Chapter V: In the Yosemite

The Yosemite stage which left the Milton station on the afternoon of June 15, 18—, was full of passengers, all eagerly discussing an attempt made the day before to rob the coach between China Camp and Priest’s. A tall, powerfully built fellow had sprung out from behind a clump of trees as the stage was slowly ascending a long hill, and ordered the frightened inmates to hold up their hands. This they did at once, with no thought of resistance, and he was about to relieve them of whatever valuables they had on their persons, when a young man who was sitting on the box with the driver, sprang to the ground and confronting the ruffian with a revolver compelled him to retreat and sent after him a shot or two, which, however, went wide of the mark. Mr. Hardy, the hero of the exploit, was well known in Stockton and the country generally and was among the passengers that afternoon. Naturally he was plied with questions with regard to the incident and asked how he dared attack the desperado.

“I don’t know myself how I dared,” he replied. “It was so sudden that at first I whispered to the driver, ‘Go on; lick the horses, go on!’ He was shaking like a leaf,—teeth actually chattered. Then it came to me what muffs we were to sit there quietly and be robbed, and without another thought I sprang at the man, almost landing on his head. Of the rest I remember nothing until my hands were being shaken and women were crying and thanking me as their deliverer. I only wish my shot had brought him down. It was Long John, no doubt, and his companion is pretty sure to turn up soon. I’d like to meet him.”

He did not seem at all averse to talking, and the passengers listened breathlessly, conscious of a feeling of security as long as he was with them. Among those who seemed the most interested and anxious was Fanny Prescott, who sat on the same seat with the hero, and had grown very pale as his story progressed.

“Oh, mother,” she said at last, “what if that dreadful man should attack us! What should we do? I wish we had left our diamonds in San Francisco. I don’t believe, though, he could find them. They are—”

A touch on the elbow from her mother kept her from finishing a remark which elicited a smile from her companions. For a moment Mr. Hardy looked at her and then said, “If your diamonds are very valuable it would have been wise to have left them in safe keeping, but I do not anticipate any danger on this trip. The attempt of yesterday is too recent to be repeated so soon. The whole neighborhood is looking for the robbers, who are probably hiding in the woods.”

For the rest of the afternoon the conversation was of the men who were the terror of the road between Milton and the valley. The older of the two was said to be tall, the other short, and as they had been heard to address each other as John and Dick, they were usually spoken of as Long John and Little Dick, and so daring and sudden were their movements and so seldom did they fail to execute their purpose that the mention of their names was sufficient to fill the stoutest heart with fear. Of the two Dick was the one most dreaded. He was so rapid in his movements, sometimes seeming to spring from the ground, again to drop from the trees and leap in the air like an athlete and doing his work so swiftly that the people scarcely knew what was happening until it was over and he was leaving them. Two or three times efforts had been made to rob the express box, but either the robbers were in too great a hurry, or the box had baffled their efforts, for the attempt had been abandoned and the attention of the bandits given to the passengers. No bodily injury had ever been done to any one, and in a few instances when some woman or old man had complained that all they had was taken from them, their purses had been tossed back to them by Dick, who would lift his hat gracefully and with a bound leave as quickly and mysteriously as he came. Long John was more deliberate, but stronger, and that Mr. Hardy single handed had put him to flight seemed incredible, and he was lionized and made much of, and the wish expressed by the passengers that he should go on to the valley, as with him they felt secure. At Chinese Camp, where they were to pass the night, he left them, with the assurance that, judging from the past they had nothing to fear from the marauders.

“I wish you were going with us. I feel so safe with you,” Fanny said to him when she stood for a moment alone with him in the narrow, dimly lighted hall.

She was standing directly under the hanging lamp, which showed her face pale with anxiety and fear.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, in a tone such as he would use to soothe a frightened child. “I know the habits of the wretches, and would almost stake my life against their molesting you on the trip to the valley. There may be more danger when you leave it. Better take the other road to Clarke’s. It is safer and pleasanter, and, one word of caution, don’t talk about your diamonds and where you keep them. You came near telling in the coach.”

“I know I did,” Fanny replied, “but I will remember in the future and I thank you so much for your advice. Good bye.”

She saw he was anxious to leave her and offered him her hand, which looked very small and white as it lay in his broad palm. For an instant his fingers closed over it with something like a slight pressure and his face was a study, as if two sets of feelings were contending in his mind with an equal chance for the mastery.

Dropping her hand he said, “Are your diamonds very valuable?”

“Yes,” Fanny answered quickly. “They are worth thousands of dollars and are sewed up in the ribbon bows of my hat. I don’t believe they would think of looking there. Do you?”

He laughed a hearty, ringing laugh, and when Fanny looked inquiringly at him he said, “I beg your pardon. I couldn’t help it. I thought you were not to tell where your diamonds were, and you have told _me_! But, never mind, you are safe. Good bye. I think we may meet again.”

He bowed and left the hotel, while Fanny joined her mother in the small room allotted them. There had been a long discussion between them as to the disposition of the diamonds during their absence from San Francisco. Remembering what Inez had said Fanny wished to put them in a safe deposit company’s vault while her mother insisted upon taking them with her. She didn’t know about San Francisco. If it were New York it would be different, and she wanted them with her. She was one of those nervous women who feel that nothing is safe unless they can see it. Her baggage was always taken to the hotel and to her room, if she was only to pass the night. She knew then where it was, and the diamonds must go with her to the Yosemite. She had left most of them in New York at Tiffany’s, and only had with her a small cluster pin, her rings and Fanny’s, and her large pear-shaped ear-rings,—the heirlooms which Mark Hilton had taken with him when he left Ridgefield and which were to be Fanny’s on her wedding day. After devising various places of concealment, Fanny finally decided to sew the diamonds in the knots of heavy ribbon on her hat, where their safety could be ascertained at any moment. This done, Mrs. Prescott felt quite secure and listened composedly to all that was said of the robbers. She had only brought money enough for the trip, and unknown to any one a part of that was twisted up in her back hair. She had nothing to lose or fear, and she slept soundly in her small quarters at Chinese Camp. Fanny, on the contrary, could not sleep and sat by the open window looking out into the night starting at every sound and wishing Mr. Hardy had not left them. She was not superstitious, but felt oppressed with a feeling of impending danger and wished many times that she was safely back in San Francisco.

At a very early hour in the morning the stage started, for there was many a mile of rocks and hills between the Camp and the valley, and the sleepy passengers shivering in the cool morning air took their seats, wondering what would befall them before the day was over. Nor were they in any degree reassured when, as they were ascending a long hill the driver suddenly stopped and announced to them, “This is where they had the hold-up and that the clump of trees the robber was behind.”

Involuntarily Fanny’s hand went up to her hat while the passengers shrank into their seats as if to escape a danger. Then, remembering there was none they looked curiously at the spot and two or three alighted and walked around the trees trying to conjecture just where the brigand stood before he made his appearance at the horses’ heads.

“If it had been the little one instead of the big one he wouldn’t have been drove off so easy. I tell you Dick is a terror. Why, they say he can jump straight up and land in the coach, or the box, either. Must have been a circus rider,” the driver said, while every passenger breathed a prayer to be delivered from the terrible Dick.

As long as they were in the open country they felt safe, but the moment they came near to ledges and woods they fancied a robber behind every tree and rock and were glad when as night was closing in they began to descend into the valley under the shadow of old Capitan and into a region of fertility and civilization. As soon as Mrs. Prescott was settled in her small room, which had once been a bathroom, and in which she declared she could neither breathe nor sleep, she made inquiries for Mr. Rayborne, the guide, as she wished to secure his services for herself and daughter whenever they went on trails:

“That is, if he is really as good as I heard he was in San Francisco,” she said to the landlord, who replied, “There’s none better in the valley. No, nor so good either. You see he’s a gentleman, and people like that, but I doubt if he is home. He has not been round the hotel for a week. His cottage is two or three miles from here. I’ll send and inquire.”

“And please,” Fanny began, “will your messenger take a note for me to Miss Rayborne. Do you know her?”

“Know Inez! I rather think we do,” the landlord replied. “Everybody knows Inez; the wild rose of the valley, we call her. I knew her mother, too,—a pretty little woman,—went off like a flash. Heart trouble they said. The whole neighborhood turned out to her funeral, visitors and all. The hill was black with ’em. John,—that is Mr. Rayborne,—has never been quite the same man since.”

He was inclined to be very talkative, but Fanny was in a hurry to write to Inez and finally left him in the middle of a sentence. When the messenger returned he brought a note for her from Inez, who wrote: “I am delighted to know you are in the valley, and sorry father is not here to guide you on the trails. Perhaps he will come before you leave. I am so lonely with only Nero for company. I thought of you when that robbery occurred and was glad you were not on the road. I have something to tell you about it when I see you. Father came home that night, but Tom has not been here since. I expect him in a few days. Write me when to come for you. Inez.”

Mrs. Prescott was a good deal disappointed that she could not have Mr. Rayborne for a guide, and because she could not she did not go on a single trail. As she cared little for scenery and there were but few people at the hotel of what she called her set she was ready to leave at any time.

“Not till I have made my visit to Inez,” Fanny said, and after they had been at the hotel a week it was arranged that she should spend a day with her friend and be taken up the next morning by the stage which was to pass the cottage and leave the valley by way of Inspiration Point.