Down the Mother Lode | Page 8

you pluck from your bosom the verse that grows,
And down it flies like my red, red rose, And you sit and dream as away
it goes, And think that your duty is done - now, don't you?"
- Bret Harte.

In the early days it was called the Mountaineer House. Now it is
colloquially known as the "stone house," and has for sixty years been
the home of the Owen King family. It is surrounded today by one of the
most beautiful orchards in the foothills. Wide verandahs of the native
gray granite to match the old house itself have been added. It is
electrically lighted and furnace heated, modern in every way, yet still
the romance of former times seems to cling to its sturdy old walls.
All that remain unchanged are three huge trees flanking the highway in
front. What tales they could tell, if they would, of what passed by the
junction of two roads beneath them. Of the long and weary caravans
from across the plains crawling up from the bridge at Whiskey Bar,
below Rattlesnake, glad that their six months' struggle was nearly over:
of horsemen on beautiful Spanish horses riding furiously, whither no
one knew nor dared ask; of dark deeds in the old stone house below,
that was so inscrutably quiet by day and so mysteriously alive by night;
of ghastly doings by the Tom Bell gang which ranged all the way from
the Oregon border to the southern lakes.
They will never tell all they know - these big old trees - of those who
went in by the door and "came out by the cellar" of Tom Bell's
stronghold. In the end the place fell, in the war between order and

lawlessness and, as the pessimists love to assert, a woman, as usual,
was the cause of it. The tale is told:
Rosa Phillips sat in the Mountaineer House strumming a Spanish guitar,
and singing,
"There's a turned down page, as some writer says, in every human life,
A hidden story of happier days, of peace amidst the strife. A folded
down leaf which the world knows not. A love dream rudely crushed,
The sight of a face that is not forgot. Although the voice be hushed."
She rose and stood at a window, holding the dusty curtain aside with
one white hand and peering cautiously forth into the dusk. A horse was
galloping up the Folsom road. The horseman was near - was under the
trees in front - was past - and gone down the river road without
slackening his animal's rapid gait.
"He does not stop at the Mountaineer House these days," said Tom
Bell's sneering voice at her elbow. "There is a new actress at the opera
house in Rattlesnake."
The woman's dark eyes flashed, but she answered evenly enough:
"He does not stop, the handsome Dick, so you, senor, have not the
cause to be jealous. Is it not so?"
"Cause? Why, you Spanish jade, you've never been the same to me
since Rattlesnake Dick came prowling back from Shasta county to his
old haunts in Placer." Rosa's thin, red lips curled.
"Senor, I am what it pleases me to be."
"And Jack Phillips permits you to be!"
She shrugged her slender shoulders.
"He wearies me. Life - this place - wearies me."
"Yes, and I weary you, too - now. Plain as day, it is."
The Phillips woman smiled (she seldom laughed) and there was only
cruelty in her smile - no kindliness, no womanly softness of any sort.
"My friend, soon there will be no 'you.' The night is coming and there
will be no sunrise."
A man dismounted at the gate and led his horse past the window to the
stables in the cellar. He walked with a curious, halting pace.
"There's Jim Driscoll back already. Must bring news," said Bell,
leaving her hurriedly, and so neglecting to ask the meaning of her
cryptic remark.
Rosa slipped in behind the bar, late that evening, beautifully gowned,

and with her dark hair dressed high. Her vivid face glowed like a
scarlet poppy and was bright with smiles. Three or four men in the
crowded bar-room rose to their feet and drank to her bright eyes and
strolled across to the bar.
"Soon now' "she whispered, "I shall sweep out the lights. Those two
who have just entered - who are they?" She went across the room to the
newcomers. "The senors may pay me for the drinks, if they desire," she
said to them, meaningly.
"La Rosita shall take what pleases her," one of them laughed. Among
the handful of coins and small nuggets he brought from his pocket was
a bullet strung on a bit of dirty twine.
"Ah! a love token, senor?"