Selected Stories of Bret Harte. Bret Harte

imaginary opponent aces. The force of habit is sometimes confusing.

      Meanwhile, some magnetic influence in Mr. Hamlin's presence, or the anodyne of liquor, or both, brought surcease of sorrow, and Brown slept. Mr. Hamlin moved his chair to the window, and looked out on the town of Wingdam, now sleeping peacefully—its harsh outlines softened and subdued, its glaring colors mellowed and sobered in the moonlight that flowed over all. In the hush he could hear the gurgling of water in the ditches, and the sighing of the pines beyond the hill. Then he looked up at the firmament, and as he did so a star shot across the twinkling field. Presently another, and then another. The phenomenon suggested to Mr. Hamlin a fresh augury. If in another fifteen minutes another star should fall—He sat there, watch in hand, for twice that time, but the phenomenon was not repeated.

      The clock struck two, and Brown still slept. Mr. Hamlin approached the table and took from his pocket a letter, which he read by the flickering candlelight. It contained only a single line, written in pencil, in a woman's hand:

      “Be at the corral, with the buggy, at three.”

      The sleeper moved uneasily, and then awoke. “Are you there Jack?”

      “Yes.”

      “Don't go yet. I dreamed just now, Jack—dreamed of old times. I thought that Sue and me was being married agin, and that the parson, Jack, was—who do you think?—you!”

      The gambler laughed, and seated himself on the bed—the paper still in his hand.

      “It's a good sign, ain't it?” queried Brown.

      “I reckon. Say, old man, hadn't you better get up?”

      The “old man,” thus affectionately appealed to, rose, with the assistance of Hamlin's outstretched hand.

      “Smoke?”

      Brown mechanically took the proffered cigar.

      “Light?”

      Jack had twisted the letter into a spiral, lit it, and held it for his companion. He continued to hold it until it was consumed, and dropped the fragment—a fiery star—from the open window. He watched it as it fell, and then returned to his friend.

      “Old man,” he said, placing his hands upon Brown's shoulders, “in ten minutes I'll be on the road, and gone like that spark. We won't see each other agin; but, before I go, take a fool's advice: sell out all you've got, take your wife with you, and quit the country. It ain't no place for you, nor her. Tell her she must go; make her go, if she won't. Don't whine because you can't be a saint, and she ain't an angel. Be a man—and treat her like a woman. Don't be a damn fool. Good-by.”

      He tore himself from Brown's grasp, and leaped down the stairs like a deer. At the stable door he collared the half-sleeping hostler and backed him against the wall. “Saddle my horse in two minutes, or I'll—” The ellipsis was frightfully suggestive.

      “The missis said you was to have the buggy,” stammered the man.

      “Damn the buggy!”

      The horse was saddled as fast as the nervous hands of the astounded hostler could manipulate buckle and strap.

      “Is anything up, Mr. Hamlin?” said the man, who, like all his class, admired the elan of his fiery patron, and was really concerned in his welfare.

      “Stand aside!”

      The man fell back. With an oath, a bound, and clatter, Jack was into the road. In another moment, to the man's half-awakened eyes, he was but a moving cloud of dust in the distance, toward which a star just loosed from its brethren was trailing a stream of fire.

      But early that morning the dwellers by the Wingdam turnpike, miles away, heard a voice, pure as a skylark's, singing afield. They who were asleep turned over on their rude couches to dream of youth and love and olden days. Hard-faced men and anxious gold-seekers, already at work, ceased their labors and leaned upon their picks, to listen to a romantic vagabond ambling away against the rosy sunrise.