"But, my dear old friend," broke out Paul, earnestly, "I NEVERcared for that--I beg you to believe"--
"He never--never--cared for it--dear, dear colonel," sobbed Yerba, passionately: "it was all my fault--he thought only of me--you wrong him!""I think otherwise," said the colonel, with grim and relentless deliberation. "I have a vivid--impression--sir--of an--interview Ihad with you--at the St. Charles--where you said"-- He was silent for a moment, and then in a quite different voice called faintly--"George!"
Paul and Yerba glanced quickly at each other.
"George, set out some refreshment for the Honorable Paul Hathaway.
The best, sir--you understand. . . . A good nigger, sir--a good boy; and he never leaves me, sir. Only, by gad! sir, he will starve himself and his family to be with me. I brought him with me to California away back in the fall of 'forty-nine. Those were the early days, sir--the early days."His head had fallen back quite easily on the pillow now; but a slight film seemed to be closing over his dark eyes, like the inner lid of an eagle when it gazes upon the sun.
"They were the old days, sir--the days of Men--when a man's WORDwas enough for anything, and his trigger-finger settled any doubt.
When the Trust that he took from Man, Woman, or Child was never broken. When the tide, sir, that swept through the Golden Gate came up as far as Montgomery Street."He did not speak again. But they who stood beside him knew that the tide had once more come up to Montgomery Street, and was carrying Harry Pendleton away with it.
End