slow, broken, but perfectly
audible voice, "that now you are--satisfied with the right--of this
young lady--to bear the name of--Arguello--and her
relationship--sir--to one of the oldest"--

"But, my dear old friend," broke out Paul, earnestly, "I NEVER cared
for that--I beg you to believe"--

"He never--never--cared for it--dear, dear colonel," sobbed Yerba,
passionately: "it was all my fault--he thought only of me--you wrong
him!"

"I think otherwise," said the colonel, with grim and relentless
deliberation. "I have a vivid--impression--sir--of an--interview I had
with you--at the St. Charles--where you said"-- He was silent for a
moment, and then in a quite different voice called faintly--

"George!"

Paul and Yerba glanced quickly at each other.

"George, set out some refreshment for the Honorable Paul Hathaway. The
best, sir--you understand.... A good nigger, sir--a good boy; and he
never leaves me, sir. Only, by gad! sir, he will starve himself and
his family to be with me. I brought him with me to California away
back in the fall of 'forty-nine. Those were the early days, sir--the
early days."

His head had fallen back quite easily on the pillow now; but a slight
film seemed to be closing over his dark eyes, like the inner lid of an
eagle when it gazes upon the sun.

"They were the old days, sir--the days of Men--when a man's WORD was
enough for anything, and his trigger-finger settled any doubt. When the
Trust that he took from Man, Woman, or Child was never broken. When
the tide, sir, that swept through the Golden Gate came up as far as
Montgomery Street."

He did not speak again. But they who stood beside him knew that the
tide had once more come up to Montgomery Street, and was carrying Harry
Pendleton away with it.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Ward of the Golden Gate, by Bret Harte

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