The Globe-republican., 1892-08-12

had broken down in this wild but wooded
defile of the Sierras, and he had been
forced to winter encampment with
only a rude log-cabin for shelter, on the
very verge of the promised land. I'm
able to enter it himself, he was never
theless able to assist the better equipped
teams that followed him with wood and
water, and a coarse forage gathered
from a sheltered slope of wild oats.
This was the beginning of a rude sup
ply station" which afterward became so
profitable that when spring came and
Nays team were sufficiently recruited
to follow the flood of immigrating gold
seekers to the placers and valleys, there
seemed no occasion for it. His fortune
had been already found in the belt of
arabic slope behind the wooded defile,
and in the miraculously located coigne
of vantage on what was now the great
highway of travel and the only oasis
and first relief of the weary journey.
The breaking down of his own train at
that spot had not only been the saliva
ton of those who found at Hays the
means of prosecuting the last part of
their pilgrimage, but later provided the
equipment of returning teams.
y
had not been without hardship and dan
ger. He had been raided by Indians,
and besieged for three days in his stock
AIDED cabin; he had been invested by
wintry drifts of twenty feet of snow,
cut off equally from incoming teams from
the pass and the valley below. Dur
ing the second year his wife had Joined
him with four children, but whether the
TO-, h,l I,l 1A1 hA.
jugal affection, or whether she was
tempted by a natural feminine longing
for the land of promise beyond, she
sought it one morning with fascinat-
ing teamster, leaving her two sons and
her two daughters behind her; two years
later the elder of the daughters followed
the mothers previous example, with
such maidenly discretion. however, as
to forbear compromising herself by any
previous matrimonial formality what
ever. From that day Hays had no fur
Their personal intercourse with the valley
below. He put up hotel a mile away
from the farmhouse that he might not
have to dispense hospitality to his Gus
TONERS, nor accept their near compan-
iOnship. Always a severe Presbyterian
and an uncompromising deacon Of q
ldT-ScdlleTeu anu SCallN community
who occasionally held their serv-
ice in one of his barns, he
grew more rigid, sectarian and narrow
day by day. He was feared, and, al
though neither respected nor loved, his
domination and endurance were ac-
cepted. A grim Landlord, hard creditor,
close-fisted patron and smileless
neighbor, who neither gambled nor
drank, ~Old Hays" as he was called,
while yet scarce fifty, lad few ac-
Quaintances and fewer friends. There
were those who believed that his domes-
tic infelicities were the result of his
unsympathetic nature; it never oc-
CURED to any one tbut himself. prob
ably that they might have been the
cause. In those Sierran attitudes, as
elsewhere, the belief in original sin
popularity known as pure cussedness"
dominated and overbore any cOnsid-
Grafton of passive, impelling circum-
been actively demonstrated with a re-
volver. The passive expression of
harshness, suspicion, distrust, and
mOroseness was looked upon as inher-
ent wickedness.
The storm ragged violently as Hays
emerged from the last of a long range
of outbuildings and sheds, and crossed
the open space between him and the
farmhouse. Before he had reached the
porch with its scant shelter, he had
houndered through snowdrift and faced
the full fury Of the storm. But the snow
seemed to have glanced from his hard.