Richard Savage

“ To keep the child he fears, where his agency can reach her, is her aim. To place the child he would ignore, where millions will surround her, is her ambition. With Marie Berard as friend, confidante, agent, and spy, she can keep these two children apart. Hortense Duval and Natalie Santos can defy the world.
Distrust of Hardin always burns in her breast. Will he dare to attempt her life; to cut off her income; to betray her? When the work of years is reflected in her own child's graces and charms, will the man now aging ever give its mother the name of wife? ”

“ There is always some hand on the people's throat in California. Yet the star of hope glitters.
Slowly, through all the foamy restless waves of transient adventurers the work of the homebuilders is showing the dry land decked with the olive branches of peace.
The native sons and daughters of the Golden West, bright, strong, self-reliant and full of promise, are the glittering-eyed young guardians of the Golden Gate. Born of the soil, with life's battle to fight on their native hills, may they build around the slopes of the Pacific, a State great in its hearths and homes. The future shines out. ”

“ Everywhere the resounding crash of arms. Alas, steadfast as Maxime Valois' nature may be, tried his courage as his own battle blade, the roar of battle from east to west tells him of the day of wrath! The yells and groans of the trampled thousands of the Wilderness, are echoed by the despairing chorus of the dying myriads of Kenesaw and Dalton. A black pall hangs over a land given up to the butchery of brothers. Mountain chains, misted in the blue smoke of battle, rise unpityingly over heaps of unburied dead from the Potomac to the Mississippi. ”

“ Her gentle nature never roused the inner fires of his passionate soul. Alien to the Pacific Coast, a soldier of fortune, the ties into which he drifted were the weavings of Fate. His warrior soul pours out its devotion in the military oath to guard to the last the now ragged silken folds of his regimental banner, the dear banner of Louisiana. The eyes of the graceful Creole beauties who gave it are now wet with bitter tears. Beloved men are dying vainly, day by day, under its sacred folds. Even Beauty's spell is vain.
The wild oats are golden once more on the hills of Lagunitas ”

“ Clasped in his clenched hands, the silken folds of the captured battery flag are dyed with his blood. A dozen willing arms raise the body, bearing it to one side, for the major, mindful of the precious moments, yells to "swing the guns and pass the caissons." In a minute, the heavy Parrotts of De Gress are pouring their shrapnel into the faces of the Union troops, who are, three hundred yards away, forming for a rush to recapture them.
As the cannon roar their defiance to the men who hold them dear, Peyton bends over Maxime Valois. The heart is stilled forever. ”

“ Can they trust each other? They MUST. The weary secret of unpunished crime grows heavier, day by day. In losing a tyrant, in the maid, will she not gain a colder master in the man she marries? Who knows?
Natalie Santos realizes that she has no legal proof whose hand struck that fatal blow. But Villa Rocca can expose her to Hardin. A fatal weakness. The anxious woman realizes what her false position and idle luxury cost in heartache. It is life!
The roses turn to ashes on her cheeks as she paces her lonely rooms. Restless and weary in the Bois, she is even more dull and "distraite" in society. ”

“ If the budding beauty would now cast roses slyly at him from the bowers of her childhood.
Maxime's heart is young and warm. He is chilled in his affections. The loss of his parents made his life lonely. Judge Valois, his uncle, has but one child, a boy born since Maxime's departure on the Western adventure. Between Hardin and himself is a bar of twenty years of cool experience. It indurates and blunts any gracefulness Hardin's youth ever possessed. If any man of forty has gained knowledge of good and evil, it is the accomplished Hardin. He is a law unto himself. ”

“ As he shields his face from biting winds, he can see again the panorama of the great plains, billowy hills, and broad vistas, tantalizing in their deceptive nearness. Thundering herds of buffalo and all the wild chivalry of the Sioux and Cheyennes sweep before him. The majestic forests of the West have darkened his way. The Great Salt Lake, a lonely inland sea; Lake Tahoe, a beautiful jewel set in snowy mountains; and its fairy sisters near Truckee—all these pass before his mental vision.
But the youth is tired. Onward ever, like the "Wandering Jew," still to the West with Fremont. ”

“ As far as the eye can reach, the sparkle of lovely Lagunitas mirrors the clouds flaking the sapphire sky. Valois fixes his eyes once more upon his happy home. Peace, prosperity, progress, mining exploration, social development, all smile through this great interior valley of the Golden State. No war cloud has yet rolled past the "Rockies." It is the golden youth of the commonwealth. The throbbing engine, clattering stamp, whirling saw, and busy factory, show that the homemakers are moving on apace, with giant strides. No fairer land to leave could tempt a departing warrior. ”

“ Unheeding others, moving neither right nor left at menace or danger, Hardin scorns this human circus, struggling far below his own mental height.
Heartless and unmoved, he smiles at the weaknesses of others. The strong man led captive in Beauty's train, the bright intellect sinking under the craze of drink, the weak nature shattered by the loss of a few thousands at play—all this pleases him. He sees, with prophetic eye, hundreds of thousands of future dwellers between the Sierras and the sea. His Southern pride looks forward to a control of the great West by the haughty slave-owners. ”

“ No one in California walks.
With courtly grace the warrior rides by his bride. Juanita Castro is a true Spanish senorita. Blest with the beauty of youth and the modesty of the Castilian, the Rose of Alameda has the blush of her garden blossoms on her virgin cheek. She walks a queen. She rides as only the maids of Alta California can.
The shining white walls of the mission are near. Eager eyes watch in the belfry whence the chimes proclaim the great event. To the west the Coast Range hides the blue Pacific. Rolling sand hills mask the Presidio. ”

“ There are more residences than one in San Francisco, where dreamy luxury is hidden within the unromantic wooden boxes called residences.
Fair faces gleam out furtively from these casements. At open doors, across whose thresholds no woman of position ever sets a foot, wealth stands on guard. Silence seals the portals. The vassals of gold wait in velvet slippers. The laws of possession are enforced by the dangers of any trespass on these Western harems.
While the queen city of the West rises rapidly it is only a modern Babylon on the hills of the bay. The influx augments all classes. ”

“ Valois' heart rises in his throat as the sentinel's bayonet glitters in the sunlight. Loyal men are on the walls of the fort. Far away on the Presidio grounds, he can see the blue regiments of Carleton's troops, at exercise, wheel at drill. The sweeping line of a cavalry battalion moves, their sabres flash as the lines dash on. These men are now his foes. The tossing breakers of the bar throw their spray high over bulwarks and guard. In grim determination he watches the last American flag he ever will see in friendship, till it fades away from sight. ”

“ Will the flag of the South wave in TRIUMPH HERE? Ah! Who can read the future?
Cut off from the East, the excited Californians burn in high fever. The grim dice of fate are being cast. Slowly, the Northern pine and Southern palm sway toward the crash of war. As yet only journals hurl defiance at each other. Every day has its duties for Hardin and Valois; they know that every regimental mess-room is canvassed; each ship's ward-room is sounded; officers are flattered and won over; woman lends her persuasive charms; high promised rank follows the men who yield. ”

“ Gloomy days have fallen, also, on the cause in the West. The despairing valor of the day at Franklin and the assault on Nashville only needlessly add to the reputation for frantic bravery of the last of the magnificent Western armies of the Confederacy. Everywhere there are signs of the inevitable end. With even the sad news of Appomattox to show him that the great cause is irretrievably lost, there are bitter tears in Henry Peyton's eyes when he sees the flags of the army he has served with, lowered to great Sherman in the last surrender. ”

“ Without self-surrender, he enjoys every draught of pleasure the cup of life can offer. Without scruple, void of enthusiasm, his passionless heart is unmoved by the joys or sorrows of others. His nature is as steady as the nerve with which he guides his evening pistol practice. The welcome given to Maxime Valois by him arises only from a conviction of that man's future usefulness. The general acceptability of the young Louisianian is undoubted. His blood, creed, and manners prove him worthy of the old Valois family. Their past glories are well known to Philip Hardin. "Bon sang ne peut mentir." ”

“ A shabby excrescence of tent and hut swells Yerba Buena to a town. In a few months it leaps into a city's rank. Over the prairies, toward the sandy Humboldt, long emigrant trains are crawling toward the golden canyons of the Sierras. The restless blood of the Mexican War pours across the Gila deserts and the sandy wastes of the Colorado.
The Creole boy learns that he, too, can work with pick, pan, cradle, rocker, at the long tom, sluice, and in the tunnel drift. The world is mad for gold. New York and New Orleans pour shiploads of adventurers in by Panama and Nicaragua. ”

“ Congress is a camp of warring enemies. Even the conspirators cling to their comfortable chairs.
It is hard to realize, by the blue Pacific, that the flag is already down. No one knows the fatal dead line between "State" and "Union."
So recruits come in slowly to the Knights of the Golden Circle, in California. Secession is only a dark thunder-cloud, hanging ominously in the sky. The red lightning of war lingers in its sulphury bosom.
Hardin, Valois, and the Knights toil to secure their ends. ”

“ They are the real Fathers of the Pacific. Roving over the interior, the miners leave a land as nearly ruined as human effort can render it. In the wake of these nugget-hunters, future years bring those who make the abandoned hills lovely with scattered homes. They are now hidden by orchards, vineyards, and gardens. Peaceful flocks and herds prove that the Golden Age of California is not to be these wild days of the barbaric Forty-niner.
Maxime Valois sees the land sweeping in unrivalled beauty to the Colorado. Free to the snowy peaks of the Sacramento, the rich plains roll. ”

“ On the eastern front of the plaza, the pride of San Francisco towers up: the El Dorado. Here every glory of the Adelphi, Arcade, and Bella Union is eclipsed. The unrivalled splendor of rooms, rich decorations, and unexcelled beauty of pictures excite all. The rare liveliness of the attendant wantons marks them as the fairest daughters of Beelzebub. The world waves have stranded these children of Venus on the Pacific shores. Music, recalling the genius of the inspired masters, sways the varying emotions of the multitude. The miners' evenings are given up to roaming from one resort to another. ”

“ Rosalie Leese, the pioneer white child of California, born in 1838, at Yerba Buena, was the first of countless thousands of free-born American children. In the unpolluted West the breath of slavery shall never blight a single human existence. Old Captain Richardson and Jacob Leese, pioneers of the magic city of San Francisco, gaze upon the beautiful ranks of smiling school-children, in happy troops. They have no regrets, like the knights of slavery, to see their places in life filled by free-born young pilgrims of life. ”

“ It is only when the first generation of children born in California will reach maturity in the 'eighties; only when the tide of carefully planned migration from North and South, after the war, reaches the West, that life becomes regular. Only when the railways make the new State a world's thoroughfare, and the slavery stain is washed from our flag, that civilization plants the foundations of her solid temples along the Pacific.
There is no crystallization until the generation of mere adventurers begin to drop into graves on hillside and by the sea. ”

“ Peyton sadly sheathes the sword he took from Maxime Valois' dead hands. Southward, he takes his way. Virginia is now only a graveyard and one vast deserted battle-field. The strangers' bayonets are shining at Richmond. He cannot revisit the scenes of his boyhood. A craving seizes him for new scenes and strange faces. He yearns to blot out the war from his memory. He dreams of Mexico, Cuba, or the towering Andes of South America. His heart is too full to linger near the scenes where the red earth lies heaped over his brethren of the sword. ”

“ March breezes drive the salty fog from Monterey Bay into the eyes of the soldier shivering in the silent hours before dawn.
"Only a coyote or a mountain wolf," mutters Maxime Valois. He resumes his tramp along the rocky ramparts of the Californian Coast Range. His eyes are strained to pierce the night. He waits, his finger on the trigger of his Kentucky rifle.
Surely something was creeping toward him from the chaparral. No: another illusion. Pride keeps him from calling for help. Three-score dauntless "pathfinders" are sleeping here around intrepid Fremont. ”

“ Gold, wild cattle, and wilder mustangs are the returns of El Dorado. Cultivation is in its infancy.
The master departs with the dark-eyed bride. She timidly follows his every wish. Dolores has the education imparted by gentle Padre Francisco. It makes her capable of mentally expanding in the experiences of the first journey. The gentle refinement of her race completes her charms.
To the bride, the steamer, the sights of the bay, crowded with shipping, and the pageantry of the city are dazzling. The luxuries of city life are wonders. Relying on her husband, she glides into her new position. ”

“ In Hardin's dreams he sees his enemies at his feet. On Ernesto Villa Rocca's handsome face is the pallor of death. Lagunitas and its millions are his by right of power and cunning.
Marie B‚rard's avenger is thousands of miles away from her grave, and his cunning plan already woven to ensnare the Italian when off his guard. Yet Hardin's blood boils to feel that "the secret for a price" is buried in Marie B‚rard's grave. Toss as he may, his dreams do not discover the lost secret. Even Philip Hardin may meet a Nemesis. ”

“ Under the bowers of Lagunitas she romps in leafy alley and shady bower.
Judge Hardin, grave-faced, cautious, frugal of speech, visits the domain several times. In conference with Padre Francisco and the vigilant "Kaintuck," he adjusts the accumulating business affairs.
Riding over the billowing fields, mounting the grassy hills, threading the matchless forests of uncut timber, he sees all. He sits plotting and dreaming on the porch by the lake side. Thousands of horses and cattle, now crossed and improved, are wealth wandering at will on every side. Hardin's dark eyes grow eager and envious. ”