Treasure and Trouble Therewith

Treasure and Trouble Therewith

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Title: Treasure and Trouble Therewith A Tale of California
Author: Geraldine Bonner
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9775] [Yes, we are more than
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TREASURE and TROUBLE THEREWITH
A TALE OF CALIFORNIA BY GERALDINE BONNER
1917

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER
JOHN BONNER
WHO, HIMSELF A WRITER, TRAINED ME IN THE WORK HE
LOVED. WHAT MERIT THE READER MAY FIND IN THESE
PAGES IS THE RESULT OF THAT TRAINING, UNDERTAKEN
WITH A FATHER'S PRIDE, CARRIED ON WITH A FATHER'S
BELIEF AND ENCOURAGEMENT.
GERALDINE BONNER

CONTENTS
I. HANDS UP
II. THE TULES
III. MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE
IV. THE DERELICT
V. THE MARKED PARAGRAPH
VI. PANCHA
VII. THE PICAROON
VIII. THOSE GIRLS OF GEORGE'S
IX. GREEK MEETS GREEK
X. MICHAELS THE MINER
XI. THE SOLID GOLD NUGGET

XII. A KISS
XIII. FOOLS IN THEIR FOLLY
XIV. THE NIGHT RIDER
XV. THE LAST DINNER
XVI. THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
XVII. THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
XVIII. OUTLAWED
XIX. HALF TRUTHS AND INFERENCES
XX. MARK PAYS A CALL
XXI. A WOMAN SCORNED
XXII. THEREBY HANGS A TALE
XXIII. THE CHINESE CHAIN
XXIV. LOVERS AND LADIES
XXV. WHAT JIM SAW
XXVI. PANCHA WRITES A LETTER
XXVII. BAD NEWS
XXVIII. CHRYSTIE SEES THE DAWN
XXIX. LORRY SEES THE DAWN
XXX. MARK SEES THE DAWN
XXXI. REVELATION
XXXII. THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT
XXXIII. THE MORNING THAT CAME
XXXIV. LOST
XXXV. THE UNKNOWN WOMAN
XXXVI. THE SEARCH
XXXVII. HAIL AND FAREWELL

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
He ... heard the feller at the wheel say, "Hands up!" Frontispiece "Oh,
silly, unbelieving child!" came his voice
As it came it sent up a hoarse cry for food
The ghost of a smile touched her lips

TREASURE and TROUBLE THEREWITH

CHAPTER I

HANDS UP
The time was late August some eleven years ago. The place that part of
central California where, on one side, the plain unrolls in golden levels,
and on the other swells upward toward the rounded undulations of the
foothills.
It was very hot; the sky a fathomless blue vault, the land dreaming in
the afternoon glare, its brightness blurred here and there by shimmering
heat veils. Checkered by green and yellow patches, dotted with the
black domes of oaks, it brooded sleepily, showing few signs of life. At
long intervals ranch houses rose above embowering foliage, a green
core in the midst of fields where the brown earth was striped with lines
of fruit trees or hidden under carpets of alfalfa. To the west the foothills
rose in indolent curves, tan-colored, as if clothed with a leathern hide.
Their hollows were filled with the darkness of trees huddled about
hidden streams, ribbons of verdure that wound from the mountains to
the plain. Farther still, vision faint, remote and immaculate, the white
peaks of the Sierra hung, a painting on the drop curtain of the sky.
Across the landscape a parent stem of road wound, branches breaking
from it and meandering thread-small to ranch and village. It was
white-dusted here, but later would turn red and crawl upward under the
resinous dimness of pine woods to where the mining camps clung on
the lower wall of the Sierra. Already it had left behind the region of
farms in neighborly proximity and the little towns that were threaded
along it like beads upon a string. Watching its eastward course, one
would have noticed that after it crested the first rise it ran free of
habitation for miles.
Along its empty length a dust cloud moved, a tarnishing spot on the
afternoon's hard brightness. This spot was the one point of