IN San Francisco Dr. Ulswater set about despatching Hannah Atkins eastward, and I got into communication with The Union Electric Company. Sadler disappeared. He went with Dr. Ulswater to see Hannah Atkins despatched, and then disappeared on business of his own.

Dr. Ulswater wired east: “Goods shipped by S. P. as per letter to follow.” Two days later he received a telegram from the East: “What's the trouble with your shipment?” He wired back: “Don't know of any trouble,” and received this mystic and portentous reply: “Held up at Zionville.”

Zionville! Where and what was Zionville? Dr. Ulswater and I were to find out. How shall one answer the question: “What is Zionville?” We may begin in this way:

A stranger visiting Zionville to-day, if he is one with eyes to see understanding, will notice that the distinction of the place, in some singular and subtle way, seems to come together and concentrate on its cemetery, a noble enclosure with an imposing arched gateway. He will wonder how and why.

If he takes my advice, he will inquire first for Babbitt's Hotel. He will find there a long veranda with thin green pillars, many cane-backed chairs, and many occupants of the chairs. Of these occupants let him inquire for William C. Jones. It may well be that one of the occupants will be William C. Jones. Let him fall into casual conversation with William C. Jones. He will find him full of local patriotism, elderly, cross-eyed, a lawyer by profession, a man of harsh voice, and manner of speech as indirect as his left eye; of a bleak and barren face, heavy, morose, shaped like a Bartlett pear, with light eyelashes and no eyebrows; a man of statesmanlike carriage, with care up on his forehead. Let the stranger, pointing to the cemetery's tallest monument, at last inquire:

“What's that monument for?” Maybe, if he should speak of it as “that pillar of distress,” or some such equivocal term as might suggest a doubt whether he liked its architecture, it might be a good plan. Then William C. Jones will fasten on either side of his questioner a glassy diagonal stare, and speak something to this general effect, inquiring:

—Whether you are a sarcastic and facetious party, or one that has misspent his youth and means to die sudden and ignorant; and if so, whether you are inclined to ribaldry, and don't know a real serious subject from a can of spoiled beans; or are merely a sort of Hottentot party, disguised in a different and on the whole inferior kind of homeliness, with features not well assorted, morals depraved, and intellect omitted; and if so, whether on that account you ought to be excused for illiteracy respecting that world-renowned monument, or were not well brought up, and possibly intend better than you talk.——

In that way the subject will be fairly opened.

Under the guidance of William C. Jones let the stranger go about, listen, and observe. He will hear that originally Zionville was the offspring of a gold mine. He will see that at present she lies in the midst of orchards and vineyards. Superficially, she is a small and happy city lying between the flat plain of the Sacramento and the lower foothills of the Sierras. In reality she is a personage. No origins account for Zionville, and no appearances define her.

Dr. Ulswater is fond of drawing fine distinctions between what he calls “the phenomenal and noumenal Zionville,” between “the objective and the subjective Zionville,” between Zionville as she appears to the senses and “Zionville as such.” This is all more or less beyond me, but I'd go so far as to admit that “Zionville as such” is a personage without parallel in the solar system, without example in the Milky Way. How shall I describe her? She is romantic, and incurably young. She is nonchalant, and yet interested. She is open, unashamed, and yet impenetrable.

When Dr. Ulswater and I first saw her, she appeared to consist of some hundreds of ramshackle houses thrown down anywhere, a few handsome residences on the hillsides, a couple of brick blocks, a high school, a jail, three churches, Babbitt s Hotel, and an outlying Chinatown. There were no sidewalks then to speak of, except on Main Street. There were some gas lamps, but nothing electric, and nothing that looked like a cemetery. Westward lay the plain, eastward the wooded hills and lonely canyons. Nothing spoke outwardly of Zionville s aspirations, her hopes and dreams. And yet she stood there in a crisis of her history.

It is well established now that there are three great dates in Zionville history, of which the first marks the discovery of the Eureka Gold Mine, and the second the Reformation. Opinion agrees that before the Reformation she was already a personage, but admits that her morals were seedy; that morals was not a subject to which she gave any great attention.

The history of the reform movement is a volume by itself. The subject of morals once called to her attention, she went at it with her characteristic ardour and efficiency. Anything labelled “Morality” she was ready to try. She set her mind on higher things. She became conscious of her destiny. A new era dawned. She discarded her old name. The name “Zionville” dates only from the Reformation. Her former name is expunged from her records. No public-spirited citizen ever mentions it now.

Dr. Ulswater and I stepped, then, from the train, and looked about us, and saw a drowsy, shiftless looking town, loafing, sprawling at the feet of the hills. We cared nothing for Zionville. We were looking for Hannah Atkins. We wanted to know what brigand of the Sierras was low-down enough to hold up a lady of her age, discretion, decent poverty, and illustrious descent. We asked the station master if he had any news about him concerning such and such goods, so and so labelled.

He was a small man with pale eyes. No sooner had Dr. Ulswater spoken than his pale eyes glowed with purpose. There was a sudden and mysterious light in them. It was the reflection of the torch of Zionville. It was our first glimpse of Zionville's pure flame.

He sprang up. He ran past us without speaking, out through the open door, and sped up the dusty street. We stood alone in the silent, empty station. The doctor walked to the door, adjusted his glasses, and gazed after. I followed.

“Doctor,” I said, “Hannah's got into trouble. Maybe she stopped off for breakfast and didn't pay her bills.”

He was beyond the reach of jibes, listening, gazing at the phenomena before him. We both looked. We saw Zionville waking up, shaking her mane, pealing her eagle eye, girding her loins and unlimbering herself. First one figure, then another appeared in the hot sunny street; then groups, throngs, gathered and martialled. The dust rose so thickly as to hide them, but the distant murmur grew, and now we heard the thump of drums, the clash of cymbals, the piping of fifes. The brown dust cloud came rolling down the street toward the station; through it we soon discerned the approaching procession, men and women and a fringe of clamouring children.

“Mad!” said Dr. Ulswater. “Why, it's a palpably insane community! What do you conjecture they're after?” I said:

“Maybe it's Hannah's pedigree. Maybe it's us.”

The dusty procession was upon us. We were seized and thrust into the middle of it. The tumult, the shouting, and the noise of semi-musical instruments was so great that if anybody attempted to explain or answer questions, I didn't make it out. I noticed that the confusion was really superficial. Nobody seemed to be in command, every one seemed to have a hand in what was going on—whatever it was—and some common understood purpose seemed to guide it all. It was an organised miscellany. Up the the street we went through the dust, drums, cymbals, fifes, and flags before and after. We turned at last, crowding up the alley where a large hall used to stand behind Gregson's grocery. Whoever in Zionville was not in that hall was looking in through the windows.