第22章 CHAPTER V.(1)

Prosperity had settled upon the plains of Tasajara.Not only had the embarcadero emerged from the tules of Tasajara Creek as a thriving town of steamboat wharves,warehouses,and outlying mills and factories,but in five years the transforming railroad had penetrated the great plain itself and revealed its undeveloped fertility.The low-lying lands that had been yearly overflowed by the creek,now drained and cultivated,yielded treasures of wheat and barley that were apparently inexhaustible.Even the helpless indolence of Sidon had been surprised into activity and change.

There was nothing left of the straggling settlement to recall its former aspect.The site of Harkutt's old store and dwelling was lost and forgotten in the new mill and granary that rose along the banks of the creek.Decay leaves ruin and traces for the memory to linger over;prosperity is unrelenting in its complete and smiling obliteration of the past.

But Tasajara City,as the embarcadero was now called,had no previous record,and even the former existence of an actual settler like the forgotten Elijah Curtis was unknown to the present inhabitants.It was Daniel Harkutt's idea carried out in Daniel Harkutt's land,with Daniel Harkutt's capital and energy.But Daniel Harkutt had become Daniel Harcourt,and Harcourt Avenue,Harcourt Square,and Harcourt House,ostentatiously proclaimed the new spelling of his patronymic.When the change was made and for what reason,who suggested it and under what authority,were not easy to determine,as the sign on his former store had borne nothing but the legend,Goods and Provisions,and his name did not appear on written record until after the occupation of Tasajara;but it is presumed that it was at the instigation of his daughters,and there was no one to oppose it.Harcourt was a pretty name for a street,a square,or a hotel;even the few in Sidon who had called it Harkutt admitted that it was an improvement quite consistent with the change from the fever-haunted tules and sedges of the creek to the broad,level,and handsome squares of Tasajara City.

This might have been the opinion of a visitor at the Harcourt House,who arrived one summer afternoon from the Stockton boat,but whose shrewd,half-critical,half-professional eyes and quiet questionings betrayed some previous knowledge of the locality.

Seated on the broad veranda of the Harcourt House,and gazing out on the well-kept green and young eucalyptus trees of the Harcourt Square or Plaza,he had elicited a counter question from a prosperous-looking citizen who had been lounging at his side.

"I reckon you look ez if you might have been here before,stranger.""Yes,"said the stranger quietly,"I have been.But it was when the tules grew in the square opposite,and the tide of the creek washed them.""Well,"said the Tasajaran,looking curiously at the stranger,"Icall myself a pioneer of Tasajara.My name's Peters,--of Peters and Co.,--and those warehouses along the wharf,where you landed just now,are mine;but I was the first settler on Harcourt's land,and built the next cabin after him.I helped to clear out them tules and dredged the channels yonder.I took the contract with Harcourt to build the last fifteen miles o'railroad,and put up that depot for the company.Perhaps you were here before that?""I was,"returned the stranger quietly.

"I say,"said Peters,hitching his chair a little nearer to his companion,"you never knew a kind of broken-down feller,called Curtis--'Lige Curtis--who once squatted here and sold his right to Harkutt?He disappeared;it was allowed he killed hisself,but they never found his body,and,between you and me,I never took stock in that story.You know Harcourt holds under him,and all Tasajara rests on that title.""I've heard so,"assented the stranger carelessly,"but I never knew the original settler.Then Harcourt has been lucky?""You bet.He's got three millions right about HERE,or within this quarter section,to say nothing of his outside speculations.""And lives here?"

"Not for two years.That's his old house across the plaza,but his women-folks live mostly in 'Frisco and New York,where he's got houses too.They say they sorter got sick of Tasajara after his youngest daughter ran off with a feller.""Hallo!"said the stranger with undisguised interest."I never heard of that!You don't mean that she eloped"--he hesitated.

"Oh,it was a square enough marriage.I reckon too square to suit some folks;but the fellow hadn't nothin',and wasn't worth shucks,--a sort of land surveyor,doin'odd jobs,you know;and the old man and old woman were agin it,and the tother daughter worse of all.It was allowed here--you know how women-folks talk!--that the surveyor had been sweet on Clementina,but had got tired of being played by her,and took up with Phemie out o'spite.Anyhow they got married,and Harcourt gave them to understand they couldn't expect anything from him.P'raps that's why it didn't last long,for only about two months ago she got a divorce from Rice and came back to her family again.""Rice?"queried the stranger."Was that her husband's name,Stephen Rice?""I reckon!You knew him?"