how does your Arizona system correct theevils you depict?” queried the doctor.

“We commence at the other end of the puzzle,”said the stranger. “We place the Supreme Court in297the jury box. We have a preliminary court of threejudges in each judicial district. Every plaintiff mustfirst present his case informally to this court. Hestates on oath the facts he expects to prove, and givesthe names of his witnesses. Any willful mis-statementof a material fact, is perjury. If the evidence would,if uncontradicted, entitle him to recover, an orderis issued giving him leave to sue. In practice, notone-half of the proposed suits survive the ordeal.The saving of time and money is great. Under theold system, after a jury had been impaneled, anddays consumed, the plaintiff might, after all, be nonsuited.Now it is all disposed of in an hour or two.The preliminary court practically puts an end to allblackmailing litigation.”

“And when leave to sue is granted, what is thenext step?” inquired the doctor.

“The case is brought under the same rules of procedureas of old,” replied the stranger, “with onlysuch changes as were necessary to adapt litigation tothe new conditions. We have three judicial districtsin the State, and nine judges for each district. Uponquestions of law arising during the trial, the judgespass by a majority vote, and in making the final decision,from which there is no appeal, seven judgesmust concur.”

“Does this system satisfy litigants?” asked thedoctor.

“Much better than the old method,” replied thestranger. “What honest litigant would not preferto have his rights determined by nine men, who weretrained to sift truth from error, who were honest and298just, and without other duties to distract them, ratherthan by twelve men such as ordinarily find their wayinto the jury box? The judgment of seven out ofnine judges will be as nearly right as human conclusionscan well be, and people affected by it arebetter satisfied—even when they lose—than by theguess of a stupid and sleepy jury.”

“Can the courts you have organized attend to allthe business?” asked the doctor.

“Easily,” was the rejoinder. “No time is consumedin procuring juries, and much less in objections totestimony. Arguments are abbreviated, and instructionseliminated. In practice, four cases out of fiveare decided from the bench.”

“Are not the salaries of so many judges a heavytax upon you?” asked the doctor.

“The system costs the public treasury less than theold one,” was the reply. “Many court expenses aredispensed with, and the expense to litigants is reduced,although the loser is now compelled to paythe fee of his opponent’s attorney, which is fixed bythe court.”

“As you have no court of appeals, I suppose norecord is made of court proceedings,” remarked thedoctor.

“Oh, yes, each court room is provided with one ofthe new automatic noiseless receiving and printingphonographs.”

“And how about lawyers who have bad cases?”

“They endeavor to take them into the UnitedStates Court, where the old practice prevails.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said the Pullman conductor,299approaching Mrs. Thornton, “but we are passingover the new line, which runs north of Gila River,and a view may be had of the sleeping Montezumanow, and the passengers generally like to see it.”

“The sleeping Montezuma! What is that?” askedthe lady addressed.

“It is the giant figure of an Indian resting on hisback on the top of the mountain. You can see itnow quite plainly from the right-hand windows ofthe car.”

And across the plain—in centuries gone denselypeopled by some prehistoric race, and then for centuriesa waste, and, since the completion of the GilaCanal, a checker-board of orchard, vineyard, andmeadow, the eye looked upon the lavender-tintedmountains to the northward, and it required no aidfrom the imagination to behold, upon the summits ofthose mountains, the profile of a stately figure andmajestic face, with a crown of feathers upon the brow,lying upon its back.

Once there lived, in the shadow of this giant, a race,of which traces may still be found in mounds containingpottery, and in the ruins of great aqueducts,and in stone houses seven stories in height, a portionof the walls of which are still standing.

“The Indians hereabouts have a story,” said theconductor, “to the effect that Montezuma went tosleep, when the sun dried up the waters, and his peopledied, and they say now that Morning’s canal ismaking the country green again, the old chief willawaken.”

“You were saying,” said Doctor Eustace, by way300of suggestion to the stranger, “that there are somepeculiar marriage contract laws here.”

“It is all expressed, sir, in the preamble to the law,and in the law itself, a copy of which I happen tohave with me, as I am on the way to attend court atYuma. Here it is,” and he offered the book to ProfessorThornton.

“Read it aloud, professor,” said the doctor, andthe professor read:—

“The Senate and Assembly of the State of Arizonarecognizes the truth that not easy divorce laws, buteasy marriage laws, are at the root of the conjugalevil; that men and women have been accustomed tomarry, disagree, and divorce in less time than shouldhave been allowed for a proper period of betrothal;that the loose system now prevailing often results inchildren destitute of the inherent virility of virtue andaffection; that no adequate defenses have hithertobeen builded for the protection of young females toounthoughtful and too trusting; that the laws underlyingthe physical as well as the mental constitution,with their multiple of subtile, gravitating, and repellantforces, have hitherto been wholly unstudied, ordisregarded; that the arbitrary conditions of societycompel woman to accept marriage, in violation of herhigher aims; that in certain human organizations theconditions created by propinquity are altogether falseand ephemeral; that certain other human organizationsare, by nature, filled with inordinate vanityand self-love, which qualities, beguiling the judgment,constitute fickleness and instability of purpose, andthat the true solution of the great social problem is301likely to be found in preventive rather than in remediallaws. Therefore, be it enacted”—

“Hold up, John,” said Dr. Eustace. “That is allmy mentality can assimilate without a rest. Are younot reading from an essay by Mona Caird, or a novelby Tolstoi? Is that really and truly the preamble of alaw enacted by a Western Legislature? Have all thecranks, and all the theorists, and all the moonstruck,long-haired, green-goggled reformers on earth, beenturned loose in Arizona?”

“Doctor,” said the professor solemnly, “the truthis a persistent fly, that cannot be brushed away withthe wisps of ridicule. The Arizona legislators havefearlessly attempted to deal with conditions whichevery close observer of our social life knows to beexistent.”

“Papa,” said the baroness, interestedly, “in whatway is it proposed to deal with the problem? Pleaseread further.”

“The law is too lengthy,” said the professor, afterglancing over a few pages, “to be read in detail, butI will summarize it for you. Marriages are declaredvoid unless the parties procure a license, which canonly be issued by an examining board of men andwomen, composed in part of physicians, and in partof graduates of some reputable school, dedicated tophysiological observations and esoteric thought andinvestigation.”

“Anything about ability to boil a potato or sew ona button?” interrupted the doctor.

“Peace, scoffer,” said the professor. “It seemsto be required that all applicants for license shall302have had an acquaintance of at least one year, and beunder marriage engagement for six months, and shallpass examination by the board upon their mutual eligibility,as expressed through temperament, complexion,tastes, education, traits of character, and generalconditions of fitness.”

“Is red hair, or a habit of snoring, or a fondnessfor raw onions, considered a disqualification?” queriedthe doctor.

The professor, ignoring the interruption, continued:“It is required that one or both of the applicantsshall possess property of sufficient value, to supportboth of them for one year, in the manner of life towhich the proposed wife has been accustomed.”

“A gleam of common sense at last in a glamour ofmoonshine,” said the doctor. “But how can sucha marriage law be enforced?”

“The act provides,” said the professor, “thatchildren born to parties who have no license, shall bedeemed born out of wedlock, and all such children,as well as all children born to extreme poverty ordegrading influences, may be taken from their parentsand educated at the public expense.”

“How does this experiment of turning the Stateinto a moral kindergarten for adults, and wet-nurseryfor infants, succeed?” said Doctor Eustace to thestranger.

“The law was enacted only a few weeks since,”replied the gentleman, “and it is too soon to answeryour question.”

“Humph! have you any more of such revolutionarylegislation?”

303“Nothing so important as the marriage contractact, but on page 72 you will find some provisions oflaw which may interest you.”

The doctor read:—

“Women who perform equal service with menshall be entitled to recover an equal sum for theirlabor, and all contracts made in derogation of thisright shall be void.”

“Good!” applauded Miss Winters.

Again the doctor read:—

“The men who represent the State of Arizona inthe United States Senate shall be chosen by a majorityof the voters, and not by the Legislature, as in otherStates of the Union, and no man, however favored,shall be eligible for the position whose property interests,justly estimated, exceed in value the sum of$100,000.”

“That will exclude Mr. Morning from the millionaires’club, will it not?” queried Dr. Eustace.

“Yes, sir,” answered the stranger, “but he favoredthe law. Of course, under the United States Constitution,this section is not legally operative; but it ismorally binding, and the Legislature has alwayselected to the Senate gentlemen who were previouslydesignated by the people at the polls, and thus farno man suspected of solvency has ventured to be acandidate. Arizona is friendly to progressive legislation.You will find our law for the prevention ofcruelty to animals on page 56; it may interest you.”

The professor read:—

“Any person or persons convicted of havingbeaten, abused, underfed, overworked, or otherwise304maltreated any horse, mule, dog, or other animal ofwhatever kind, may thereafter be assaulted and beatenby any person who may desire to undertake suchtask, without the assailant being responsible civilly orcriminally for such assault.”

“That,” said the doctor, “to quote a Boston girlon Niagara Falls, ‘is neat, simple, and sufficient.’Have you any further novelties in the way of legislationto offer?”

“Our law of libel is in advance of all other states,”said the stranger; “you will find it on page 163.”

The professor read:—

“Any man or woman or newspaper firm lendingthemselves to the dissemination of scandal, or defamationof private character, to the moral detriment ofinnocent parties, shall, on conviction, be adjudgedoutlaws, and may be lawfully beaten or killed at thepleasure of the party injured.”

“Lord,” said the doctor, piously raising his eyes,“now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, formine eyes have beheld thy glory.”

“We take a great deal of pride in that libel law,”said the stranger. “It has inspired a degree of courtesyon the part of Arizona editors that would havemade Lord Chesterfield ashamed of himself. TheYuma Sentinel, which was accustomed to personaljournalism, lately alluded to a convicted highwaymanas ‘a gentleman whose ideas on the subject of propertydiffer from those of a majority of his fellow-citizens;’and the Tucson Star, which used to be thechief of slangwhangers, reviewed a sermon and spokeof Judas Iscariot as ‘that disciple whose conduct in305receiving compensation in money from the Romansfor his services as a guide, has caused his memory tobe visited by all religious denominations with great,and probably not altogether undeserved, criticism.’But we are at Yuma, sir, and I must bid you good-by.Boats run up the river from here to Castle Dome.There is an excellent hotel here. Tourists usuallystop over to visit the Gonzales place, and I supposeyou will not neglect the opportunity. The house isa marvel of beauty. It was built by direction of Mr.Morning.”

“Does he live there when at home?” queried thebaroness.

“Oh, no, madame! The Gonzales family nursedMorning through an attack of fever, after he was shotby the Apaches near the old Gonzales hacienda severalyears ago. The Señorita Murella never left hisbedside for weeks. Really, the doctors say the girlsaved his life. He was, naturally, very grateful, and,when he recovered, he bought the Castle Domerancheria from the Indians, and had a rock tunnelrun into the Colorado River, and took out the waterand carried it in irrigating canals over a thousandacres of land, which he had planted in oranges, lemons,vines, olives, and other fruit. It will pay a princelyrevenue to the Gonzales people in a few years.

“Morning ordered built upon the dome overlookingthe river the most beautiful marble palace on thecoast, and they say it is not surpassed anywhere onearth. The whole business must have cost him severalmillions, but money is nothing to him. Theplace is kept up in princely style by the Señora Gonzales306and her daughter. They entertain a great dealof company, and are always delighted to welcomestrangers who may visit the place.”

“And I suppose that Aladdin is a constant visitorat his palace?” sneered the baron.

“Morning? Oh, no; strangely enough, he hasnever been near the place since its completion, twoyears ago! Too busy, I suppose, helping the worldout of the mud. But he is on the coast now, preparingfor his ‘dynamite exposition,’ and may put inan appearance here.”

“All aboard for Castle Dome,” and the baron’sparty filed up the carpeted gang plank, and lookedsmilingly about them.

“I have often heard of the sumptuousness ofthe Mississippi steamers, now grown traditional, butthis exceeds even their reputation,” commented MissWinters.

“This is the Morning line, madame,” answeredthe gaudily-dressed steward boastfully, “and theydo nothing by halves, you know,” and he pompouslyled the way to the ladies’ saloon.

“Except by half millions,” returned the doctorjocosely.

“These steamers were built for the accommodationof the people who came to the World’s Fair atChicago,” explained the steward. “Morning’s aqueer sort of fellow”—and he grew confidential.“He could have brought his air ships and new-fangledthings, such as he had on exhibition at the fair, buthe wouldn’t. He said it was kind o’ throwing off onnature, that God never made but one Colorado River,and he for one hadn’t the brass to discount it.”

“Do you have many visitors belonging to the nobility?”asked Mrs. Thornton, evidently inclined tochange the conversation from its personal trend.

308“Oh, lots of ’em! There’s a Spanish count and anItalian prince stopping up at the Gonzales place now.The Italian has been there some time, making himselfsolid with the señorita, I reckon. And we areexpecting a party this week, Baron Von Boodle, orsome such name, with his friends”—here the baronrose abruptly and walked out of the saloon—“atleast Mr. Morning telegraphed the captain from SanDiego that when this party arrived he meant to runover here and make his first visit to Castle Dome,which will be an event, for, after all the millions ofmoney he has spent on the place, he has never beennear it, and everybody is wondering at it.”

After a night’s rest at the great Rio ColoradoHotel, built upon the bluff at Yuma, the party hadmade an early start, and had been on board the Undinefor some time before the line was thrown in andthe steamer began to move.

The steward bustled away, and the baroness rose,with a deep breath of relief, and walked to the mirror.It may have been observed of many women that anynew or sudden sensation or condition or emotion suggestsa looking-glass. Not that they see or are thinkingof themselves, but they seem thus best able tocollect their thoughts. So it was with this woman,only that now she did observe two very bright eyesand a radiant face, with the swift blood coursing backfrom her cheeks, across the smooth white surface ofher neck, to the closely-defined growth of hair—thatoracle of beauty which no ugly woman ever wore,whatever her features. She turned quickly away,and, following the doctor and her father, the threeladies went out to view the scenery.

309“You observe this bend in the river,” a voice wassaying, “where many a poor fellow has gone to hisdeath, for there swoops the most fatal pool of eddies,perhaps, to be found in the whole channel of thesewhimsical waters.”

The baroness turned to look for the speaker, whosevoice seemed familiar, and there, under the shade ofthe awning, in full silhouette, looking in the face ofher husband, with whom he was pleasantly conversing,stood David Morning.

Her first thought was to retreat to the saloon andwait for him to present himself, but as his swift eyeswept the deck, he caught sight of her face, and camequickly over, followed by the baron, saying, as hecordially took her hand, and held it closely for a longtime, “I enjoy one advantage over you, baron, myacquaintance with the baroness dates back of yours.I hope she has not forgotten me.”

The woman made no reply to this remark; shesimply said, “How do you do, Mr. Morning,” andpresented him to her friends.

The brief trip up the river among the cliffs and cascadesand whirlpools and caves and cañons andtowering cathedral rocks, furnished prolific and auspicioustopics for conversation, but it need not besaid that neither the baroness nor Mr. Morningknew altogether what they were talking about. Shecould not fail to see the pupils of his sea-grey eyesgrow very large when he looked at her, and he inturn observed that she scarcely looked at him at all.

The professor talked a little dryly at first, and Mrs.Thornton sat apart, evidently nursing her chagrin,310for Mr. Morning was at this moment not only thewealthiest but the most famous and powerful man inall the world, and, had he sought it, could have obtainedorders of high nobility from every crownedhead in Europe. The baron, who would have seen“Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt,” if that browpossessed the attribute of Midas, looked at the situationfrom an altogether different standpoint, and wasthinking at what period of the new-formed acquaintanceit would be prudent to ask the loan of a few,or, possibly, more than a few, thousand pounds.

Presently the boat rounded into a little cove andstopped. The brief but eventful journey was over,and the party stepped from the boat to a flight ofmarble-flagged steps, leading up to shining floors, outof which arose columns supporting a light roof inPagoda style. Easy swinging seats, with hammocksand tables, with a few racks and stands, completedthe pretty “Rest” for the landing, and the party beganto look about for the path of ascent.

Suddenly a tinkling sound was heard, and, softly asif it fell from the clouds, a car, sumptuously carpeted,cushioned, and canopied, appeared before them. Itwas, evidently, meant for the accommodation of theparty, and one by one they stepped in. Morningwas the last to follow, and as he came aboard andclosed the plate-glass door, it shut with a tinkle, andthe car arose, moving proportionately aslant as thegrade of the terrace—which had been fashioned andgrown in the short space of two years—inclined.

“My invention works like a charm,” Morning washeard to mutter to the outer air, as they neared the311summit and surveyed the height. The awe-fillingoverhanging crags, thousands of centuries old, hadbeen blasted and chiseled and coaxed into shelves,and steps, and nooks, and resting-places, softly carpetedwith moss, and decorated with growing fernsand lichens. The wind came down the river andshook the leaves above their heads, and stirred thebirds into a flood of song, and larks sat upon the twigsand warbled with joy.

“Only two years,” said Miss Winters, as theystepped from the car; “’tis not so long in which tomake a beautiful world.”

“It is much more difficult to people it with theright sort,” mused Morning.

“The first builders had to try that two or threetimes, if my memory serves me,” remarked the doctor.

“Are these people of the right sort?” asked Mrs.Thornton significantly.

The baroness shot a quick glance at Morning, andlooked over at her rather too loquacious maternal.

“I am too much of an ingrate to answer for them,”said Morning, undismayed. “I only know that I owethem my life, and that I have never had the grace tocome and thank them.”

They had now arrived at the main entrance to thegrounds, and the scene presented was one of indescribablebeauty and splendor. The dazzling proportionsof the structure rose into the air with such exceedinglightness and grace of outline, melting awayagainst the silvery softness of the clouds, that itseemed swinging in the ambient air, and only for the312cornices and columns and spires and turrets of onyxand agate which defined the outlines against the sky,one would look to see it float away like dissolvingviews of the Celestial City. The magnificent domewas rounded with bent and many-colored glasses, theeloquent figures storying events of history both classicand local, in pigments not known since the days ofDonatello, who went mad because his figure couldnot speak. And there, upon its pedestal of purestalabaster, stood the chaste statue of Psyche, just asMorning had hewn it out of his captious fancy so longago, and Cupid opposite, half eager, half evasive, andrestless. Ah, well! and he looked into the deep, appreciativeeyes of the woman by his side, and said nota word.

Having selected the most thoroughly skilled architects,artists, and artisans, and no limit having beenplaced to expenditure, it was evident that every detailof Morning’s plan had been faithfully executed. Butbeyond this his power, or, rather, his supervision ordirection, had ceased. At last it was the estate andhome of the Gonzales family and not his own, andconcerning its management, or the manner in whichthey should enjoy it, he did not offer even a suggestion.Morning’s instructions, left with the Bank ofCalifornia more than two years before, were to pay allchecks signed by the Señora or the Señorita Gonzales,no matter what amount, and charge them to his account.

The Gonzales family had taken their good fortunewith great equanimity. Their inclinations led themto a generous and exceedingly promiscuous hospitality,313and they had not hesitated to arrange the ménage oftheir household without regard to conventionalities.Instead of the solemn and ubiquitous functionary atthe open door, there was vacancy, while the partystood upon the tessellated floor of the broad vestibulefor several minutes.

Presently a young Spaniard in boots and clankingspurs, with silver-laced sombrero and flaming tie,threw wide the door, and simultaneously Morningcaught a glimpse through an open court of a femalefigure leaning upon the rosewood balustrade, mountedwith a cable of silver, which surrounded a corridor,and idly tossing with her fan the light, half-curlinglocks of a man who sat upon a low seat, resting hishead against her knee.

It was only a glance as the sun strikes against thesteel, sharply cutting its way upon the eye, or like theincisive impress of some exceptional face in passing,whereby one seizes every detail of color and form,void of conscious effort. It was easy to recognize thegraceful outline of the swaying figure as she sat poisedunder the sunlight, and swift and unbidden even asthe coup d’œil was, the senses of David Morningthrilled with gladness. Was it the sight of Murellaagain that sent that shaft of ecstasy through his soul?or was it the all up-building, all-leveling lesson thatthe Señorita Gonzales was being amused?

The arrival of the party had been manifestly unexpected,and no formal announcement was made, butno sooner had they entered the magnificent receptionhall at one extremity than Señorita Gonzales appearedat the other. She entered with a movement of the314most exquisite grace, robed, rather than dressed, in agown of acanthus green satin, flowing in the back fromthe half-bared neck to the gold-embroidered border ofthe demi-train. The front was gathered at the shoulderand fell with lengths of creamy lisse to the perfectfoot, with its slippers of gold. A corselet of rich embroideriesrounded the waist. The sleeves wereloosely puffed and draped with softest lace to the whiteand flexible wrist, while the web-like lace of her mantillarested lightly upon the shining coils of her abundanthair.

As Mr. Morning advanced toward the center of theroom to greet his beautiful hostess, she drew an audiblebreath, and lifted her finely-arched brows, but nosign betrayed other emotion. Mr. Morning presentedhis friends in the most casual and easy manner, butwhen the Baroness Von Eulaw came forward, tallerby some inches than the Señorita Gonzales, and withan exquisite manner was about to speak, the littlehostess, with an air of special affability and simplicity,asked, showing her small white teeth the while:—

“To who owe I a the honor of this visite of a noblebaroness?”

It was a bombshell in satin and lace which fell atthe feet of Morning, and for an instant he saw no wayto the rescue of the baroness. Then, rallying, hequickly replied:—

“To the reputation for hospitality of the fair ownerof this house, and that of her charming family.”

“I no know if my name travel so long time a,”she rejoined, looking at Morning.

The baron then came forward, and, politely holding315her fingers, said in Spanish, “I hope that theSeñorita and Señora Gonzales are quite well, as whoshould not be in this Italy of rare delights?”

“Oh, Italy! that is the home of my parteeklerfriend. He paint Italia, he sing Italia, and he makeme promise for go many times.”

“That settles it,” Morning muttered sententiously,but no one heard.

Then the conversation became general, the baronesscommenting kindly upon the encroachments uponthe time of the señorita in receiving curious visitors.

“Oh,” retorted Murella with pretty nonchalance,“I no care! I lofe amuse myself,” leading the wayto the main saloon. “I haf always parteekler frent,same as baroness, ess it not?” and she sank indolentlyinto the cushioned depths of a primrose sofa,waving the baroness to a place beside her, and leavingthe party to make choice of seats.

A glance at the original design and superb appointmentsof this interior suggested the incongruity ofhammocks and ollas, yet here they were many timesrepeated, for “ice is the devil’s nectar,” runs a Spanishproverb, and the olla has no rival save the mescaljug.

Every well-to-do Mexican family keeps beneath itsroof a corps of female retainers, who are neither servantsnor guests, but something between the two.They dine—except on occasions—at the family board,and mingle always at the family gathering, but theyassist in the household labors, and sometimes, thoughnot often, receive a stated money compensation.They are usually relatives, more or less distant, of the316mistress of the household. The beautiful casa andgreat wealth of the Gonzales family had nearly depopulatedthe neighboring Mexican State of Sonoraof all the needy Alvarados who could claim kinshipwith the Donna Maria, and a dozen of these señoritasnow appeared shyly at the doors, their mantillasclosely drawn, though the day was warm, and manyvoices and excellent music were heard from all quartersof the house and grounds.

After a few moments the Señora Gonzales, with herbrother, Don Manuel Alvarado, who acted as major-domoof the estate, were presented, but the señorasoon glided away unobserved, leaving her brother tothe honors of guide over the mansion.

“You are very beautiful,” spoke Murella with apparentnaiveté, as they arose to follow the party whohad preceded them.

The smile of the baroness was tinged with bitternessas she turned to look into the Madonna face besideher, and ventured to reply.

“And Señor Morning lofes you like heaven and theangels,” she continued unctuously.

“Señorita, you forget that I have a husband.”

“Is he jealous?”

“Surely no,” replied the baroness sincerely.

“Then I no know what you mean a.”

“I mean that I owe a wife’s duty to the baron,”slowly, with rising color.

“And what you owe a to the other fellow?” meaningMorning.

The baroness was too much confused to speak.

“You know him a long time?”

“Before I married the baron and went abroad.”

317“And you lofe him all these a year? Oh thunner!”

Murella’s English must be taken with many grainsof allowance. The strongest words in a foreign orunfamiliar tongue seem ineffectual and weak.

“I must plead the indulgence of a guest,” laughedthe baroness, “and withdraw myself from the searchingoperations of your cunning catechism, or turn thelights upon you. How long have you known—”

But the señorita had softly glided away, standingapart and giving hurried orders for luncheon.

Morning was in a dilemma. It will have been observedthat, after the first moment of greeting, Murellahad given him no farther thought. Gratitude isnot with the Spaniard one of the cardinal virtues, ashe was aware, so that was an unvexed question. Ifhis name had not been so prominently before theworld, doubtless they would—the entire family included—haveforgotten it ere this. But was it pique,was it pride, or was it embarrassment, that led Murellato thus overlook him?

Certainly she had recognized the baroness at thefirst glance, to his amazement and bewilderment, forthe episode of her examination and temporary custodyof the photograph was unknown to him, andjust so surely her first impulse had been to renderthat lady as uncomfortable as possible. But, with herusual swift sagacity, she had, with an eye single toher own cunning tactics, quite changed her base ofaction, and, with admirable finesse, proceeded at onceto make a friend of the baroness, through her charmingfrankness and unsophisticated confidences. Thesteady, unflinching eye of Morning, therefore, while318trained as the eagle’s to catch the fiercest rays of thenoonday sun, could no more follow the erratic andelusive movements of the elfish fancy of this fascinatingwoman than the eye of his horse could followthe flash of a meteor.

“Come, señora,” said Murella to the baroness amoment later, “I know the ting you was ask a me,how long time I know Señor Morning lofe a you.”

The baroness knew that she had not meant to askany such question, but rather how long the señoritahad known Mr. Morning. But she had scarcelyopened her lips when Murella talked on.

“You tink I no know lof when a I see a? Eh!what that on his face when he a tak a your hand formake a me know you Baroness Von Eulaw? Eh?what you call proud, courage, lof, beautiful life!”and her flashing eyes burned like stars in heaven’snight.

Strange caprice! the track was cold over which shehad set out to run the race for a life, and many a prizehad been won and thrown away since then, and nowshe was burning with the wish that her rival shouldgain that which she had lost. Was it magnanimity,or was it a natural-born desire to defraud some manof his marital rights, and give some woman a victory?

“Now we will go to the Morning room so I calla;” and together they walked over the exquisitemosaic floors, and halls of parquetry, and stairwayglittering as the sun, and figures of classic art lookeddown, and fold on fold of hues of soft-blent shadowsdropped from tinted panes and fell around them. Inapparently the most casual way they passed a studio319filled with light and color, where, in violet velvetblouse, and cap upon his poetic locks, worked andsmoked the master of Italian art.

“This is my parteekler fren—the Baroness VonEulaw, Señor Fillipo,” and they hurried on.

Arrived at the suite, they first entered the dressingroom. It was plainly finished in French gray, withgold and blue enamel, the same colors repeated indrapery and cushions. But one piece attracted particularattention. It was an alabaster fountain, theelaborate accessories half concealing a full-sized bustof Morning, the identity of which could not be mistaken.It was exquisitely chiseled, and falling jets,and icy foam, and cascades like cobwebs, built upmasses of soft, misty whiteness, shutting back allsave an incidental glimpse of outline, and thickeningby contrast the boldness of the water plants at thebase.

“A very pretty conceit,” said the baroness, approvingly.“Who is the designer?”

“Me,” said the señorita, coldly, leading the wayto the main chamber, to which apartment Murellacarried the key. Unlocking the door, the baronesshad scarcely time to take in the mute, indescribableeffects of the auroral tints on the walls, stippled andfaded into thinnest ether, with its golden sky overspreadwith winged cherubs in high relief, laid intints such as are only painted on angels, when thebaron’s party were heard approaching. One thing,however, had struck the baroness, even at a cursoryglance. The dust lay thick and undisturbed overall the furniture of the room. A superb curtain of320corn-colored brocade hung over one end of the apartment,which also showed signs of not having beendisturbed at least for a term of many months. Agesture of impatience was made by Murella as shespoke, in an irascible tone of voice, “What for a hebring a they here?”

However, the party, following their guide, entered,expressing surprise at finding the ladies had precededthem.

The baron at once walked over and engaged theirpretty hostess in conversation, laughing genuinely ather piquant expressions and unworldly-wise ways,while Morning talked about some irrelevant thingwith Miss Winters, and the rest of the company saunteredto the remoter quarters of the apartments. Mrs.Thornton, however, coveted a view behind the maizecurtain, and to this end plied the major-domo withsuch blandishments as were at her command, and usingvigorously the little Spanish she possessed. TheSpaniard turned to look for the señorita—she hadmomentarily disappeared with the baron—and heflung aside the fatal curtain.

There, in a regal frame, in a painting by the famoushand of Prince Fillipo Colonna, master of arts in theRoyal Academy at Rome, appeared two full-sizedfigures. They were those of David Morning andSeñorita Gonzales. It was an interior of an adobehouse. The saints upon the mud walls, with rosariessuspended beneath them, and the crude decorationsabout the fireplace, with the hammocks in the shadowwere dimly visible. Light came in through a lowwindow, and fell upon the white face of Morning, just321tinged with returning health. One hand held suspendeda pencil, while with the other, just discerniblefrom out the shadows, he clasped the girlish figure ofMurella Gonzales.

It was a master work of art, and more than condonedall malicious or vain intent on the part of theauthor. The expression upon Morning’s face wasone of placid amusem*nt, while that upon the girl’swas anxious and arch, questioning and trusting, open,yet elusive, like the mimosa growing sturdily fromthe potted earth in the rude casem*nt, which recededat a sound of the human voice. The noble artist hadevidently caught an inspiration from the local color—filtratedthrough the hot brain of the lovely señorita—andhad touched the face of Morning with the light ofhis lovely companion.

Mr. Morning had just crossed over to catch a wordwith the baroness when the tableau was unveiled.Her whitening face frightened him, and he lookedquickly over her shoulder at the picture. At thesame moment a piercing shriek, and Señorita Murellarushed wildly down the room.

“Madre de Dios!” she yelled. “What a you dothat a for?” and she menaced the poor Spaniard withher small fist.

“It was I, it was I,” pleaded Mrs. Thornton.“Don’t blame him.” But Murella turned from herwith high scorn.

“Fool, I will kill a him,” she shrieked, again turningto the place where the man had stood.

But Señor Don Manuel Jose Maria Ignacio CervantesAlvarado, knowing something of the temper of322his niece, had attended not upon the order of his going,but slipped away, and in his place stood Morning.For one brief moment Murella looked at him,then, drawing a pearl-handled stiletto from beneathher girdle, she gashed and stabbed the unconsciouscanvas in twice a dozen places, crying all the time,“Take a that, and a that, and a that!”

Morning thought that his time had come, but hemanfully stood his ground, secretly smiling at thebloodless assassination, until, exhausted, Murella fellupon the carpet in a genuine hysterical rage. Aftera moment he lifted her to her feet, placed her handwithin his arm, and led her unresistingly from theroom.

An hour later she stood at the boathouse, leaningupon the arm of Prince Fillipo, and gayly waving anadieu to the party, Morning among them; then, withthe artist’s arm about her waist, they slowly returnedup the terrace steps, while the decorated steamerwent out of sight around the cove.

And the Baroness Von Eulaw guessed now who itwas that had made the pin holes in her eyes.

The Congress of 1892 builded even better than itknew, when it dropped partisan prejudices, and arosesuperior to local fetterings, and, in a truly nationalspirit, secured for the United States of America dominionof the seas and control of the commerce of theworld.

The Act of Congress which guaranteed the paymentof five per cent bonds of the Nicaragua CanalCompany to the extent of $100,000,000, and whichprovided that the canal tolls upon American shipsshould never be more than two-thirds the amountcharged the vessels of other nations, enabled the companyto construct the canal with unexpected rapidity,without calling upon the United States for a dollar ofthe guaranty, while, more than any subsidy or favorablemail contract, it aided to place the Stars andStripes at the mastheads of the vast fleet of ships andsteamers which, upon the completion of the canal inthe autumn of 1895, began to pass between the Atlanticand the Pacific.

The local traffic developed by the canal provedsomething phenomenal. Early in the history of its constructionit became generally known that the country,for hundreds of miles about Lake Nicaragua, was not324an unhealthy tropical jungle, but an elevated, breezytable-land, environed and divided by snow-clad mountains,with an average temperature only a few degreeswarmer than that of California, and with a much moreeven distribution of rainfall.

A knowledge of these advantages was followed bya large incursion of American settlers. There is perhapsno product of field or forest more profitablethan the coffee plant. Steadily the demand for thefragrant berry is upon the increase, while, beside havingfew enemies in the insect world, the area withinwhich coffee can be advantageously grown is verylimited. While the coffee plant does not requirean exceptionally hot climate, it will not thrive wherefrost is a possibility. The hill slopes and table-lands ofNicaragua were found to be peculiarly adapted for itsgrowth, and thousands of acres of young plantationswere already thriving where for centuries only wildgrasses had waved. Short lines of railroad, centeringon Lake Nicaragua, and running in every direction,had made accessible a large extent of country. Thescream of the gang saw was heard amid forests of dyewoods,rosewood, and mahogany. Mines of gold, silver,copper, iron, and coal were opened. Cotton,sugar, and indigo plantations were developed, andMillerville, on Lake Nicaragua, when the war shipspassed through the canal to attend David Morning’sdynamic exposition, was already a city of fifty thousandpeople, provided with electric lights and cableroads.

The advantages to the people of the United Statesof the completed Nicaragua Ship Canal were almost325incalculable. The freight-carrying business of theworld between the east coast of Asia and Europewas rapidly transferred to American bottoms. Theiron manufacturers of Tennessee, Alabama, andGeorgia were given an opportunity, previously deniedthem, of marketing the product of their furnaces andfoundries on the Pacific Coast of North America. Thedwellers in the Mississippi Valley could now send theircotton, meats, and manufactures to trans-Pacific andAntipodean markets, and California redwood andPuget Sound fir and cedar lumber could be sent overall the Northwest.

On the Pacific Coast the canal added twenty-fiveper cent to the productive value of every acre of grainand timber land. The cost of sacking, and half thecost of transporting wheat was saved to the farmer,and the freight upon all machinery and heavy goodsbrought from the East was greatly lessened.

On Puget Sound the construction of a ship canal,costing less than $2,000,000, connecting the freshwaters of Lake Washington with the salt water inElliott Bay, gave to Seattle such facilities for warehousing,loading, and dry-docking, and such independenceof tides and teredos, that a commercialrival of San Francisco was spreading over the hills ofthe fir-fringed Queen of the New Mediterranean, whileat the extreme southwestern corner of the republicthe city of bay and climate—San Diego—was rapidlyregaining the population and prestige which temporarilyslipped from her grasp at the subsiding of theboom which, during 1886 and 1887, enkindled theimagination, and beguiled the judgment, and encrazed326with the fever of speculation, the people of SouthernCalifornia.

Even during the dull times which annihilated somany promising fortunes in Southern California, theattractions of Coronado Beach were sufficient to securefor it exemption from the dire distress which overtookother localities.

The company owning this enterprise successfullydefied not only a bursted boom but the very forces ofnature, for they riprapped the beach in front of theirhotel, and baffled the Pacific Ocean, which, aftergnawing up the lawn and shrubbery which fronted itsrestless waters, had set its foam-capped legions at workto undermine the foundations of the great ballroom.

Parks, avenues, and streets were improved, museumsand gardens developed, and races and hopsand fishing and boating parties encouraged. Excursionsfrom neighboring cities were organized, the Eastwas flooded with pamphlets praising Coronado, andthe pleasure-loving and health-seeking world was inevery way reminded that in this land of rare delightsit could pick ripe oranges and enjoy surf bathing inmidwinter, while Boston was shivering and New Yorkswept with blizzards.

The band at the hotel was kept playing every dayat luncheon and dinner, and it discoursed sweet musicin the ballroom regularly upon hop nights to auditors,who found—as all people can find—more of the physicalcomforts and delights of life at Coronado Beachthan anywhere else in the world, for nowhere else isthere such music in the sea, such balm in the air,such sunshine, and fragrance, and healing, and rest.

327The faith and patience of the owner of the greathotel were, in the end, rewarded. Month by monthand year by year did the numbers of his guests increase,until, in 1895, the capacity of the house wasmore than doubled, by the addition of a buildingsomething over a quarter of a mile in length, and thegreat hotel could now accommodate quite two thousandguests.

David Morning selected Coronado Beach for hisdynamic experiments, and, with some difficulty, charteredthe entire hotel for one month, during whichtime it was reserved exclusively for his guests. Healso leased the northerly end of the Coronado Beachpeninsula for the construction and equipment of hisair ship, and for a laboratory for the manufacture ofpotentite.

The real Coronado Islands are within the territorialjurisdiction of Mexico, situated about sixteen milessouth and west from San Diego Bay, and were, exceptin cloudy weather, distinctly visible from CoronadoBeach. Irregular and ragged masses of red sandstonea few thousand acres in extent towered to a height ofseveral hundred feet above the ocean, faintly stainingthe horizon with patches of blue, resembling an unfinishedsky in water color.

These islands were destitute of water and vegetation,and never inhabited save by a few laborers whowere engaged in quarrying rock there, and Morningfound no difficulty in purchasing them from their owners,and removing all the occupants.

On the northern end of the Coronado Beach peninsula,Morning caused to be erected a laboratory for328the manufacture of potentite, with which to load thesteel shells to be carried by the air ship. This newdynamic force, or, rather, storehouse of force, consistedof a combination of explosive gelatine with fulminateof mercury, and possessed a power equal tothirteen hundred tons to the square inch, or sixtytimes that of common blasting gunpowder, and ninetimes that of dynamite, and fifty pounds of it properlydirected would sink any ironclad afloat. It is quitesafe for manipulation, because it is unexplosive, exceptwhen brought in contact with a chemical substance—alsonon-explosive except by contact—whichis only added immediately before using.

The Petrel, the air ship used at the dynamic exposition,was built by the Mount Carmel AeronauticCompany at their works in Chicago, and sent by railin sections to Coronado Beach, where she was put together.She was cigar-shaped, one hundred feet inlength and twenty feet in diameter, and was built ofbutternut—the toughest of the light woods. Herengines, with their fans and propellers, as well as thegas generator and tank for benzine, were all constructedof tempered aluminum, made by the new Kentuckyprocess, at a cost of only eight cents per pound.Being stronger and tougher than the finest steel, andonly one-third the weight of that metal, aluminum wasespecially adapted for the construction of air ships.

The machinery of the Petrel was propelled by agas generated from benzine. The fluid was carriedin an air-tight aluminum tank, from which it passed,drop by drop, to the generator. This gas, almost aspowerful as the vibratory ether discovered by Mr.329Keely, was much safer because more certainly controlled.

The Petrel, with all her machinery in place, withtwo tons of benzine in her tanks, and ten men onboard of her supplied with sufficient water and foodfor use for fifteen days, weighed but ten tons, and theforce generated from two tons of benzine was sufficientto lift her, with a freight of ten tons more, to aheight of five thousand or even ten thousand feet,and, without any aid from her folding aluminum parachute,was able to maintain her there for a fortnight,at a speed—in a still atmosphere—of fifty miles perhour. No balloon was attached to the Petrel, as sherelied entirely upon her paddles and wings both forpropulsion and as a means of maintaining herself inthe air.

She was constructed upon the principle of aerialnavigation furnished by the wild goose. That birdmaintains himself in the ether during a flight of hundredsof miles without a rest, simply because hisstrength, or muscular power, is greater, in proportionto his weight, than that of creatures who walk uponthe ground. Man could always have constructedwings of silk and bamboo which would have enabledhim to fly if he had only possessed the strength toflap his wings.

Aerial navigation never presented any other problemthan that of procuring power without weight.Once able to obtain the power of a ten-horse engine,with a weight, including machinery, of less than oneton, one might fly all over the world, and, by takingadvantage of the air currents, a knowledge of which330will soon be gained, fly at a speed of fifty or even onehundred miles an hour. The recent discovery of theimmense power of a gas which it is possible to generatefrom benzine without the use of fuel, has made theair as available for the purposes of rapid transit byman as the ocean or the land. The great cost oflocomotion by this means will doubtless prevent itsuse for the transportation of freight, or, indeed, of passengers,except for those who can afford the luxury,and for them it will supplant all other methods.

The Petrel was provided with the new patent condensedfuel, one pound of which for cooking andheating purposes is equal to ten pounds of coal. Shewas furnished with parachutes made of thin sheets ofaluminum closely folded one above the other. These,when not in use, formed an awning or canopy overher deck, while, in case of accident, they could, bypulling a convenient lever, be instantly spread overan area large enough to insure her a gradual and safedescent, and should such descent be into the water,she was so constructed as to float as buoyantly as acork upon its surface, while, by lessening the numberof revolutions per minute of her aluminum propellers,they could be used as paddles for her propulsionthrough the water.

The freight of the Petrel consisted of two hundredshells of potentite, weighing one hundred poundseach, and the result to the Coronodo Islands of theirfalling upon it from a height of a mile or more, waspredicted long in advance of the experiment. “If,”it was said, “fifty pounds of this explosive will destroyan ironclad, what will twenty thousand pounds of it331do to an island of rock? What would a dozen Petrelsaccomplish, hurling two hundred and forty thousandpounds of it upon an army, a city, or an enemy’sfortress?”

They could level Gibraltar with the sea; they couldextirpate an army of a million men; they could obliterateLondon or Berlin or New York from the face ofthe earth. A fleet of a hundred Petrels could ascendfrom New York, cross the Atlantic in three days, destroyevery city in the United Kingdom in six hours,and, leaving England a mass of ruins, with two-thirdsof her people slain, return in three days to New York,with unused power enough to go to San Franciscoand back without descending.

England, or any other nation, could likewise destroyAmerica, for neither aerial navigation nor themanufacture of potentite are secrets locked in anyone man’s brain.

“If Mr. Morning’s dynamic exposition,” it wassaid, “shall fulfill its promise, he can, if he chooses,as the possessor of so complete an air ship and sopowerful an explosive, be the ruler of the world.Emperors and Parliaments must, for the time, be thesubjects of the man who can destroy cities and camps,and who can make such changes in the map of theworld as he may choose.”

“If the experiment this day to be made at Coronado,”said the President of the United States, “shallbe successful, armies may as well be disbanded, forthere can be no more war, and governments all overthe world must, henceforth, rest upon the consent ofthe governed.”

332Before sending the Petrel upon her mission, an examinationof the territory to be devastated was inorder, and the Hotel del Coronado was nearly emptiedof its guests, for the Charleston, the Warspite, andthe Wilhelm II., steamed away to the Coronado Islands,where the American, British, German, French,Russian, Italian, Mexican, and Brazilian engineers,with their assistants, landed, took measurements andaltitudes, and a number of photographic views, andexamined the islands thoroughly, verifying the accuracyof the topographical maps and profile modelsin clay previously made by engineers employed byMorning. It was projected to make another surveyand set of maps after the potentite had done its work,so as to preserve an accurate and unimpeachablerecord of the result of what our hero modestly calledhis “experiment.”

The vessels returned to their moorings about threeo’clock in the afternoon of the first day of the exposition,in ample time for their passengers and officersto attend the dinner given by Morning that eveningto his royal and imperial majesty Edward the Seventh,king of Great Britain and emperor of India. Thissagacious prince, rightly conceiving that the dynamicexposition of citizen David Morning was likely to bethe preliminary of an entire change in the methods ofgovernment, if not in the governments themselves,of the civilized world, determined to head in personthe British delegation, which was brought on the Warspitefrom Vancouver to San Diego.

The manner in which King Edward has impressedthe American people may be deduced from a remark333made at the dinner by a shrewd observer and leadingcitizen of San Diego.

“That king,” said he, “is a dandy. He is creditedwith being the cleverest and most adroit politician inEngland, and I believe it, or he could never havesteered his canoe out of that baccarat whirlpool. IfDave Morning’s dynamics should sort of blow himout of a job at home, let him come over here, and inone year I will back him at long odds to get the nominationfor the best office in the county from either theDemocratic or Republican convention, and, maybe,from both. What a roaring team he and Jack Dodgeand Sam Davis would make for a county canvass!Jack to do the fiddling and dancing, Sam the all-aroundlying, and Edward the hand shaking and thesetting ’em up for the boys!”

The ample gardens of San Diego, San Bernardino,Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara were stripped for thedecoration of the banquet hall. All day flowers werearriving by the train load, and several hundred floralartists were at work in the great dining room. Theeffect was surpassingly beautiful. Suspended fromthe great dome by ropes of smilax was a giganticfigure of Peace, wrought in white calla lilies, bearingin her right hand a branch from an olive tree, whileher left held to her lips a trumpet of yellow jasmine.On the walls the arms of all nations were wrought incamellias, carnations, fleur-de-lis, and roses of everyhue. The music and the menu were both incomparable,and, in accordance with the later and betterpractice of great dinners, formal speech making wasaltogether dispensed with.

334The next morning the shores of Coronado Beachwere black with people, and in the great hotel everypiazza and window facing southward or westward wasoccupied. There was a light breeze blowing fromthe north as the Petrel left her berth and rapidlymounted in the air to a height of seven thousand feet,which altitude she achieved with her fans in sevenminutes’ time. She then put her propellers in motionand was soon a mere speck against the cloudless sky,scarcely discernible by the most powerful glasses.

But though out of sight she soon made her existenceand her work known to the multitude. Inthirty-five minutes from the time she left her berth,she had compassed a mile and a half in height andsixteen miles of distance and was hovering over CoronadoIslands. In twenty minutes more six men onboard of her had thrown over the two hundred potentiteshells, and in half an hour thereafter the aerialwonder was again resting quietly on the peninsula.

It was a clear day, and the islands were distinctlyvisible. Sight travels more swiftly than sound, andbefore any noise was heard, the immense mass ofrock, crown shaped, from which the islands take theirname, was seen by the gazers on the beach to leapfrom its place and fall into the sea. Other masses inswift succession followed; then came roars of sound,as if heaven and earth were coming together; roarsof sound which rattled the doors and casem*nts of thehotel as if shaken with a high wind. For twentyminutes this awe-inspiring exhibition continued, andwhen the tremendous cannonading ceased, the CoronadaIslands—in the form in which they had previouslyexisted—were no more.

335The work of resurveying and making new topographicalmaps was subsequently performed, as apart of the duty of those connected with the dynamicexposition, but it needed no measurements to demonstratethe awful power of the potentite. An area ofsolid rock a mile square was rent into fragments fora depth of one hundred feet.

Many improvements in machinery and managementwere suggested to the officers of the Petrel, butthe experiment was conceded by all the great engineerswho witnessed it, to be so completely successfulas to practically eliminate land warfare from the futureof nations.

“It is fortunate,” said the Marquis of Salisbury,who was one of the British delegation—“it is fortunatethat the manufacture of even a small quantity ofpotentite requires months of time, great skill, and acostly and extensive laboratory, so that it will be notimpracticable to prevent its preparation by privatepersons. But given a piece of land anywhere in thecivilized world large enough to permit of the buildingof air ships and the manufacture of potentite, andsufficiently defended to afford to its garrison threemonths’ time in which to perfect the making of thatexplosive, and any power, however insignificant, could,with a hundred air ships, destroy in three days all thegreat cities in Europe.”

“As it now appears,” continued the Marquis, “thismethod of warfare would not be so available against amoving object on the sea, such as a war ship. But ifthe submarine torpedo boat, whose operations we areto witness to-morrow, shall be anything nearly as effective336as Mr. Morning’s air ship, it seems to me that aconvention of civilized powers to adjust internationalrelations and provide for a Congress and Court ofNations, to which all international differences must besubmitted, will be an absolute necessity in the future,”

“And how would the decrees of such a court beenforced, your lordship,” inquired Prince Bismarck,who was listening.

“By the only aerial war vessels equipped with potentitewhich the allied nations would suffer to exist,your highness, and which vessels would be subject tothe orders of the Court of Nations. If any nation refusedto obey such decree, it could be disciplined, andif any nation attempted to put a potentite air ship underway, it would be necessary, in self-defense, for theallied powers, after adequate warning, to extirpate theoffending parties.”

“Might not a potentite air ship be secretly fittedout, your lordship?” asked the prince.

“Hardly,” replied the Marquis, “for, with the aidof a corps of observation air ships, and of internationaldetectives in every center of population, the world,both savage and civilized, could be adequately policedat a very small cost.”

“And what, in your lordship’s opinion, will bethe condition in or before the Congress of Nations, ofa people who desire separate government and whohave been unable to obtain it?” said Mr. MichaelDavitt, who was standing by.

The Marquis looked the Irishman squarely in theeye and replied slowly: “I think it will be quite outof the power of any government to retain by force337under its rule any considerable number of people,who, with or without, a grievance, are practicallyunanimous for a separate government. The Congressof Nations will, or at least ought to, require that anypeople seeking separation shall be nearly unanimous.But do you think, Mr. Davitt, to be candid, that thepeople of Ulster and the people of Galway would everbe brought to agree to any proposition on earth?”

“Begorra, your lordship, if you don’t mind metakin’ the answer to your question out of the mouthof Misther Davitt,” said the Honorable Bellew McCafferty,Home Rule member from Mayo—“begorra,there’s one great principle upon which Oireland is,and ever will be, united. Catholic and Protestant, Fardownerand Corkonian, Priest and Peeler are allheart and soul agreed”—

“To do what?” queried his lordship.

“Never,” replied the McCafferty, “never to payany rint.”

The Siva steamed out of San Diego harbor at nineo’clock on an April morning in the year 1896, carryingas passengers the naval and ordnance officerscommissioned by the various European and Americangovernments to examine and report upon theresult of the dynamic exposition. The civil anddiplomatic representatives were apportioned among thedifferent members of the fleet, which had gatheredfrom the Pacific squadrons of every naval power inthe world, and was now lying in San Diego Bay. Thesuccess of the air ship the day before in almost obliteratingthe Coronado Islands, filled every mind witheager anticipation of the results likely to be achievedby the torpedo boats, and there was an especial pressurefor places on board the Siva, which carried thenovel engines of destruction.

The Siva had been built at the Union Iron Worksin San Francisco, from plans and models furnished byengineers employed by Morning, and no expense hadbeen spared to make her the largest, swiftest, andbest-appointed war vessel afloat. Indeed, every otherconsideration had been sacrificed to speed, and, as aresult, a ship was constructed of ten thousand tons’ burden,drawing but twenty-one feet of water when fully339loaded, and able, when under a full head of steam, tomake twenty-six knots an hour. Relying upon herspeed to keep out of range of the guns of an enemy,and intended rather for a carrier of torpedo boats thana war vessel, she was, for her size, neither heavilyarmed nor heavily armored, yet she was covered withsteel plates of sufficient thickness to resist the largestordnance, and she was equipped with rifled cannonand pneumatic dynamite guns, equal in size and rangeto any constructed. Her cost was $8,000,000, andit was Morning’s avowed intention to present her tothe alliance of nations which he expected would resultfrom the dynamic exposition. The Siva rode theseas like a gull, and was as graceful and beautiful asa swan.

Forward of her engines the hull of the vessel wasdevoted to accommodations for housing, launching,and rehousing the two torpedo boats, the Etna andStromboli. Each of these was cigar-shaped, one hundredfeet in length and twenty feet in diameter. Theywere built of steel, with an inner and outer shell. Theadmission of water between these shells would causethe submersion of the boat to any depth required forthe purposes of destroying an enemy, while by theexpulsion of water they were enabled to ascend to thesurface. In the inner shell was an electric engine,with sufficient power stored in its dynamos to propelthe boat under water at a speed of twenty-five milesan hour for a period of five hours. Enough compressedair was stored in steel tanks to supply theneeds of ten men for eight hours, and the Etna had,on several occasions, as a test, remained submerged340with her crew for four hours without coming to thesurface.

The construction of torpedo boats for harbor defensewas no longer a novelty, but this was the firstattempt made to demonstrate that a submarine torpedovessel could be used on the high seas to overtakeand destroy a flying enemy. The Etna and theStromboli each carried one hundred shells, each shellbeing loaded with five hundred pounds of potentite.Chain cradles for holding these shells were suspendedto huge fans of finely-tempered steel, shaped likepincers, and the machinery for fastening one or moreof these cradles to the bottom of the vessel it was intendedto destroy was both simple and ingenious, aswere the arrangements for exploding them whenfastened. A fuse or wire attached to a steamer runningaway at the rate of a mile in three minutes wouldhave been impracticable, and the inventor had thereforearranged a time or clockwork cap, which couldbe set to explode at any given number of minutesfrom the time the shell should be fastened.

The Siva, containing Mr. Morning, the foreignengineers, and the ordnance officers of the AmericanNavy detailed for the service, left her moorings atnine o’clock and steamed down the bay, followed bythe Warspite, flying the British flag, the French corvetteGarronne, the Russian frigate Tsar, the Italianironclad Victor Emanuel, the Spanish ship Pizarro,the Chilean man-of-war Cero del Pasco, the Swedishsloop-of-war Berdanotte, the American iron batteriesCharleston and San Francisco, and the great Germansteel war ship Wilhelm II. It was intended that this341latter vessel should follow the Warspite, but there wassome delay in getting her under way, and she was thelast in the naval procession, being followed only bythe Esmeralda—the vessel to be destroyed.

At the termination of the Chilean insurrection itwas found that the Esmeralda—the war ship controlledby the insurgents—was, though not unseaworthy, yettoo badly damaged by a contest with gunboats to beserviceable for the purposes for which she was constructed,and she was, therefore, sold by the ChileanGovernment to Mr. Morning for $1,000,000—somethingless than one-third her cost.

He purchased her for use as a transport in connectionwith the construction of the Nicaragua Canal,in which he was interested, and he now devoted herto destruction, as a test of the power of the new explosive,and the efficiency of the submarine torpedoboats.

The Esmeralda was an ironclad steamer of thelargest size, capable of a speed of twenty miles anhour. She was armored with steel plates, and in everyway staunch. On this occasion she carried only sufficientforce to navigate her, and she towed a largesteam launch, into which her crew would be transferredand conveyed to a place of safety so soon asthe torpedoes should be fastened to her. Two lifeboatswere also swung, ready for launching in case ofaccident.

Baron Von Eulaw had been indulging the previousnight in deep potations, and was, consequently, so belatedthat the carriage containing the baroness andhimself did not reach the Coronado wharf until the342Siva had steamed away, and was being followed bythe other vessels in the order described. The launchesand small steamers, with the guests apportioned amongthe different vessels of the fleet, had also left the wharf,and two-thirds of the vessels which were to accompanythe Siva, with their steam up and whistles blowing,were impatiently awaking the signal to move,and were uneasily churning into a foam the placidwaters of the harbor.

Hastily summoning a boat lying at the wharf, thebaron escorted the baroness on board, and, seatinghimself beside her, directed the crew to row for “thatship,” pointing to the Esmeralda. It will never beknown whether this direction was the result of accidentor design, for the Esmeralda, in size and generalappearance, strongly resembled the Wilhelm II., whichwas anchored just ahead of her in the stream, and itwas the Wilhelm II. to which the Baron Von Eulaw,as one of the representatives of the German Empire,had been assigned.

Arrived at the Esmeralda, however, the anchor ofwhich was then being hoisted, the baron was politelyinformed by the officer in charge of the deck that noarrangements had been made to receive guests onboard the vessel, as she was destined to destruction.The baron, with real or affected dismay, remarkedthat the Wilhelm II. was already under way; that itwould be impossible for him now to gain her deck,and, unless permitted to board the Esmeralda, and remainupon her, they would lose altogether the greatspectacle they had, by designation of his imperialmajesty Wilhelm II., come all the way from Berlinto San Diego to attend.

343He would be in lasting disgrace at home if compelledto admit that, through his own negligence anderror, he had not witnessed the destruction of theEsmeralda at all. Might not the baroness and himself,under the circ*mstances, be suffered to trespass uponthe hospitalities of the officers of the Esmeralda untilthe time came for abandoning the vessel, when theycould join the officers and crew on the steam launch,and be placed on board the Wilhelm II., or one of theother vessels of the fleet, or return on the launch toSan Diego, as might be most convenient?

With some hesitation, the deck officer of the Esmeralda,after brief consultation with his superior,consented to the request of Von Eulaw, and, apologizingfor the condition of the cabin, which, in anticipationof the destruction of the vessel, had been strippedof everything save the standing furniture and a fewchairs, he invited them to make themselves as comfortableas circ*mstances would permit.

With salvos of cannon and music of bands, thegaily-decked fleet sped out to sea. Through thenarrow channel they steamed, past Point Loma, withbrow of purple and feet of foam. When they reachedthe open sea, they spread out in line abreast, the Sivataking a position on the extreme north, and slackeningher speed a little so as to accommodate it to thatof her companions.

Arrived at the scene of the proposed experiment,sixteen miles west of San Diego bar, the speed of allthe vessels was slackened so as to afford only steerageway, and the Esmeralda was signaled to leave herposition next the Siva, and steam away at full speed344to the north. Simultaneously with this order, thehatches on the Siva were opened, chains and ropestightened, the vast power of the engines applied, andthe Stromboli, with her crew and cargo in place, waslifted from the hold of the Siva, swung over the side,and launched in the ocean.

It was four minutes from the time the whistlesounded until the launch of the Stromboli, and in themeantime the Esmeralda steamed quite one mileaway. The Siva was a few hundred yards ahead ofthe other vessels, and the Stromboli was launchedform her port side, so that the launch was witnessedby those who thronged the starboard side of theother vessels. The entire fleet then resumed itsformer rate of speed, and the distance between it andthe Esmeralda was soon placed at one mile, at whichit was subsequently maintained.

The Stromboli glided away for a minute on the surfaceof the sea, and then, admitting water to the spacebetween her steel shells, rapidly sank to a depth offorty feet. The Esmeralda was still at full speed, andmaking twenty knots an hour, but the Stromboli waspushing her way under the sea, propelled by herpowerful electric engines, at the rate of twenty-fiveknots an hour, and in fifteen minutes had overtakenthe doomed vessel, and was preparing to make fastthe torpedo which should destroy her.

One pair of great steel claws, holding a chain basketcontaining five hundred pounds of potentite setby clockwork to explode in sixty minutes, was, bythe power of the electric engine, raised above thecigar-shaped steel monster gliding through the cool,345quiet waters, and driven through the plates of theEsmeralda, just forward of the stern of that vessel.A second was placed amidship, and a third near thebow.

The upper deck of the Stromboli had a dozen plate-glassopenings, through which a number of powerfulelectric lights illuminated the depths of the ocean,and enabled the men in charge of the machinery todirect with accuracy the work of fastening the torpedoes.If it had been necessary, men in submarinearmor, fastened to steel arms projected from theStromboli, and supplied with air through rubber tubes,could have been placed at work on the bottom of theEsmeralda, and maintained there for hours, evenwhile she was coursing through the seas. But it wasnot necessary to invoke this process, for, by the aidof the ordinary machinery of the Stromboli, the threegreat shells were fastened in twenty minutes’ time, andthe Esmeralda was proceeding on her journey with fifteenhundred pounds of potentite fastened to her keel.The officers and crew of the Esmeralda all subsequentlytestified that this work was performed noiselesslyand without jar, or any evidence that it wasgoing forward.

But had they possessed all knowledge, they couldnot have prevented it. No rate of speed possible tothe doomed vessel would have enabled her to outrunthe speedier submarine torpedo boat, and no machineryor appliance could have reached her under thekeel of the Esmeralda, or prevented her work, andonce the potentite shells were in place, it was beyondthe power of man to remove them, and no human346skill could prevent the explosion taking place at theappointed time.

The introduction of this deadly force into navalwarfare was not intended to be unaccompanied withsome merciful provisions for preventing unnecessarydestruction of human life, and a code of signals hadbeen prepared for all naval powers, to be used whenevera vessel was to be destroyed.

The Stromboli, having performed her duty, glidedfrom under the keel of the Esmeralda, and, at a distanceof a few hundred yards, shot up a signal pipeabove the surface of the ocean, and with her electricwhistle shrieked through it a succession of signals thatwere heard by the multitude upon the fleet a mileaway.

“Submarine torpedo boat has been underneathyour keel,” said one short shriek, and one more prolonged.

“Fifteen hundred pounds of the most powerful explosiveknown to science are fastened to you,” saidfifteen short shrieks.

“Make ready to count your minutes of life,” saidone long and two short shrieks.

“In thirty-six minutes your ship will be hurled infragments into the air,” said thirty-six short shrieks.

“Leave your ship to her inevitable fate. Launchyour boats and save your lives. Your enemy will pickyou up and receive your honorable surrender,” saidone shriek, continued for five minutes.

Standing on the deck of the Warspite, King Edwardthe Seventh looked at his watch. If in thirty-sixminutes the Esmeralda should sink beneath the waves,347the navies of England, with those of all other powers,would be as obsolete for the purposes of attack ordefense upon the high seas as the galleys of Cæsar,or the barge of Cleopatra. Another Trafalgar wouldbe as impossible as another Actium. The littleStromboli and Etna, carried in the hold of the Siva,could destroy every ironclad afloat. The latter vessel,with her immense speed, could keep out of rangeof the enemy’s guns, and she could send forth thetorpedo boats and destroy ship after ship. She couldpick up the torpedo boats, recharge their storage batteries,refit their magazines with potentite shells, andtheir tanks with compressed air, and send them forthagain and proceed with such work of destruction untilnot a ship should live on any sea, except by licenseof the Siva, and subject to her rule.

What revolutions and what changes would thisdynamic exposition not precipitate upon the mistressof the seas? India would give her new emperorthe choice between walking out and being potentitedout, and Canada, and Australia, and every other colony,would be taking leave. And Ireland—well, herewas a state of things! Ireland would have whateverDavitt, and McCarthy, and Dillon should agree uponasking, or else every British war ship would be blownup, and every Irishman who could raise the money,would try the effect of a balloon loaded with potentite,upon his friends across the channel. Of course,it was a game in which one could give blows as wellas take them, but that is a very unequal game betweenan anarchist and a king. It looked as if King Edwardmight be compelled to “rustle” to keep the348British crown on his royal brow. It might be well tolook up a good cattle range in Colorado where heand nephew William, with the Hapsburgs, the Bourbons,and the Romanoffs might retire, should it benecessary.

Among the stores of the Esmeralda which had notbeen sent ashore was a decanter of brandy, which thebaron found in the cabin, and to which he devotedhimself so assiduously that when the whistles sounded,announcing that the torpedoes were fastened to theship, he was, from the combined effects of past andpresent potations, in a condition closely borderingupon delirium tremens.

The first officer proceeded to the cabin, where VonEulaw and the baroness had withdrawn, and, attemptingto open the door, found it locked. The voice ofthe baroness in a pleading tone was heard, followedby oaths and maniacal laughter from the baron.

“The torpedoes are fastened to us, and in thirty-fourminutes this ship will be in the air,” said the officerthrough the closed door. “Our orders are toleave the vessel ten minutes before the explosion.You had better go on board of the launch at once.”

“Is that so?” yelled the baron. “Well, we willgo into the air along with the ship, my American wifeand myself. My estates are all gone. The Queen ofDiamonds has seized them and given them to theJack of Spades. This earth has nothing more for me,and we will take now a trip to the stars above.”

The officer comprehended the situation in an instant.“He has the jimjams, sure enough,” he muttered,“Best way is to humor him.” “All right,349baron,” said he, in a conciliatory tone. “But youdon’t want your wife to go with you, you know. Openthe door and let her come with us.”

“Ah, no!” said the maniac. “The Baroness VonEulaw will go to heaven along with her dear husband,that she loves so much, so much!”

“Madam,” said the officer, “can you not unlockthe door? If not, I will have it broken down.”

“No,” shrieked the baron, “she cannot unlock thedoor, for I have thrown the key into the sea throughthe window, and if anybody makes any trouble withthe door, I have a little pistol, and I will shoot firstmy beloved American wife, and then the man at thedoor, and at last myself, and we will all go to the skiesin one trip.”

“Madame,” said the officer, “is he armed?”

“He is, and will, I fear, do as he threatens,” repliedEllen, with trembling voice.

“The situation is serious,” said the officer. “Thetorpedoes won’t wait for us, and the crew will be gettingnervous. In fact, I am nervous myself,” addedthe officer, sotto voce. “Suppose one of those infernalmachines should go off ahead of time?”

“Leave us, sir,” said the baroness. “If I can getthe pistol from him by persuasion, I will discharge itas a signal, and you can then break down the door.If I cannot do this, you must save yourselves withoutus. It would be useless for you to jeopardizeyour lives for us, for he will surely kill me, and willprobably shoot you if you attempt to force the doornow.”

“What is the matter there aft, Mr. Morton?”shouted the captain.

350“Dutch baron crazy drunk, sir. Has locked thedoor, and swears he will be blown up with the ship.Has a pistol, and will kill his wife if we try to forcethe door, sir.”

“Get a rifle, Mr. Morton, and stand ready to shoothim through the skylight. But I will first signal theSiva for orders.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the first officer cheerily.

“Something wrong on board the Esmeralda, sir;she is signaling us,” said the first officer of theSiva to the captain.

Morning, who was conversing with a Russian admiral,overheard the speaker and came forward to wherethe signal officer—the code spread before him—hadjust answered, “Ready to receive signal.”

The little scarlet flag in the hand of the signal officeron the foretop gallant yard of the Esmeralda rapidlyspelled out the message.

“Baron Von Eulaw and wife came on board as wewere starting. He has delirium tremens, and islocked in cabin with her. Refuses to board launch,and threatens to shoot her if we break down door.We can kill him with a rifle through the skylight.We wait orders.”

The face of David Morning was white with thewhiteness of death, but, with a voice in which therewas scarcely a tremor, he addressed himself to thecommander of the Siva.

“Captain, how far are we from the Esmeralda?”

“About a mile, sir.”

“How long will it be before the explosion?”

“Twenty-two minutes, sir.”

351“Is there any way by which the torpedoes now fastenedto her can be removed, or their explosion prevented,captain?”

“None whatever, sir.”

“Captain, signal the Esmeralda to have riflemen inplace, but not to shoot the baron unless he offers violenceto his wife. Signal her also to slacken speedwhile we run down to her. Signal the fleet to slackenspeed, and fall behind. Get out a boat with crew toput me on board the Esmeralda.”

There was a rapid fluttering of scarlet flags frommain and foretops, and the orders were obeyed.

“I will go with you, Mr. Morning,” said the captainof the Siva.

“And so will I, and I, and I,” came in chorusfrom a dozen officers and guests who had remainedbreathless auditors of the conversation.

“No,” said Morning quietly, “I will go alone. Ido not propose to risk a single one of these valuablelives, or this ship.”

Morning picked up a coil of light rope from whereit hung on a belaying pin, and descended into theboat, which, with crew in place, was now suspended afew feet from the water. “Captain,” said he, “assoon as we are launched you will steam away with theSiva, and rejoin the fleet: The steam launch towedby the Esmeralda will be sufficient to provide for thesafety of all. Run us as close to the Esmeralda asyou can, captain, before you drop us,” and Morningrapidly knotted a slip noose in the rope.

Clang! clang! clang! sounded the signal to reversethe engines; the Siva glided alongside and within352three hundred feet of the Esmeralda, and the boatcontaining David Morning dropped gently into thefoaming water. Clang! again went the gong, and bythe time David Morning sprang up the ladder at thecompanion-way of the Esmeralda, the Siva was half amile away.

As the foot of Morning touched the deck of thedoomed vessel, it lacked thirteen minutes of the timeset for the explosion.

“What is the situation?” said Morning to the captainof the Esmeralda.

“Through the skylight we can see that the baronesshas evidently abandoned all effort to move thebaron, and is on her knees in the corner, apparentlyin prayer. The baron is walking up and down thecabin floor flourishing a co*cked revolver, and mutteringto himself. The first officer with three gunners,each with a Winchester rifle, are at the skylightwith sites drawn on the baron, anxious to fire as soonas they get the order, and six men with a piece oftimber are in place, ready to burst open the cabindoor. It is only twelve minutes to the blow-up, sir,and the men are getting uneasy. Shall we shoot andrescue the lady, sir?”

“Not yet, captain. Can you open the skylightfrom above noiselessly?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do so at once.”

With his noosed rope coiled in hand, Morning approachedthe skylight. Often in Colorado he had,from love of sport, attended rodeos and learned thetrick of the lasso. His skill with it was the admiration353of the cowboys. “Kin Dave Morning handlea riata?” said one of his enthusiastic admirers to acorrespondent of an Eastern newspaper. “Well,stranger, I should smile! Kin he? He kin throwhis lariat a matter of forty feet around any part of ajumping steer, hoof or horn. He kin throw a bullbuffalo at the head of the herd. He kin make abuckin’ broncho turn two somersaults, and land himon head or heels, just as he likes. He kin stop ajacksnipe on the wing if he don’t fly too high. Oh,I’m talkin’ to ye, stranger! Often I’ve seen him,when he felt right well, throw his little lasso acrossthe room of the big hotel at Trinidad, and smash a flyon a window pane without breaking the glass. Oh,you can laff, of course! I ain’t got nothin’ agin yourhilarity, but if any gentleman feels inclined to doubtthe entire truth of anything I’ve been a sayin’, or hasanything to say agin Dave Morning, either as a vaqueroor a man, he kin get his gun ready, for myname is Buttermilk Bill from the San Juan Range.”

Poising his improvised riata, Morning looked downthrough the open skylight. The baron, attracted bythe shadow, stopped in his nervous walk and lookedup. As he did so the noose dropped over his headand shoulders, and pinioned his arms to his side, andhe was thrown to the floor, while the co*cked pistol heheld in his hand was harmlessly discharged. Like acat, Morning dropped from the skylight upon thefloor of the cabin, followed by the first officer and thegunners, all of whom proceeded—none too tenderly—towrap and tie the rope around the arms and legs ofthe baron.

354“Now, then,” sounded the voice of the second officeroutside the cabin door; “now, then, my hearties,once, twice, thrice, and away!” and, with a crash, thedoor flew from its hinges nearly across the cabin.

Morning half supported and half carried the baronessto the launch, which was now lying alongsidewith steam up, and they descended to the deck, followedby the crew and officers of the Esmeralda andthe crew of the boat from the Siva.

“Where is the baron,” said the baroness faintly.

The captain looked at the first officer, who madereply, “He is in the cabin, sir.”

“We have still five minutes if anybody chooses tobring him aboard,” said the captain.

And after a pause of a few seconds nobody stirred.

Ellen looked at Morning.

And Morning leaped upon the deck of the Esmeralda,followed by the captain, first officer, and one ofthe men.

In less than a minute the Baron Von Eulaw, writhing,cursing, and foaming at the mouth, was depositedon the deck of the launch, which steamed away rapidlyin a direction opposite to that taken by the doomedvessel.

There were just two minutes to spare. The wheelof the Esmeralda had been lashed so as to head heraway from the fleet. Her chief engineer was the lastman to leave the engine room, and just before he left,he pulled the lever to increase her speed, so that inthe two minutes which passed after the steam launchand the Esmeralda separated, they were quite a mileapart.

355Suddenly a dull sound like the throb of a greatmuffled drum was heard. An immense arch of waterarose in air. Upon its summit was the Esmeralda,broken into a dozen fragments, which writhed likea python twisting in the agonies of death. For amoment the cloven mail of the giant flashed and scintillatedin the sun, and then, with a sound of suckingwater—the death gurgle of those engulfed by the sea—eachfragment went out of sight forever, and greatbillows of foam rolled over the spot where the mightyship went down.

Morning accompanied as far as Chicago the specialtrains containing those of the European guestswhose official duties required their immediate departure,but very many, including the Baron Von Eulawand his party, remained at Coronado.

With a good deal of effort, the episode of the baron’sconduct, and the circ*mstances of the rescue of hiswife and himself, were kept out of the press reports,yet the affair was, nevertheless, one of those open secretswith which many people enliven conversation.

Mrs. Thornton was, for once, disinclined to sufferher admiration for a title to induce her to overlookthe homicidal freak of her son-in-law, and she urgedEllen in vain to formally separate her life from thatof her husband. Possibly her appreciation of the factthat Morning was now more renowed than any Europeanpotentate, and outranked any king on earth, andher comprehension of the further fact that he was stilldeeply in love with her daughter, may have influencedher counsel.

Moved by some impulse, which perhaps she couldnot have explained to herself, she took occasion whenthanking Morning for saving her daughter’s life, toconfide to him the history of how Ellen’s marriage357had been brought about, to which she added the storyof her married life, and concluded by pressing uponhim for perusal, a package of her daughter’s letters.These Morning carried with him to Chicago, and theirreading induced him, after parting with his distinguishedguests, to hasten his return to Coronado,where he was advised that the Von Eulaw party wouldremain for some weeks.

On a delicious afternoon the baroness, with Mrs.Thornton and Miss Winters, sat in the gallery overhangingthe old music hall on the sea. Although anew and costlier edifice had been built, with improvedacoustics and elaborate design, the little gem at thecorner of the hotel, long washed by the waves andthreatened by the breakers, seemed still a favorite resortfor concert and afternoon recitals, and thithercame many who sought for a restful hour under theeloquent discourse of the old white-haired professor’sviolin.

“It is a pity for the world,” said Miss Winters,during a pause in the performance, “that so few areable to look into the soul of Tolstoi’s labors. In oneof his chapters he expresses the epitome of all musicalsensations in half a dozen lines.”

“I hope you are not referring to the ‘KreutzerSonata,’ Miss Winters,” broke in Mrs. Thornton.

Miss Winters smiled rather than spoke reply. Butthe baroness took greater liberty and rejoined rathersaucily, “The regular thing, dear mother, is to ask forsome palliative to remove the taste from your mouthafter the mention of the much-abused ‘KreutzerSonata.’”

358Mrs. Thornton replied with a look of high disdainand much fluttering of ribbons.

“I am not punctilious, but I could not sit and listento a defense of that man.”

“I am not defending him, though I might, especiallyif he were my client,” laughed Miss Winters.“I am only deploring that the world will not forgivehis truths nor forget his faults in the universal powerof his genius.”

It was well that the next on the programme was Beethoven’sseventh symphony, and that the men strolledin soon afterwards, for nothing is so prolific of enmitiesas the subject of Tolstoi, unless it be that of tariff.

The enchanting numbers were ended, and the ladiesleft the hall, the men taking another direction.At the foot of the stairway they were accosted byDavid Morning, who, after a greeting, turned andjoined the baroness.

“When did you return?” said she, looking fullinto his bronzed face, and again at his travelingclothes.

“Only this moment. And how are you? and hasthe baron entirely recovered?”

“Completely, I believe, and for me, one could notbe so ungrateful as to be ill in this place.”

“I trust not,” replied Morning absently.

There was silence for a moment, then, turningshortly, and looking into the handsome face of thebaroness, he said, without calling her by name, butearnestly, and it may be added a little peremptorily,“I wish to have a few moments’ conversation withyou after dinner, if you will be good enough to consent.”

359“For what purpose? When? Alone?”

“Your first question let me answer later. Here,under the palms, on the beach, anywhere, but alone,certainly.”

Each question was superfluous, of course, but shewas gaining time. At length she answered slowly,“I could wish you had not asked me for this meeting,Mr. Morning.”

“But I am going away. Will you, knowing this,still refuse?”

“I will come,” she said after a pause. “We willsit here upon the veranda, after eight. The othersare going, I believe, to look at the dancers.”

And, thanking her, he lifted his hat and withdrew.

The halls were not ablaze on this night, for there isnot light enough in the world to coax the sullenshadows from their lurking-places in a modern interior.But the arches of heaven, albeit moonless,were more obedient, and the electric scintillationssearched and filled every rood of ground with theirunwarm but willing light, or chased with exact pencilthe willful outlines of orange and oleander, or themore tender ways of acanthus, pepper, and palm.

Morning had wheeled a luxurious easy-chair alongsideof his veranda “shaker,” and sat with his handsupon the upholstered back, waiting for the one womanin the world to him, while the promenaders, in fullevening toilet, filed in pairs along the thronged corridors,and the soft strains of “La Paloma” floateddown from the balcony and mingled with the plashof the sea.

“Engaged,” spoke Morning curtly, as a youthful360lord, accompanying the British delegation, attemptedto move the fanteuil aside.

“Beg pardon, I wish I were,” retorted the scionof a noble house, striding away with the fair one uponhis arm.

“There is hope for that fellow,” Morning muttered.

“I left the baron to be taken to his room by hisvalet,” explained the baroness approaching. “Heis a little tired and nervous,” and she loosened thelace about her throat impatiently.

“Yes,” dryly, was the only comment.

“He said he might get around here before he retired.I hope you would not mind, he is so verycapricious, you don’t know.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mind, but if he comes I am going,for I ‘don’t mind’ saying also I’ve had enough ofthat fellow!”

The baroness looked up with surprise, but Morningwent on excitedly:—

“Oh, I know I ought not to say this to you, but Imust say it, and a great deal more, unless you stopme! I say you are in deadly terror of that man, andyou hate him beside, as you ought.”

“How can you—who told you this? Surely youare assuming—”

“No, pardon me, I am assuming nothing. I readyour letters.”

“Who gave you my letters?” asked the baronessin amazement.

“Your mother urged them upon me, and I wasdisloyal enough to read them, every line,” a littletriumphantly. He arose hastily and walked away361for a few paces, drying and fanning his face with hishandkerchief, then, returning, he leaned upon theback of her chair, and, dropping his voice, said huskily,and with quite uncontrollable emotion:—

“Ellen—let me call you so this once, it remainswith you whether I ever utter the name again—dearEllen, answer this from your own sweet lips, have youa spark of love for that beas—man?” correcting himselftoo late. “I know how capricious the heart of awoman is, and perhaps—but no! take your time toanswer, only give me your word,” and he walkedswiftly away, and looked out on the sea, and saw thewaves beat their soft white arms upon the sands, thenreturned.

The woman had turned to ashen paleness. Theever-repeating and distributing electric light had forgottenthe delicate tints of her dainty gown, and thecolor of her hair and brows, with the roses upon herbosom, and only the waxen face, with its dark eyesfilled with glistening tears, uprose whiter than thebeams.

“Poor heart!” said he, noting the quiver of thesensitive mouth. “It ought not to be so difficult tospeak the truth.”

At length the tortured woman found voice:—

“David Morning,” she said, in tremulous tones,“I am not meaning to question your right to givechallenge to my despair, though, for reasons you canunderstand, it is from you, more than from all theworld, I would have disguised it. You ask me if Ilove that man? I answer, No, no, a thousand timesno! But my sense of obligation as his wife is as much362stronger than my hate as misery is stronger than thesocial bars which contain it, and I deem it neithernoble nor just to utter complaints against one who is,whatever may be said, my legal protector before theworld. I do not deny that I have suffered untoldagonies, but I may as well bear them in one cause asanother.”

“I confess,” said Morning, with a manner suddenlygrown cold, “I do not fully understand you. Youspeak of ‘obligations,’ and ‘social bars;’ you cannotmean that you would deliberately sacrifice yourwoman’s soul, with all its honor and its aims, to a lifeof dishonor and deceit—for so I dare to name it—fordread of the idle dictum of a malicious social scarecrow?”

The baroness winced, but quickly rallied, and, leaningforward in her chair, so near that he caught theperfume of the roses on her corsage, she replied:—

“No! though I will say in passing that, whatever Imight do, no woman, be she termagant or angel, hasever lived long enough to escape the opprobriumarising from the poisonous effluvia of the divorcecourts! However, that is not the subject under discussion,and my unhappy feet are placed upon moretenable ground. I confess myself, then, not strongenough to defy the convictions of a life given much—thematurer portion, at least—to an examination of theethics of the question. And I resolutely affirm that,in my own mind, I am convinced that to seek to evadethe results of my own deliberate action, would be sinful,and in violation of my own conscientious perceptions—‘agrieving of the Spirit,’ in the language of363a very old author, and, therefore, a sin against theHoly Ghost.”

Is it possible, thought Morning, forgetful for themoment of the purpose that had brought him there,that in this evening of the nineteenth century a cultivatedwoman, herself the victim of a system fiendishin its power to forge public opinion, and cruel as theInquisition, should have the courage thus to look herawful destiny in the face tranquilly, and smilingly setupon it the cold white seal of conscience? And for abrief moment he wondered if she were a saint or alunatic.

Then he thought of the many shafts of argumentthat might be let loose to pierce the diseased cuticle ofher morbid philosophy, but he had not the heart, or,rather, he lacked entire faith in their efficacy, so hesat silently counting his heart beats. Finally, takingalarm at his protracted silence, she resumed:—

“Do not misunderstand me; I am not narrowenough to convict, or egotist enough to try to convert,others to my way of thinking; I only speak formyself.”

“Your missionary seed would fall upon stony groundif you were so disposed,” he answered quickly,almost rudely. “Ellen Thornton,” he continued,ignoring the hateful title that seemed to have engulfedher body and soul for all of him, “for thirteen yearsfate has been circumventing our lives. I have heardyour name over seas as you have heard mine, familiarto all but each other. I have loved you with hopeand without it. Great wealth has been my portion,yet I would be a beggar to-night if you would butshare my crust with me, with love like mine.”

364Into the eyes of the woman, fierce with resolutionand despair, there came tears, half of pity, half ofjoy—pity for his fate and hers, joy for that the loveshe had deemed lost and gone from their lives washere, tireless and strong as the sea, immortal andsweet as the morning, and the voice of the man whosehead was bent near her own thrilled her with itsmusic.

“During all the years of parting,” continued Morning,“I have been neither despairing nor misanthropic,but I knew that the passion of my life had glowed andburned, and—as I thought—died to ashes upon thealtar whose goddess was the dark-eyed maiden whommy young manhood adored. When, less than a fortnightago, I was able to deliver you from the awfuldeath that madman would have inflicted upon you,my exultation had but one sting, that I had saved youfor another, and for such a fate; and then, in myinsane rage, I cursed myself that I had not let youdie under my dizzy eyes, and so have rounded mydespair.

“But I have come near to you now, our paths havecrossed. O God, how I have waited for the hour!and how can I let you go? If I do, our ways willagain diverge, and every remove will bring us fartherapart. Do you know what this means to me? It is thedividing of my soul from my body, of my heart from mybrain; it means a galvanized life, a career of evisceratedmotives, a gibbering, masquerading existence, emasculateof manly and fruitful purpose, a hopeless love”—andhis voice trembled and sank—“ashes and dustand nothing more.”

365The baroness listened with passion tearing at herheart, while her white lips were fashioning word ofwise restraint. Could she trust herself to speak? Sheenvied in her soul the women she had known abroad,women of convictions, with uncoddled consciences,charming, virtuous women too, but without the monitorto guide the wayward thought, a sky without a polarstar, a ship without a rudder, and then she recalledthe burning words of the man beside her.

“I know,” said she at length, “that I owe you mylife, and, in the logic of natural sequence, I should giveback that which you won. But it is love’s sophistry,and, in truth, perhaps for no better reason thanbecause I so much desire it, I dare not. One phaseof your argument pricks my conscience in turn. Youtell me that your usefulness must pay the penalty ofmy decision. Unsay those words, I entreat you”—andshe leaned far toward him. “God has singledyou out for a great destiny. Fulfill it. You have theworld at your feet; let that suffice you for the present.I do not ask you to forget me!”—and her lips grewtremulous. “I should die if I thought you could.But work on, as you have been doing, for the sake ofhumanity, and wait heroically, as you have done.”

“Wait for what? for somebody to die?” broke inMorning hotly. “For somebody to die, that is theEnglish of it. Most lives are made what they are bysome woman. She may be a mother, a sister notlikely. Since I received that long-lost letter—anathemasupon that circular desk,” and he poundedthe “shaker” arm with his fist—“I have had butone inspiration in my projects, one question always366ringing in my ears,—‘What will she think of it?’ NowI have found you only to hear from your own lips thatmy life is a failure, and yours a moral suicide, whichI seem as helpless to prevent as I am to put a stayupon yonder waves that lash themselves to spray uponthe rocks.”

“David Morning,” and her voice was firm now,“I think I owe it to you as well as myself to tell you,even with the marriage ring upon my finger, that Iwish I were free from the yoke of this fateful marriage;that if I could be delivered from the body ofthis death, then could I mount with glad wings thegreat height to which your love would raise me. ButI could have no weight of a crying conscience uponmy feet, no wail of wounded justice behind me, andso I will bear it to the end.”

“You say, even with that marriage ring upon yourfinger. What care I,” said he, rising and standingbefore her, “for that circlet of gold upon your beautifulhand? I know it is a mockery, so do you, andbut for it that hand might have been mine, and allthese years have been saved to love and the heart’sgladness. What signifies the sanction of the law ifyou have not the sanction of your own soul? I shallnot seek to dissuade you more, but one question Iwill ask of you, and if wealth could buy words eloquentenough to couch it in, I would surrender mypossessions and delve for it again, if need be, in thedepths of the earth. But truth is simple, and so I begof you to answer from your soul, and thereafter I willdo as you bid me. Do you love me, darling? doyou?” and he bent over her chair.

367She lifted a face radiant with beautiful light.“Dearest,” said she softly, and David Morning thrilledwith delight—“dearest, I am glad that this meetingand this understanding have come to us just here,where hundreds of eyes are upon us, for, if it wereotherwise, I should forget all else except my desire tocomfort you, and should place my arms about yourneck, and ask you to seal upon my lips your forgivenessof me for all that I have made you suffer. Godhelp me, I do love you, and I never loved any other.You are my hero, my darling, and my heart’s delight.All these years I have loved you, until the hour ofdeath I shall love you, and beyond the gates I shalllove you forever, and forever more.”

Only a great sob came from the breast of DavidMorning.

“Noble man,” she continued, “you have accomplisheda great work in the world. God has selectedand armed you for the deliverance of his nations.You have other and greater work to do. In the doingit the luster of your shield shall never be tarnished,as it would be were we to wrong another now.Go forth, my hero, my life, and my darling; go forthpanoplied in your high manhood to your duty. Inspirit I shall be with you ever. I shall rejoice in yourmighty deeds. I shall live in your nobler thoughts.Day and night, my beloved, will my soul dwell withyours. Only in perfect honor and faith can I join you.If the hour for such union shall ever be given to us onearth, come to me and you will find me waiting. Ifit come only in the other land, I shall still be waiting.But here, my darling, my own, my heart’s solace,here we must meet not again.”

368And she placed her ungloved fingers in his.

The man and the woman sat silently hand in hand.The music floated out from the lighted ballroom,where “the dancers were dancing in tune;” the seacurled its beryl depths to crests of foam, and soundedin musical monotones upon the beach which lay awhite line upon the edge of the dusk, and the old, oldworld, the sorrowful, disappointing world, the wearyworld, was as sweet and young as when the first dawnswere filtrated from chaotic mists.

She broke the silence and withdrew her hand:“Yonder comes the baron.”

“Good-by,” said he, and he walked away into thenight, and as he reached the edge of the balcony overhangingthe beach, and felt the sting of the salt sprayin his eyes, he muttered something. It might havebeen a good-night prayer, but it sounded like, “Damnthe baron.”

We regret to announce the death yesterday, at theCoronado Hotel, of Baron Frederick Augustus EulawVon Eulaw, eleventh Count of Walderberg, eighthBaron of Weinerstrath, and Knight Commander ofthe order of the Golden Tulip.

The immediate cause of the baron’s death was hyperemiaof the brain, but he never recovered from thenervous prostration induced by heat and long exposureto the sun, while in the performance of his dutyas one of the representatives of the German Empire,on the occasion of the dynamic exposition.

369This distinguished nobleman, during his brief sojournamong us, had endeared himself to all withwhom he came in contact, by the gentleness andgrace of his manner, his kindly sympathies, and unselfishcourtesy. The Wilhelm II. has been detailedto receive his remains, which will be embalmed fortransportation in state to Berlin, where they will beinterred with fitting pomp.

The baroness, who to the last was devoted in herattentions to the late baron, will, it is understood, remainin this country in the home of her parents, Professorand Mrs. John Thornton.

It was a lovely morning in June, in the year of ourLord eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, when a carriagecontaining a red-headed and red-bearded mandrove rapidly down upon Pier No. 2, North River,where the occupant emerged from the equipage, and,elbowing his way through the throng, approached thegangway of an immense steamer gaily decorated withflags of all nations.

He was stopped by two officials in uniform, one ofthem saying civilly that no strangers were allowed onboard.

“Is not this Mr. Morning’s steam yacht the Patience?”said the stranger.

“Yes, sir, if the largest and finest vessel in theworld can be called a yacht. Certainly this is Mr.Morning’s ship.”

“I was told at the hotel that he would sail to-day forEurope.”

“Your information is quite correct; he goes as oneof the three delegates appointed by the President torepresent the United States at the Congress of Nations,which will meet in Paris next month.”

“Well, I want to see him before he sails,” repliedthe stranger.

371“It is too late, sir, even if you had a card of admission.His friends are now bidding good-by to thebridal party, and in a few minutes the order will beissued of ‘all ashore.’”

“Bridal party? Whose? Not Morning’s?”

“Haven’t you heard of it? Why, the papers havebeen full of it for days. He was married yesterday,in Boston, to the Baroness Von Eulaw.”

“Well,” said the stranger, “I only arrived thismorning from Arizona. I am the superintendent ofhis mine there, and am here on business of importance.He will be mightily disappointed if I don’t see him.Suppose you send word to him that Bob Steel is hereand wants to see him before he sails. I reckon he’llgive orders to admit me.”

The request of Steel was complied with, and directionsgiven for his admittance. After exchanging greetingswith Morning and being presented to the bride, Steelstated that he had business of importance to communicate.The whistle had sounded “all ashore,” andthe guests were rapidly departing. Morning quietlyinstructed the captain not to have the lines cast offuntil he should have finished his interview with Steel,and then, summoning the latter to follow him into aprivate salon, said:—

“Well, Bob, what is it?”

“Mr. Morning,” replied Steel, “the news ain’tgood, but it is so important I did not dare to trustto mail or wire, so I left the mine in charge of Mr.Fabian, and came on myself. We didn’t find no orelast month on the new level at two hundred feet, andI set three shifts to work at every station, and—I’mafraid to tell you the result.”

372“Out with it, Bob. I was married yesterday, andyou can’t tell me any news bad enough to hurt memuch.”

“Well, Mr. Morning, there ain’t no ore in themine below the one hundred and fifty feet level. Thequartz has come to an end. We are at the bed rock,and the syenite is as solid and close-grained as thebasalt wall where we did our first work, you and I,blasting with the Papago Indians.”

Morning whistled. “How much do we lack, Bob,of the $2,400,000,000 I donated to the United States?”

“About eight hundred millions, sir; but there ismore than enough ore not stoped out in the upperlevels to pay that twice over. We have seventeenhundred millions at least.”

“That,” said Morning, “will finish the paymentto the government, complete all the enterprises I haveprojected, give you ten millions, and all the men whohave stood by us from the start half a million each.It will serve also to make some donations I have inmind, and will leave over six hundred millions for theMorning family. It is not so much money now as itwas when I made the discovery, but it will keep thewolf from the door. Bob, the whistles are soundingand I shall have to bid you good-by and send youashore. There is no possibility, I suppose, of this beingonly a break, or a horse? No chance of the orecoming in again lower down?”

“None in the world, Mr. Morning. In that formationit is impossible. The Morning mine, as a mine,has petered!”

“Bob,” said our hero, extending his hand with asmile, “put it there!”

373And Robert Steel and David Morning clasped handswith the clasp of men.

“Bob,” said Morning, “on my soul I am glad ofit. The problem of overproduction of gold will nolonger vex the world, and now I shall have a chanceto pass a few hours in quiet with my wife.”