Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

The notes mingled in the tired American's dreamy thoughts, and through his unstrung mind coursed strange fanciful applications of the poet's words—

"'A lone pine'—that's so, a lone pine like that one over the prospector's grave. I reckon if that lode there turns out all that Rocky said I'll have to call it Lone Pine. Suits me, too, the name does; I've always played a lone hand; ay, and I know what the barren mountain heights are, if any man ever did, and many's the time I've slept on them with the snow over me for a blanket—"

"'He dreams of a palm-tree'—no, that's not me, after all. I haven't dreamt much. Yes, by thunder, I have though! I dreamt some up in the sierra. I dreamt a lot of queer things by that old cliff-dweller's fire I relit after I found the Lone Pine; I thought this whole New Mexican country here was asleep, and that maybe I was the man to wake her up. Ah, and I thought, too, that I must have been asleep myself to have played a lone hand so long when I needn't, when I might have had a woman's love, and got some joy and happiness into life instead of toughing it out in solitude. I believe I've been a blamed idiot."

He listened as in a trance to the throbbing, wailing strings, while the sweet voice of the girl sang the last verse a second time—

By Heaven! had she been alone too? He almost sprang up to call to her, but it seemed to him he could not move. He stood on a lonely height under the pine-tree; he looked down on the grave of the man who had died there alone, and far away in a vision he beheld San Remo and the Casa Sanchez; and he saw more—he saw Manuelita. He could not break the spell and stand beside her there. He had had his chance, and now it was too late. He had dreamt through the summer, and now the winter had come, and its icy fetters bound him fast. Immovable on his crag he could only dream—dream of the happiness that might have been his, and long for it with a passionate desire that seemed as if it could burst the very mountains to let him pass, and yet was powerless to bring him an inch nearer to the spot that he longed for. The numbness of despair came upon him, his bewildered thoughts sank deeper into dreamland, and the tired brain at last was steeped in all-restoring forgetfulness.

*         *         *         *         *         *         *

He awoke suddenly with a start, the room was empty; the subdued voices came to him through the open door, but the guests were gone. How long had he slept? For answer he saw the scarlet light of sunset glowing on the adobe wall across the patio.

He sprang up like a giant refreshed and looked around, while the memory of what had taken place began to come back to him. "I must have been here for hours and hours. Her singing was like a charm. But where has she gone to? I've got to find her again right away. Why on earth did I lie there like a log all this time? What have I been doing all day, anyhow?"

He looked at his bandaged left hand, and passed his right over his forehead, and as his brain cleared the whole of the morning's work came back to him like a flash.

"I had to kill them, but I hate to think of it now. It was a butcherly job. That's not the way I want to live. Yes, I hate it," he repeated, standing in the middle of the empty room. He felt an unreasoning repulsion when he thought of the light-minded crowd that had cheered him so wildly on his return from the slaughter, and had laughed and jested over it. "Killing men is a mighty serious matter, whatever they may think," he muttered gloomily, "but most of these folks don't see it in that light. She's different, though, and it's she that I want, and not her people. Now, how am I going to find her alone?"

As he stood there the faint whine of a dog caught his ear.

"Faro, old man! Think of my forgetting you and your wounds when there's no one to see after you but me! I must have been off my nut." He strode out through the door, and beheld in the adjoining room his dog snugly established on a pile of blankets with all the dignity of a spoilt invalid, and there, kneeling beside him, her glossy head bent over the bulldog's picturesquely ugly face, was Manuelita.

"I made the doctor of the soldiers look at him," she said, glancing up at the tall American with a shy laugh. "He was almost angry when I asked him, and said he was no doctor of dogs; but I made him do it;" and she gave another little laugh of triumph.

"I reckon you could make most people do what you say, señorita," he answered, but he did not echo her laugh. He stood there looking down at her, and as he looked a great peace seemed to descend upon him. The anger and the strain, the battle-fury and the revulsion that followed it, all seemed to pass away from his mind, and a reverent awe came over his soul as though he had entered into a sanctuary, a sanctuary where even his own honest love showed to him as earthly and selfish, whence every thought but one was banished, the thought of a woman inexpressibly gentle and good, with a tender heart for every living thing. With a sudden movement he caught her hand in his own, and hers so soft and innocent lay in his so lately red with enemies' blood.

He knelt on one knee, and bowed his head and lifted the captive hand to his lips.

"I am not fit to come near you," he said, "but unless I have you, I can never care for anything in the whole world again. I am an uncouth ruffian, I know; but if you will teach me, I will learn to be gentle in time. Will you try me?"

He turned his face to hers, her lips met his, and the compact was sealed.

FINIS

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