Down the Mother Lode | Page 9

peddler - old Rosenthal - close to the bar? He brought in a large and rich pack tonight. It lies in the next room. Do you go there at once. I will come soon, and together we will select a gift for your bride. Go quickly!"
She passed again behind the bar. Jack Phillips was at one end, lame Jim Driscoll at the other, Tom Bell in the middle. Rosa paused near a branching candelabra which had once graced the altar of a Spanish church.
"Is Jose below?" whispered Bell. She nodded. "Why did you save that boy, just now? A new lover?" She directed upon him a level glance of hate.
"I do what pleases me, senor." She raised her arm high, beginning the first stamping measure of a Spanish dance. Instantly there was a curious rumbling noise in the stable underneath. Rosa swept over the candelabra. All the lights in the place were struck out. Phillips and Driscoll slipped two great bolts, and the entire bar-room floor swung downward on hinges.
The chute to purgatory was open!
There was bedlam in that dank pass to the region of shades, and no quarter was shown to any man; only cries of "The String! The String!" from members of the gang in order to distinguish the robbers from the robbed, in the darkness. There were curses, the kicking and squealing of horses in their stalls; a verse from the Talmud recited in Yiddish (which suddenly stopped), and above it all the high and hysterical laugh of a woman.
The boy turned from the peddler's pack as Rosa entered the room. "What is that horrible noise?"
"A fight. Come, you had better go." She led him down a dark stair to another section of the cellar. "Jose," she called. An evil looking Mexican pushed open a rough door. "You shall take this man out through the second tunnel."
"Si, senora."
"And, Jose, he shall reach the outer opening alive, and with all his belongings. He has no money. Do you hear?" Jose grunted. "Go, now, under, cover of the noise."
"But the gift for Elena!"
Rosa laughed mockingly. "What a child it is! My gift to Elena tonight, is you - her lover. Ask her to thank me with a prayer from her pure heart for my sins."
Jose led the young man through a long, damp, evil-odored passage underground, and out through a trapdoor at the extreme end of the garden. A shrub grew on top of the door, surrounded by a bed of fragrant wild pansies. Jose kicked the staring youth away from the entrance and vanished into the earth looking, in the lantern-light like a malevolent fiend returning to the realm of everlasting fire.
* * * * *
The balls which were given at the Franklin House on the old Pioneer road were the most pretentious of the year. Feminine loveliness in silks and cameos gathered from every section. General Sutter and his officers sometimes were there, and the Spanish grandees brought to them the lovely, star-eyed beauties of their households.
On this night a brilliant assemblage stood about in the ballroom floor ready for a quadrille. Elena Ashley and her betrothed were near the wide entrance doors.
"There is "Sheriff Paul of Calaveras County," she told him. "He does not dance. I wonder what brings him here?"
The doors opened and Rosa Phillips entered, magnificently jewelled and dressed in a rich silk of pearl grey. Elena stared, clutching at her partner's arm.
"Oh, look!" she shrieked , "she is wearing my wedding dress. My wedding dress which was stitched at the shop of Rosenthal the peddler, in Sacramento, and which he was to bring me two weeks ago. I know it is mine! There is the pearl passe-mentre on it that was my mother's. There is none other like it in California!"
"So?" answered Rosa cooly, glancing down at the voluminous silken folds of her robe. Then she stood waving her big fan, her large, dark eyes roving across the throng.
"Mine Host" came quickly forward. "It is not permitted, senora, that you - "
Rosa smiled cynically. "I, the silken hawk, came not to flutter your nest of doves, senor. I came but for a little hour to meet a man who - Ah, he is coming now. Sheriff Paul, I have that to tell you which - "
The sheriff offered his arm ceremoniously and they passed out of the ballroom. Tender hearted Elena was conscience stricken. She dropped her lover's arm and darted after them through the big doors.
"Oh, I am sorry, I did not mean - please, Sheriff Paul, she may have the dress, poor thing! But for her, I should have had no man to marry on my wedding day next week."
Sheriff Paul turned quickly. Elena, frightened, clapped two little hands over her mouth. Rosa shrugged indifferently, and tipping back her small, black