Openings in the Old Trail

B >> Bret Harte >> Openings in the Old Trail


"Must have cost a pile of money," said one, merely to break an
embarrassing silence.

"My sister had a friend who brought over a dress from Paris, not as
high-toned as that, that cost five hundred dollars," said Clinton Grey.

"How much did you say that spirit-clad old rag of yours cost--thorns and
all?" said the president, turning sharply on Trigg.

Trigg swallowed this depreciation of his own purchase meekly. "Seven
hundred and fifty dollars, without the express charges."

"That's only two-fifty more," said the president thoughtfully, "if we
call it quits."

"But," said Trigg in alarm, "we must send it back."

"Not much, sonny," said the president promptly. "We'll hang on to this
until we hear where that thorny old chump of yours has fetched up and is
actin' her conundrums, and mebbe we can swap even."

"But how will we explain it to the boys?" queried Trigg. "They're
waitin' outside to see it."

"There WON'T be any explanation," said the president, in the same tone
of voice in which he had ordered the door shut. "We'll just say that
the statue hasn't come, which is the frozen truth; and this box only
contained some silk curtain decorations we'd ordered, which is only
half a lie. And," still more firmly, "THIS SECRET DOESN'T GO OUT OF THIS
ROOM, GENTLEMEN--or I ain't your president! I'm not going to let you
give yourselves away to that crowd outside--you hear me? Have you ever
allowed your unfettered intellect to consider what they'd say about
this,--what a godsend it would be to every man we'd ever had a 'pull' on
in this camp? Why, it would last 'em a whole year; we'd never hear the
end of it! No, gentlemen! I prefer to live here without shootin' my
fellow man, but I can't promise it if they once start this joke agin
us!"

There was a swift approval of this sentiment, and the five members shook
hands solemnly.

"Now," said the president, "we'll just fold up that dress again, and put
it with the figure in this closet"--he opened a large dressing-chest
in the suite of rooms in which they stood--"and we'll each keep a key.
We'll retain this room for committee purposes, so that no one need see
the closet. See? Now take off the dress! Be careful there! You're not
handlin' pay dirt, though it's about as expensive! Steady!"

Yet it was wonderful to see the solicitude and care with which the dress
was re-covered and folded in its linen wrapper.

"Hold on," exclaimed Trigg,--as the dummy was lifted into the
chest,--"we haven't tried on the other dress!"

"Yes! yes!" repeated the others eagerly; "there's another!"

"We'll keep that for next committee meeting, gentlemen," said the
president decisively. "Lock her up, Trigg."


The three following months wrought a wonderful change in
Excelsior,--wonderful even in that land of rapid growth and progress.
Their organized and matured plans, executed by a full force of workmen
from the county town, completed the twenty cottages for the members, the
bank, and the town hall. Visitors and intending settlers flocked over
the new wagon road to see this new Utopia, whose founders, holding the
land and its improvements as a corporate company, exercised the right
of dictating the terms on which settlers were admitted. The feminine
invasion was not yet potent enough to affect their consideration, either
through any refinement or attractiveness, being composed chiefly of the
industrious wives and daughters of small traders or temporary artisans.
Yet it was found necessary to confide the hotel to the management of Mr.
Dexter Marsh, his wife, and one intelligent but somewhat plain daughter,
who looked after the accounts. There were occasional lady visitors at
the hotel, attracted from the neighboring towns and settlements by
its picturesqueness and a vague suggestiveness of its being a
watering-place--and there was the occasional flash in the decorous
street of a Sacramento or San Francisco gown. It is needless to say that
to the five men who held the guilty secret of Committee Room No. 4 it
only strengthened their belief in the super-elegance of their hidden
treasure. At their last meeting they had fitted the second dress--which
turned out to be a vapory summer house-frock or morning wrapper--over
the dummy, and opinions were divided as to its equality with the first.
However, the same subtle harmony of detail and grace of proportion
characterized it.

"And you see," said Clint Grey, "it's jest the sort o' rig in which a
man would be most likely to know her--and not in her war-paint, which
would be only now and then."

Already "SHE" had become an individuality!

"Hush!" said the president. He had turned towards the door, at which
some one was knocking lightly.

"Come in."

The door opened upon Miss Marsh, secretary and hotel assistant. She had
a business aspect, and an open letter in her hand, but hesitated at
the evident confusion she had occasioned. Two of the gentlemen had
absolutely blushed, and the others regarded her with inane smiles or
affected seriousness. They all coughed slightly.

"I beg your pardon," she said, not ungracefully, a slight color coming
into her sallow cheek, which, in conjunction with the gold eye-glasses,
gave her, at least in the eyes of the impressible Clint, a certain
piquancy. "But my father said you were here in committee and I might
consult you. I can come again, if you are busy."

She had addressed the president, partly from his office, his
comparatively extreme age--he must have been at least thirty!--and
possibly for his extremer good looks. He said hurriedly, "It's just an
informal meeting;" and then, more politely, "What can we do for you?"

"We have an application for a suite of rooms next week," she said,
referring to the letter, "and as we shall be rather full, father thought
you gentlemen might be willing to take another larger room for your
meetings, and give up these, which are part of a suite--and perhaps not
exactly suitable"--

"Quite impossible!" "Quite so!" "Really out of the question," said the
members, in a rapid chorus.

The young girl was evidently taken aback at this unanimity of
opposition. She stared at them curiously, and then glanced around the
room. "We're quite comfortable here," said the president explanatorily,
"and--in fact--it's just what we want."

"We could give you a closet like that which you could lock up, and a
mirror," she suggested, with the faintest trace of a smile.

"Tell your father, Miss Marsh," said the president, with dignified
politeness, "that while we cannot submit to any change, we fully
appreciate his business foresight, and are quite prepared to see that
the hotel is properly compensated for our retaining these rooms." As the
young girl withdrew with a puzzled curtsy he closed the door, placed his
back against it, and said,--

"What the deuce did she mean by speaking of that closet?"

"Reckon she allowed we kept some fancy drinks in there," said Trigg;
"and calkilated that we wanted the marble stand and mirror to put our
glasses on and make it look like a swell private bar, that's all!"

"Humph," said the president.

Their next meeting, however, was a hurried one, and as the president
arrived late, when the door closed smartly behind him he was met by the
worried faces of his colleagues.

"Here's a go!" said Trigg excitedly, producing a folded paper. "The
game's up, the hull show is busted; that cussed old statue--the reg'lar
old hag herself--is on her way here! There's a bill o' lading and the
express company's letter, and she'll be trundled down here by express at
any moment."

"Well?" said the president quietly.

"Well!" replied the members aghast. "Do you know what that means?"

"That we must rig her up in the hall on a pedestal, as we reckoned to
do," returned the president coolly.

"But you don't sabe," said Clinton Grey; "that's all very well as to the
hag, but now we must give HER up," with an adoring glance towards the
closet.

"Does the letter say so?"

"No," said Trigg hesitatingly, "no! But I reckon we can't keep BOTH."

"Why not?" said the president imperturbably, "if we paid for 'em?"

As the men only stared in reply he condescended to explain.

"Look here! I calculated all these risks after our last meeting. While
you boys were just fussin' round, doin' nothing, I wrote to the express
company that a box of women's damaged duds had arrived here, while we
were looking for our statue; that you chaps were so riled at bein'
sold by them that you dumped the whole blamed thing in the creek. But I
added, if they'd let me know what the damage was, I'd send 'em a draft
to cover it. After a spell of waitin' they said they'd call it square
for two hundred dollars, considering our disappointment. And I sent the
draft. That's spurred them up to get over our statue, I reckon. And, now
that it's coming, it will set us right with the boys."

"And SHE," said Clinton Grey again, pointing to the locked chest,
"belongs to us?"

"Until we can find some lady guest that will take her with the rooms,"
returned the president, a little cynically.

But the arrival of the real statue and its erection in the hotel
vestibule created a new sensation. The members of the Excelsior Company
were loud in its praises except the executive committee, whose coolness
was looked upon by the others as an affectation of superiority. It
awakened the criticism and jealousy of the nearest town.

"We hear," said the "Red Dog Advertiser," "that the long-promised statue
has been put up in that high-toned Hash Dispensary they call a hotel
at Excelsior. It represents an emaciated squaw in a scanty blanket
gathering roots, and carrying a bit of thorn-bush kindlings behind her.
The high-toned, close corporation of Excelsior may consider this a fair
allegory of California; WE should say it looks mighty like a prophetic
forecast of a hard winter on Sycamore Creek and scarcity of provisions.
However, it isn't our funeral, though it's rather depressing to the
casual visitor on his way to dinner. For a long time this work of
art was missing and supposed to be lost, but by being sternly and
persistently rejected at every express office on the route, it was at
last taken in at Excelsior."

There was some criticism nearer home.

"What do you think of it, Miss Marsh?" said the president politely to
that active young secretary, as he stood before it in the hall. The
young woman adjusted her eye-glasses over her aquiline nose.

"As an idea or a woman, sir?"

"As a woman, madam," said the president, letting his brown eyes slip
for a moment from Miss Marsh's corn-colored crest over her straight but
scant figure down to her smart slippers.

"Well, sir, she could wear YOUR boots, and there isn't a corset in
Sacramento would go round her."

"Thank you!" he returned gravely, and moved away. For a moment a wild
idea of securing possession of the figure some dark night, and, in
company with his fellow-conspirators, of trying those beautiful clothes
upon her, passed through his mind, but he dismissed it. And then
occurred a strange incident, which startled even his cool, American
sanity.

It was a beautiful moonlight night, and he was returning to a bedroom
at the hotel which he temporarily occupied during the painting of
his house. It was quite late, he having spent the evening with a San
Francisco friend after a business conference which assured him of the
remarkable prosperity of Excelsior. It was therefore with some human
exaltation that he looked around the sleeping settlement which had
sprung up under the magic wand of their good fortune. The full moon had
idealized their youthful designs with something of their own youthful
coloring, graciously softening the garish freshness of paint and
plaster, hiding with discreet obscurity the disrupted banks and broken
woods at the beginning and end of their broad avenues, paving the rough
river terrace with tessellated shadows, and even touching the rapid
stream which was the source of their wealth with a Pactolean glitter.

The windows of the hotel before him, darkened within, flashed in the
moonbeams like the casements of Aladdin's palace. Mingled with his
ambition, to-night, were some softer fancies, rarely indulged by him in
his forecast of the future of Excelsior--a dream of some fair partner
in his life, after this task was accomplished, yet always of some one
moving in a larger world than his youth had known. Rousing the half
sleeping porter, he found, however, only the spectral gold-seeker in
the vestibule,--the rays of his solitary candle falling upon her
divining-rod with a quaint persistency that seemed to point to the
stairs he was ascending. When he reached the first landing the rising
wind through an open window put out his light, but, although the
staircase was in darkness, he could see the long corridor above
illuminated by the moonlight throughout its whole length. He had nearly
reached it when the slow but unmistakable rustle of a dress in the
distance caught his ear. He paused, not only in the interest of
delicacy, but with a sudden nervous thrill he could not account for. The
rustle came nearer--he could hear the distinct frou-frou of satin; and
then, to his bewildered eyes, what seemed to be the figure of the
dummy, arrayed in the pale blue evening dress he knew so well, passed
gracefully and majestically down the corridor. He could see the shapely
folds of the skirt, the symmetry of the bodice, even the harmony of the
trimmings. He raised his eyes, half affrightedly, prepared to see
the headless shoulders, but they--and what seemed to be a head--were
concealed in a floating "cloud" or nubia of some fleecy tissue, as
if for protection from the evening air. He remained for an instant
motionless, dazed by this apparent motion of an inanimate figure; but
as the absurdity of the idea struck him he hurriedly but stealthily
ascended the remaining stairs, resolved to follow it. But he was only in
time to see it turn into the angle of another corridor, which, when he
had reached it, was empty. The figure had vanished!

His first thought was to go to the committee room and examine the locked
closet. But the key was in his desk at home, he had no light, and the
room was on the other side of the house. Besides, he reflected that
even the detection of the figure would involve the exposure of the very
secret they had kept intact so long. He sought his bedroom, and went
quietly to bed. But not to sleep; a curiosity more potent than any sense
of the trespass done him kept him tossing half the night. Who was this
woman whom the clothes fitted so well? He reviewed in his mind the
guests in the house, but he knew none who could have carried off this
masquerade so bravely.

In the morning early he made his way to the committee room, but as he
approached was startled to observe two pairs of boots, a man's and a
woman's, conjugally placed before its door. Now thoroughly indignant,
he hurried to the office, and was confronted by the face of the fair
secretary. She colored quickly on seeing him--but the reason was
obvious.

"You are coming to scold me, sir! But it is not my fault. We were full
yesterday afternoon when your friend from San Francisco came here with
his wife. We told him those were YOUR rooms, but he said he would make
it right with you--and my father thought you would not be displeased
for once. Everything of yours was put into another room, and the closet
remains locked as you left it."

Amazed and bewildered, the president could only mutter a vague apology
and turn away. Had his friend's wife opened the door with another key in
some fit of curiosity and disported herself in those clothes? If so, she
DARE not speak of her discovery.

An introduction to the lady at breakfast dispelled this faint hope. She
was a plump woman, whose generous proportions could hardly have been
confined in that pale blue bodice; she was frank and communicative, with
no suggestion of mischievous concealment.

Nevertheless, he made a firm resolution. As soon as his friends left
he called a meeting of the committee. He briefly informed them of the
accidental occupation of the room, but for certain reasons of his own
said nothing of his ghostly experience. But he put it to them plainly
that no more risks must be run, and that he should remove the dresses
and dummy to his own house. To his considerable surprise this suggestion
was received with grave approval and a certain strange relief.

"We kinder thought of suggesting it to you before," said Mr. Trigg
slowly, "and that mebbe we've played this little game long enough--for
suthin's happened that's makin' it anything but funny. We'd have told
you before, but we dassent! Speak out, Clint, and tell the president
what we saw the other night, and don't mince matters."

The president glanced quickly and warningly around him. "I thought," he
said sternly, "that we'd dropped all fooling. It's no time for practical
joking now!"

"Honest Injun--it's gospel truth! Speak up, Clint!"

The president looked on the serious faces around him, and was himself
slightly awed.

"It's a matter of two or three nights ago," said Grey slowly, "that
Trigg and I were passing through Sycamore Woods, just below the hotel.
It was after twelve--bright moonlight, so that we could see everything
as plain as day, and we were dead sober. Just as we passed under the
sycamores Trigg grabs my arm, and says, 'Hi!' I looked up, and there,
not ten yards away, standing dead in the moonlight, was that dummy! She
was all in white--that dress with the fairy frills, you know--and had,
what's more, A HEAD! At least, something white all wrapped around it,
and over her shoulders. At first we thought you or some of the boys
had dressed her up and lifted her out there for a joke, and left her
to frighten us! So we started forward, and then--it's the gospel
truth!--she MOVED AWAY, gliding like the moonbeams, and vanished among
the trees!"

"Did you see her face?" asked the president.

"No; you bet! I didn't try to--it would have haunted me forever."

"What do you mean?"

"This--I mean it was that GIRL THE BOX BELONGED TO! She's dead
somewhere--as you'll find out sooner or later--AND HAS COME BACK FOR HER
CLOTHES! I've often heard of such things before."

Despite his coolness, at this corroboration of his own experience,
and impressed by Grey's unmistakable awe, a thrill went through the
president. For an instant he was silent.

"That will do, boys," he said finally. "It's a queer story; but
remember, it's all the more reason now for our keeping our secret. As
for those things, I'll remove them quietly and at once."

But he did not.

On the contrary, prolonging his stay at the hotel with plausible
reasons, he managed to frequently visit the committee room or its
vicinity, at different and unsuspected hours of the day and night.
More than that, he found opportunities to visit the office, and under
pretexts of business connected with the economy of the hotel management,
informed himself through Miss Marsh on many points. A few of these
details naturally happened to refer to herself, her prospects, her
tastes, and education. He learned incidentally, what he had partly
known, that her father had been in better circumstances, and that she
had been gently nurtured--though of this she made little account in her
pride in her own independence and devotion to her duties. But in his
own persistent way he also made private notes of the breadth of her
shoulders, the size of her waist, her height, length of her skirt, her
movements in walking, and other apparently extraneous circumstances. It
was natural that he acquired some supplemental facts,--that her
eyes, under her eye-glasses, were a tender gray, and touched with the
melancholy beauty of near-sightedness; that her face had a sensitive
mobility beyond the mere charm of color, and like most people lacking
this primitive and striking element of beauty, what was really fine
about her escaped the first sight. As, for instance, it was only
by bending over to examine her accounts that he found that her
indistinctive hair was as delicate as floss silk and as electrical. It
was only by finding her romping with the children of a guest one evening
that he was startled by the appalling fact of her youth! But about this
time he left the hotel and returned to his house.

On the first yearly anniversary of the great strike at Excelsior there
were some changes in the settlement, notably the promotion of Mr. Marsh
to a more important position in the company, and the installation of
Miss Cassie Marsh as manageress of the hotel. As Miss Marsh read the
official letter, signed by the president, conveying in complimentary but
formal terms this testimony of their approval and confidence, her lip
trembled slightly, and a tear trickling from her light lashes dimmed
her eye-glasses, so that she was fain to go up to her room to recover
herself alone. When she did so she was startled to find a wire dummy
standing near the door, and neatly folded upon the bed two elegant
dresses. A note in the president's own hand lay beside them. A swift
blush stung her cheek as she read,--


DEAR MISS MARSH,--Will you make me happy by keeping the secret that no
other woman but yourself knows, and by accepting the clothes that no
other woman but yourself can wear?


The next moment, with the dresses over her arm and the ridiculous dummy
swinging by its wires from her other hand, she was flying down the
staircase to Committee Room No. 4. The door opened upon its sole
occupant, the president.

"Oh, sir, how cruel of you!" she gasped. "It was only a joke of mine.
. . . I always intended to tell you. . . . It was very foolish, but it
seemed so funny. . . . You see, I thought it was . . . the dress you
had bought for your future intended--some young lady you were going to
marry!"

"It is!" said the president quietly, and he closed the door behind her.

And it was.