the opposition realized it. Ere the company had fairly recovered from their bewilderment, Budge Isham declared that the victory was really his, due to the good sense and high toned chivalry of his friends, and he insisted upon doing the honors. He would accept no denial and the engaging style in which he acquitted himself of this duty restored good humor. Thus it was that the little mining town of the Sierras in the days that are gone received its title.
The Heavenly Bower consisted of two large apartments, both on the ground floor. The one at the rear was used by Landlord Ortigies for sleeping, eating and partial storage purposes. When Vose Adams made his quarterly visits to Sacramento, he was accompanied by two mules. They were not necessary to take and bring the mail, since the pocket of Adams’ great coat was sufficient for that, but they carried down to Sacramento several empty casks which came back filled, or rather they were thus when the return journey was begun, but to the dismay of the proprietor of the Heavenly Bower, he found that they were barely two-thirds full, when unloaded at his place. Vose explained that the leakage was due to the roughness of the trail. Since there seemed no other way of overcoming this, the landlord sent an extra cask with the request to Vose that he would confine his leakage to that and Vose kindly obliged him.
The stuff thus provided for the Heavenly Bower was generally in concentrated form, thereby permitting a dilution which insured a full supply for the customers who were afflicted with an eternal thirst.
The bar room was of extensive proportions. Nearly all of one side was occupied by the bar. Opposite was the huge fireplace, and scattered around were a number of stools, rickety chairs and strong boxes which served equally well for seats.
The crackling fire, the genial warmth and good cheer within the room were the more striking because of their contrast with the howling storm without. The gale roared around the corners of the rude but strong structure, rattling against the massive door and the log walls, spitting vicious gusts down the chimney and flinging great drifts hither and yon with a fury that threatened to send the building skurrying through the snowy space.
“It’s the worst blizzard we ever had,” remarked Wade Ruggles, after one of these violent outbursts; “God pity any one that’s abroad to-night.”
“It reminds me of that zephyr last winter,” observed Vose Adams, “when I was bringing your freight, Max, from Sacramento.”
“I remember,” nodded the landlord; “you started with two kegs and got here with about half a one; the leakage was tremenjus on that trip.”
“True; the blizzards is always rough on Mountain Dew, and sorter makes it shrink,” replied the unblushing Vose.
“Can’t you stop the casks leaking so much,” inquired Felix Brush, who had been a parson in Missouri, and claimed that he had never been “unfrocked.”
The landlord solemnly swayed his head.
“Not as long as Vose has charge of the freight–”
At that instant a dull but resounding thump was heard on the roof overhead. It shook every log in the structure, checked speech and caused each man to look wonderingly at his neighbor.
“The mountain has fell on us!” exclaimed Ike Hoe in a husky whisper.
“If it was the mountain,” said Budge Isham, slightly raising his voice, as the courage of the party came back; “none of us would be able to tell of it.”
“Then it’s a rock–well, I’m blessed! the thing is moving!”
Something was certainly astir in the mass of snow overhead.
“I guess it’s a angel that has lost its way,” submitted Hoe.
“More likely it’s a grizzly b’ar that’s stumbled off the rocks–”
But all these speculations were scattered to the winds by the sound of a voice muffled and seemingly far away, which came to them through the storm:
“Helloa, the house!”
CHAPTER II
WHAT THE BLIZZARD BROUGHT TO NEW CONSTANTINOPLE
A moment after the hail was heard from the roof, the muffled noise which accompanied it ceased. The stranger groping about in the snowy gloom had stepped off the roof into the huge drift outside the Heavenly Bower, and a minute later, lifted the latch of the door and pushed in among the astonished miners. They saw the figure of a sturdy man holding something in his arms, so wrapped round with blankets and coverings that no one could tell its nature. He stamped the snow from his boots, shook himself like a shaggy dog, then walked heavily to the chair which Budge Isham placed near the fire for him, and almost fell into it.
“Good evening, friends,” he said in a grave voice; “It was no fault of mine that I tried at first to enter by the roof.”
“When I built the Heavenly Bower,” replied Landlord Ortigies; “I meant to place a door up there, but there wasn’t anybody in New Constantinople with enough sense to know how to do it. I ’spose you was looking fur it, stranger.”
“No,” was the reply, “I wasn’t looking for anything; I was just walking, walking through the storm, not knowing or caring where I went. I can’t say how far I came, but it must have been a number of miles. I was still plodding on, when I set my foot on vacancy and down I went.”
“Gracious! you fell nearly a hundred feet,” said Parson Brush; “it was a wonderful providence that saved you from being dashed to death.”
“The snow on the roof must be five or six feet deep,” replied the stranger; “for it received me as if it were a feather bed. I saw a glow from the top of your chimney against the rocks and knew I was on the roof of a house. I hardly felt jarred and groped my way off into a lot more snow and here I am.”
The astonishment of the listeners did not make them forget the laws of hospitality. Budge Isham looked significantly at the landlord, but he had already drawn a glass of spirits and was coming from behind the bar with it.
“Stranger, swallow this; you look cold; you’re welcome to the Heavenly Bower, whether you come through the roof or down the chimbley.”
“Thank you; I’ll take the whiskey in a minute.”
And then feeling that he owed those who made him so welcome some explanation of his coming among them, the stranger said:
“My friends, my name is Maurice Dawson. About two months ago, I left Independence, Missouri, with an emigrant train for the Pacific coast. The elements, disease and the Indians made such inroads upon us that after a time only half a dozen families remained. As if that wasn’t enough, the few survivors quarreled over the course to follow, most of them aiming for a pass through the mountains into Southern California, while I, the greatest fool of them all, set out to find Dead Man’s Gulch, of which I had heard from a party of trappers. My canvas covered wagon, with a single span of horses, contained all my worldly goods, and my companions were my wife and little girl Nellie, only three years old. Everything might have gone well but for this blizzard, which jumbled up the points of the compass and made traveling so difficult that after a time it became impossible.”
All were listening with the closest interest, and every heart was touched by the emotion of the man, which he could not control for several minutes. No one interrupted, and, feeling that his story was not quite completed, he added:
“I fired my gun in the hope of attracting attention, but fortunately for others I was the only one abroad. By and by the horses stopped. They could draw the wagon no further. They stood panting and exhausted and soon lay down in the snow. I turned to speak to my wife, when I found she had been dead for some minutes, the cold carrying her off as quietly as if she were dropping asleep. Before she passed away, she wrapped nearly all her clothing about Nellie, who was cuddling beside her, so that really the mother, like the noble woman she was, gave her life for the little one. It was because Nellie was alive, that I jumped out of the wagon and began floundering through the snow. I ploughed blindly forward until providence guided me to you.”
While uttering the last words, Maurice Dawson was tenderly unwrapping the bundle in his arms. There were many folds