Two motherless girls, and only a brother a few years older left to protect them.

When the father died, the mother had turned the old homestead—for there are houses in San Francisco fifteen and twenty years old—into a source of revenue from which she provided for the children. The father had left nothing save debts—gambling debts—and the fraternity had not called on the widow to settle these. For her own existence she seemed to need nothing—absolutely nothing—but the caresses of her children, and the happiness and contentment mirrored in their eyes. When she died the girls were old enough, and competent, to look after the house, which the mother had made a pleasant home to many a "roomer" who had come a stranger to the city, had been badgered and harassed by flint-eyed, stony-hearted landladies, and had at last, by some good fortune, found his way into the precincts of the widow's cozy, quiet walls. The son had, through the influence of some of the roomers, obtained a position in a wholesale liquor establishment, where the salary was high, and—the temptation great.

That the two young girls should carry on the house just as their dying mother had left it to them, was something no one in San Francisco would think of commenting upon. And as the proverbial chivalry of the Californian would prompt him to suffer inconvenience and loss rather than to deprive women in any way thrown on his care or his protection, they missed only their mother's love and presence in the home, which remained home to them still. After a while the painful truth dawned on them that their brother was being weaned away from it. His evenings were now but seldom spent with them in the little sitting-room whose ivy-mantled bay-window looked out on the garden, where the flower-beds had moved closer up to the house as the lots became more valuable, and the orchard had been cut down to a few trees on the grass-plot.

At first the excuse was, that customers from the country, buying heavily of the firm, had a right to expect attentions not strictly of a business nature from him, its chief representative. Then his absence from home grew more protracted, and often midnight tolled from St. Mary's before his unsteady feet mounted the door-steps. One night, a lady, attracted to the balcony by an unusually brilliant moon, when she awoke from her midnight slumbers, wonderingly saw a carriage drive up to the house where the two sisters lay in peaceful sleep. She was too far off to see whether there was a number on the carriage, or what the number was. Neither could she distinguish the face of the driver, nor that of the gentleman who assisted another, whom she rightly judged to be Edward Ashburne, from the carriage into the house. That the face of the one who supported, or rather carried, young Edward, was deadly white, framed in by a heavy black beard, was all she could tell. "Poor girls!" she soliloquized; "better that the boy was dead than turn drunkard, and gamble, like his father."

The carriage drove off rapidly after the gentleman—who, as she thought, had helped Ned to the door and rang the bell—had re-entered it; and carriage-driver and ghostly-faced gentleman could never be found or heard of afterward.

What the neighbor-lady heard still further that same night was, first, the furious barking, then the doleful howling of the young Newfoundland dog, which the Misses Ashburne had recently "adopted," and, soon after, a wild, heart-rending cry.

"The horrid boy!" she continued, full of sympathy; "is he so beastly drunk? Could he have struck one of his sisters?"

Aye, good woman; struck them both a terrible blow, but not with his hand, for that lay powerless by his side. And the eyes were sightless that stared vacantly into their own, as they bent over him where he lay stretched out on the hall-floor—his coat folded under his head, his latch-key close at hand. Only a painful gasp answered their pitiful entreaties to "speak once more;" and before the sympathizing inmates of the stricken house could remove him to his bed, he had breathed his last.

"Beaten to a jelly," sententiously remarked one of the men, under his breath, to another, as they left the chamber to the sisters and the more intimate friends of the family.

"Some woman scrape—you can bet on that," was the response. And they joined the others in their efforts to discover the perpetrators of the dastard deed.

But no clue was found, and after a while San Francisco forgot the sisters and their sorrow; and one day, when the neighbor-lady told her ever-fresh story to a new-made acquaintance, she added: "And now they have gone, the poor girls, and nobody knows where."

From the balcony of the two-story frame hotel-building a young girl was watching the sunlight sinking behind the dimly-outlined range of the Coast Mountains. Perhaps her eyes roved so far away because the immediate surrounding of the hotel was not attractive; though the streets devoted to private residences of this little city—to which the railroad was fast making its way—were pleasing to the eye, and rather Southern in their features. The orange, ripening in one cluster with the fragrant blossom, as well as the tall-growing oleander, embowering cottage alike with mansion, spoke of oppressive weather in the summer, and promised glorious, balmy days during the short California winter.

Had the girl, at whose feet a large Newfoundland dog lay sleeping, stepped to the end of the balcony which ran along the whole length of the house, she could have followed the course of the Feather River, which but a short distance away mingled its clear waters with the muddy waves of the Yuba. But she was evidently not engaged in a study of the "lay of the land," though her eyes seemed to follow with some interest the direction of a particular road leading to the hotel. Directly she spoke to the dog, touching him lightly with her toe: "Cruiser, old dog, come, wake up, they are coming."

From out of the cloud of dust rolling up to the hotel emerged hacks and stages well filled with passengers, whom the railroad had brought from San Francisco to Yuba City, and who thus continued to this place and onward. Partly sheltered from sight by the boughs of a tree shading the balcony, the young girl leaned forward to scan the faces of the people who left hacks and coaches and hastened into the house to brush and wash off a little of the biting, yellowish dust clinging to them. It seemed to be a sort of pastime with the girl and her four-footed companion, this "seeing the people get in;" for she made remarks and observations on the looks and manners of people which the dog seemed fully to understand, for he would reply, sometimes with a wag of his bushy tail, sometimes with a short, sharp bark, and then again with a long yawn of ennui. Almost the last passenger who alighted was a gentleman whose large black eyes and raven hair would have thrilled the bosom of any miss of sixteen—as, indeed, they startled our young friend, although she might have been two or three years above and beyond that interesting age. The bough that she had drawn down to screen herself behind, sprang up with a sudden snap, which caused the upturning of a pale and rather severe face, from which looked those black eyes with a grave, rather than sad, expression. A sudden thought or memory—she did not know which—shot through her brain as her eyes looked down into his; it was only a flash, but it made her think of her childhood, of her mother—she hardly knew of what.

"Cruiser, old dog," she said; but the dog had squeezed his head under the railing as far as he could get it, as if making a desperate attempt to get a nearer look at the stranger. When he drew his head back he raised himself, laid his forepaws on the railing, and looked hard into the girl's face, with a low, questioning whine. "It's nothing, old boy; you don't know him. Come, now, we'll see if we can help Julia about the house."

Down at the bar, mine host of the "Eagle Exchange" was welcoming his guests, nerving himself to this task with frequent libations, offered by the fancy bartender, and paid for by such of his guests as had made the "Exchange" their stopping-place before, and knew of the landlord's weakness. Stepping from the bar-room into the reading-room, to look for any stray guest who might have failed to offer at the shrine, he met the dark-eyed stranger face to face, and recoiled, either from some sudden surprise or the effects of deep potations, steadying himself against the door-frame as he reeled. The stranger, continuing on his way to the staircase, seemed hardly to notice him, involuntarily turning his head away as if unwilling to view so fair-looking a specimen of humanity degrading himself to the level of the brute.

Later at night we find our young friend, together with her older sister, in the family sitting-room of the hotel. Annie, the younger, is softly stroking the sister's hair as though she were the elder, endeavoring to comfort a fretting, troubled child. No word was spoken until the husband-landlord entered the room. Julia gave a nervous start, while Annie touched her gently and soothingly on the shoulder. Mr. Davison was a great deal soberer than could be expected; and his wife gave a sigh of relief when she found that he was only maudlin drunk.

"Ah, there you are, both together again—as affectionate a pair of sisters as ever I see. Well, well, Julia, girl, maybe I ain't made you as good a husband as you deserve to have, but I'll see that our little sister there is well provided for. By-the-by, Annie, when Tom Montrie comes down from the mountains he'll find good sport: one of the nicest fellows you ever saw has come down from San Francisco, and I'll try to get him to spend at least part of the winter with us. Oh, he's on the sport," in answer to an anxious look from Julia, "but he's a mighty clever fellow—genteel, and all that sort of thing. Tom's made a pretty good stake again this summer, I know; and it'll be a good plan to keep him well entertained while Annie is away teaching the ragged young one—for I suppose she'll insist on keeping on in that stupid school, when she might just as well marry Tom at once and set herself and her poor relations up in the world."

The girl had listened in silence to this long tirade, a burning spot on each cheek alone showing that she heard at all what was said. It was Julia's turn to be elder sister now.

"Annie," she said, "I forgot to tell Peter that he had better use more yeast for the muffins he sets to-night; will you please to tell him so as you go up-stairs?" Drawing her fingers through Annie's curly brown hair, and looking affectionately into her deep hazel eyes, she kissed her good-night; and the sister silently departed, followed up-stairs by Cruiser, who kept watch through the night on his rug outside her door.

To discover the cause of Mr. Davison's unusual sobriety we must go back for an hour or two. When night had set in, the stranger from San Francisco, who had registered his name as J. B. Peyton, was promenading on the porch in front of the hotel, quietly smoking his Havana and thoughtfully regarding the stars. Presently the host opened the door of the reading-room, stepped out on the porch, and closed it behind him again, as though to keep the chilly autumn air from striking the inmates of the room. Approaching the stranger, he eyed him as keenly as his somewhat dimmed vision, aided by the sickly light of a pale young moon, would permit, and then exclaimed, in a tone intended to be cordial:

"It's you, by ——, it is! Give us your hand, and tell us how you are and how the rest of them have fared."

The stranger, in a voice which, like his eyes, was grave rather than sad, replied, somewhat stiffly:

"I am quite well, as you see; whom else you are inquiring for, I don't know." Then, warming up suddenly, he went on, in a tone of bitter reproach: "And you have married one of these poor girls? You should not have done it had I known of it, depend on it."

"Well, well, wasn't that the best I could do for them?" In his tone bravado and reason were struggling for the mastery. "To be sure," he continued, quailing before the flashing eye of his companion, "I have not had much luck of late; everything seems going against me—I am almost ruined."

"You have ruined yourself. Why should you have luck?" He was silent a moment, busying himself with his cigar; then he continued; "Where is Celeste? What became of her?"

"Curse the ungrateful, perjured wretch!" answered the other, grinding his teeth with sudden rage; "when my luck first turned she went off, mind you, with a ship-captain, to China. She knew she could never live where I was. I'd—"

"Do with her as you did with—"

"Hush!" whispered the shivering host; "don't speak so loud! Wasn't there something stirring in the tree there?" And, like Macbeth seeing Banquo's ghost, he started backward to the well-lit room.

It is generally accepted that life in California, particularly in earlier days, was full of excitement and change, every day bringing with it some horrible occurrence or startling event. Perhaps, at the date of my story—about 1860—this excitement had somewhat cooled down; or perhaps it was the life of our young friend only that had flowed along so evenly while at this place. The "horrible occurrence" of her day was the ever-recurring period of her brother-in-law's intoxication, sometimes maudlin, sometimes violent, but always fraught with bitterness and sorrow to her on account of her gentle, long-suffering sister. The "startling event" was the coming in of the hacks and coaches from the railroad terminus, which she watched, half-hidden by the tree, and together with her almost inseparable companion, Cruiser, just as she had done that day when Mr. Peyton made his first appearance at this place. Perhaps her interest in the arrivals was even greater now than it had been before. Often, when about to turn from her post of observation, a pair of grave black eyes, upturned from the porch below, seemed asking a question of her that she vainly puzzled her brain to understand. Once or twice she had started to go to her sister's room at such times, trying to frame the question she seemed to read in the stranger's eye. But the question remained unframed and unanswered; and day after day Annie taught her little pupils at school, came home and helped Julia about the house, and in the evening encountered the sphinx that baffled all her dreamy speculations.

It had been a matter of displeasure to her brother-in-law for some time that the arrival of the stage from Laporte was not noticed by Annie with the same degree of interest as the coming-in of the passengers from the opposite direction.

"Tom'll be coming some day," he said, grumblingly, to his wife, "and that fine sister of yours will take no more notice of his arrival than if a Chinaman had come!"

And so it proved. One morning as Annie, followed by Cruiser with the lunch-basket, was descending the front steps of the hotel porch, Mr. Davison hastened to block up her road with his portly figure.

"Annie," he spoke majestically, "how often must I tell you that I cannot allow my sister-in-law to plod over to that school-house and bother with those dirty urchins any more? Let them find some one else, for you will not teach there much longer. Come, Cruiser, give us the basket! Annie'll stay at home to-day, at least."

"Don't trouble Cruiser unnecessarily," replied Annie, laughing pleasantly; "I haven't fallen heir to any fortune of late, that I am aware of, and until I do, I'm afraid that both I and Cruiser will have to follow our old vocation."

"You know that a fortune awaits you, Annie," was the persuasive response, "if you would only stretch out your hand for it. How will Tom receive the information, when he gets up this morning, that you have not paid him the attention to remain home for one day, at least?"

"I hope you will not conceal from Mr. Montrie that it is a matter of the utmost indifference to me how he receives the information."

"Your sister will talk to you about this matter," blustered the man. "A girl like you to throw away her chances!"

"I will listen patiently to anything my sister may have to say to me." And Annie, turning, was almost confronted by Mr. Peyton, coming in from an early walk. He lifted his hat with something like reverence, and drew aside to let the girl and her four-footed companion pass.

She did listen patiently to what her sister said to her that evening in the little family sitting-room just back of the ladies'-parlor, on the ground floor. One door of this room opened out on a porch, on the other side of which rose the blank wall of another apartment, built of frame, with only one window looking out towards the street, and the door opposite this window. Between this and the bar-room lay dining-room, pantry, and kitchen; so that no one from the bar-room, which lay back of the reading-room, on the other side of the entrance hall, could see this room with the single door and window.

In California parlance, "the tiger" was kept in this room. If we could have looked into this gaily-furnished apartment about the time Annie was on her way to her room, having left her sister's presence with tear-stained eyes, we should have beheld Mr. Peyton's pale, clear-cut face bending over a table, around which a number of men were seated. The various accoutrements of the game spread out before him, denoted that this man, with the well-modulated musical voice, with the soft, grave expression of countenance, with the quiet, gentlemanly bearing, was "the owner of the tiger."

The individual occupying the seat just across from Mr. Peyton was his opposite in every respect. A tall, broad-shouldered mountain-man, whose rusty beard and careless dress showed that, while "making his stake" in the mountains, he had bestowed but little attention on his personal appearance. No one could have disputed his claims to good looks, though his glittering eyes seemed small, and were certainly too deep-set; and when he laughed, the long white teeth gave a kind of hyena-look to the whole face. Large hands, always twitching, and clumsy feet, forever shuffling, gave him the appearance of a bear restlessly walking the length of his chain. Altogether, in looks and bearing, he contrasted unfavorably with Mr. Peyton; the one, smooth and polished as ivory; the other, rough and uncouth as the grizzly of his mountain home.

But Mr. Davison, who had softly opened the door, and stood silently regarding him a moment, seemed fairly in love with Mr. Montrie's broad shoulders and matted hair—so gently did he touch the one, and stroke the other, as he whispered into the ample ear something which caused the small eyes to flicker with satisfaction and delight. Then, moving around the table to where Mr. Peyton sat, he laid his hand on this gentleman's shoulder, but much more timidly, though the faro-dealer looked delicate, almost effeminate, compared to the huge proportions of the man from the mountains.

"Jim—" he said, but corrected himself—"Mr. Peyton!" in an audible whisper, "I don't want you to be hard on that man yonder; he'll soon be one of the family, you know."

The information was given with many winks and nods and leers, such as men in the first stages of intoxication are generally prolific of.

A single keen glance from the eagle-eyes of the gambler was sent across to where the man from the mountains sat; but it sank to the depths of the man's heart, and went searching through every corner. The next moment Mr. Peyton was deeply engrossed in the "lay-out" before him.

It was long after midnight before "the tiger" was left to darkness and solitude in the little room at the rear of the "Eagle Exchange." In the course of the following morning, when Mr. Davison's brain was pretty well cleared of the fumes of last night's potations, and before the early-morning drams had yet materially affected it, he was made uneasy by the approach of Mr. Peyton, of whom he stood in unaccountable dread.

"Have a cigar, Henry?" Mr. Peyton extended one of the choice kind he always smoked himself; and then, by a motion of the hand, commanded the now thoroughly sobered man into a chair beside his own. The reading-room was deserted, and the paper Mr. Peyton had picked up was carelessly held so that the fancy bar-keeper, who was twirling his elegant black moustache, could not see his lips move.

"Henry," Mr. Peyton began, without further preliminaries, "if you allow that man from the mountains to press his attentions on your sister-in-law against her wishes, I'll break every bone in your body."

The threat seemed almost ridiculous from the delicate, white-fingered stranger to this burly, overgrown piece of humanity; yet Mr. Davison did not consider it so, for he answered, with pleading voice and cringing manner:

"But if he is to marry her—"

"Marry her!" repeated the gambler, while a flash, such as the gate of hell might emit were it opened for a moment, shot from his eyes; "I would kill him first; yes, and tell the girl who it was that—"

"And send them both out on the world again, to work hard for their bread, as I found them?"

"Better that a thousand times than that Annie should be made miserable, like her sister, by being tied to a worthless sot, or a heartless desperado."

"You're hard on me, Jim," whined the other. "If the girl marries this man, a part of his money will go towards paying off my debts, and setting me straight again in this house. He'll be good to her; and what's the harm to anybody? You don't want the girl—I know your queer notions of honor."

"Hush!" He sprang to his feet, and for the first time his voice thrilled, and a quick flush darkened his brow. "Not another word; but so sure as you drive the girl to this step, so sure will I tell her sister who you are." His figure appeared tall as he moved away, and his shoulders looked broad and strong as those of the man whom he left cowering in his chair behind him.

This interview over, Mr. Peyton seemed utterly oblivious of the existence of the family at the "Eagle Exchange." Mr. Davison said to himself, with an inward chuckle, that he had "gotten round Jim before, in spite of his keen eyes, and was likely to do so again;" while Annie, still and white, looked like a bird wearied out with being chased, and ready to fall into the snarer's net. Once or twice, in meeting Mr. Peyton, it seemed to him that her hazel eyes were raised to his, with a mute appeal in them; and at such times he lifted his hand hastily to his forehead, where a heavy strand of the raven hair fell rather low into it, near the right temple, as if to assure himself of the perfect arrangement of his hair.

But in spite of all of Mr. Davison's cunning and contriving, Mr. Montrie evidently made slow progress in his suit; for his visits to "the tiger" grew longer and more frequent; and soon it came to be the order of the day that the afternoons, as well as the nights, were spent in the little room across the porch. A number of new arrivals from the various mining-camps in the mountains lent additional interest to the games; and bets were higher, and sittings longer, day after day. It was impossible to tell from Mr. Peyton's unchanging face whether luck had been with him or against him; but Mr. Montrie seemed all of a sudden elated, either with the winnings he had made off "the tiger," or the success he had met with in another quarter. Whichever it might be, Mr. Peyton, coming unexpectedly upon him, as he sat in close consultation with Mr. Davison one morning, could not have heard the mountain-man's invitation to drink to his luck, for he passed straight on without heeding the invitation. Mr. Davison quaked a little before the sharp glance thrown over to him; "but then," he consoled himself, "d—— it, Jim is such a curious mortal, and, like as not, he's forgotten all about it; he don't care for the girl, no how."

The afternoon saw them again gathered around "the tiger," the man from the mountains betting with a kind of savage recklessness that boded no good to those who knew him well. He had not forgotten the slight Mr. Peyton had put on him in the morning, according to his code of honor, but was casting about in his mind for some manner in which to express his indignation.

"What do you want to be quarrelling to-day for, Tom?" asked a lately-arrived mountain-friend of him. "I see that gal of your'n this morning; took a good look at her when she went to school; and, bless my stars, if you don't know better than to grumble all the while on the very day when—"

"Your interest in the game seems to be flagging, gentlemen," came Mr. Peyton's voice across the table, with a somewhat hasty utterance; "shall we close?"

An energetic negative from the rest of the company decided the question; but Mr. Montrie, determined to play marplot, said:

"For my part, I'm tired of buckin' agin 'the tiger.' 'Pears to me a game of poker might be healthy for a change."

Without losing a word, Mr. Peyton gathered up the faro-kit before him, and laid cards on the table. Mr. Montrie's friend, a slow-spoken, easy-going man, called Nimble Bill, was seated at the right of this gentleman, across from Mr. Peyton's accustomed seat at the table; while beside Mr. Peyton sat two or three others, who had "come down in the same batch" with Mr. Montrie's friend.

The game progressed quietly for some time, Mr. Montrie alone manifesting uneasiness by frequently consulting his watch and casting longing glances through the window.

"Tom, old fellow, I believe you're regularly 'struck' at last," laughed his friend. "It's mighty nigh time for that school to let out, I know; so we'll let you off easy, and say no more about it; ha, ha, ha!" and he turned for approval to the snickering men at the table.

Just then Mr. Peyton raised his hand quickly to his head, and the light from the diamond on his finger flashed directly into the man's eyes.

"By-the-by, that's a mighty fine diamond you've got; I shouldn't mind getting one to present to Tom's wife when he gets married. Now, what mought be about the price of one like that, Mr.—what did you say the gentleman's name was?" and he turned to his friend's working face.

"'Poker-Jim,' I should say," shouted the angered man, "from the way he's been handling them cards this afternoon."

There was a hasty movement among those present; the motion of Mr. Peyton's hand, as he threw it quickly behind him, was but too well understood by all, and hurried steps rushed toward the door. When the smoke had almost cleared away he was almost alone with his victim; only the friend, against whom the dying man had fallen, was in the room beside him. But from the outside approached heavy steps, while a shrill female voice sent shriek after shriek through the house. Mr. Davison's ashy face appeared at the door:

"Oh, Jim! what have you done? Let's lay him down here easy, Bill; and now run for the doctor, quick; and tell the other fellows to keep still, if they can."

"Go to your wife, Henry," ordered Mr. Peyton, with extended hand; "the poor thing is in hysterics."

A look into the gambler's face told the man he must obey; but in his perturbation, he did not see the white figure that glided by him into the room.

"Why did you do it?" asked the girl, wringing her hands, but looking into his eyes without a glance at the prostrate body.

"I had to kill the brute to keep him from marrying you, Annie. How could I let you fall into his hands—you, the daughter of the woman who sheltered me and gave me a home, when, a poor deserted boy, I lay bleeding from a brutal blow on the street. Annie, do you not know me?" He raised the strand of hair that always lay low on his forehead, and a deep scar appeared under it.

"Jimmy!" she cried, between surprise and joy. "But, oh!" she continued, sadly, "I have found you but to lose you again. You must go, quick, before they can send the sheriff or the doctor."

"We must part; yes, and perhaps never meet again on earth. But, ere we part, I must give your heart another wound. Your brother—it was I who—"

"Murdered him!" shrieked the girl. "Cruiser!" she called, wildly; and the faithful animal, as if knowing the import of the conversation in the room, threw himself with a fierce, yelping bark against the door.

"Hold!" and he caught the girl as she sprang to open it. "Hear me out, while I have yet time to speak. It was I who brought him home, so that he might sleep quietly in the church-yard, instead of finding a grave at the bottom of the Bay. Ask Henry who killed him; ask him whether 'Celeste' was worth the blood of the poor boy, and he will not refuse to tell the truth."

At the door Cruiser was scratching and whining, accompanying the man's hurried words with a weird, uncanny music; and now he howled again as he had howled on the night of poor Ned's death.

"Farewell, Annie; your sister and that dog will soon be the only friends you have. I can neither claim you nor protect you. Farewell; be happy if you can, and—forget me."

"Never! never!" sobbed the girl.

A hand, softer even than her own, was passed tenderly through her hair and over her brow; a single kiss was breathed on her lips, and the next moment she was alone, the dog, her sole friend, crouching, with every demonstration of devotion and affection, at her feet.