A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready | Page 5

rest--a little time to recover himself.
There was a large boulder under a tree in the highway of the
settlement--a sheltered spot where he had often waited for the coming
of the stage-coach. He would go there, and when he was sufficiently
rested and composed he would go on.
Nevertheless, on his way he diverged and turned into the woods, for no
other apparent purpose than to find a hollow tree. "A hollow tree." Yes!
that was what Masters had said; he remembered it distinctly; and
something was to be done there, but what it was, or why it should be
done, he could not tell. However, it was done, and very luckily, for his
limbs could scarcely support him further, and reaching that boulder he
dropped upon it like another stone.
And now, strange to say, the uneasiness and perplexity which had
possessed him ever since he had stood before his revealed wealth
dropped from him like a burden laid upon the wayside. A measureless
peace stole over him, in which visions of his new-found fortune, no
longer a trouble and perplexity, but crowned with happiness and
blessing to all around him, assumed proportions far beyond his own
weak, selfish plans. In its even-handed benefaction, his wife and
children, his friends and relations, even his late poor companion of the
hillside, met and moved harmoniously together; in its far-reaching
consequences there was only the influence of good. It was not strange
that this poor finite mind should never have conceived the meaning of
the wealth extended to him; or that conceiving it he should faint and
falter under the revelation. Enough that for a few minutes he must have
tasted a joy of perfect anticipation that years of actual possession might
never bring.
The sun seemed to go down in a rosy dream of his own happiness, as
he still sat there. Later, the shadows of the trees thickened and
surrounded him, and still later fell the calm of a quiet evening sky with
far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little troubled by what they
looked upon as he was by the stealthy creeping life in the grasses and
underbrush at his feet. The dull patter of soft little feet in the soft dust
of the road, the gentle gleam of moist and wondering little eyes on the
branches and in the mossy edges of the boulder, did not disturb him. He
sat patiently through it all, as if he had not yet made up his mind.
But when the stage came with the flashing sun the next morning, and

the irresistible clamor of life and action, the driver suddenly laid his
four spirited horses on their haunches before the quiet spot. The express
messenger clambered down from the box, and approached what seemed
to be a heap of cast-off clothes upon the boulder.
"He don't seem to be drunk," he said, in reply to a querulous
interrogation from the passengers. "I can't make him out. His eyes are
open, but he cannot speak or move. Take a look at him, Doc."
A rough unprofessional-looking man here descended from the inside of
the coach, and, carelessly thrusting aside the other curious passengers,
suddenly leant over the heap of clothes in a professional attitude.
"He is dead," said one of the passengers.
The rough man let the passive head sink softly down again. "No such
luck for him," he said curtly, but not unkindly. "It's a stroke of
paralysis--and about as big as they make 'em. It's a toss-up if he ever
speaks or moves again as long as he lives."

CHAPTER I
When Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes and
garden "truck" on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining
community of that region, and the adjacent hamlet of "Rough-and-
Ready," regarded it with the contemptuous indifference usually shown
by those adventurers towards all bucolic pursuits. There was certainly
no active objection to the occupation of two hillsides, which gave so
little promise to the prospector for gold that it was currently reported
that a single prospector, called "Slinn," had once gone mad or imbecile
through repeated failures. The only opposition came, incongruously
enough, from the original pastoral owner of the soil, one Don Ramon
Alvarado, whose claim for seven leagues of hill and valley, including
the now prosperous towns of Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, was met
with simple derision from the squatters and miners. "Looks ez ef we
woz goin' to travel three thousand miles to open up his d--d old
wilderness, and then pay for the increased valoo we give it--don't it?
Oh, yes, certainly!" was their ironical commentary. Mulrady might
have been pardoned for adopting this popular opinion; but by an
equally incongruous sentiment, peculiar, however, to the man, he called
upon Don