t was the fashion then, and I was too young
and self-distrustful to set myself against the current in such matters.
The contest was an exciting one--two boys, Robert A--and Jonathan R--,
and one girl, Annie P--, leading all the school. Jonathan suddenly fell
behind, and was soon distanced by his two competitors. Lowry, who was
his teacher, asked him what was the reason of his sudden breakdown. The
boy blushed, and stammered out:

"I didn't want to beat Annie."

Robert won the prize, and the day came for its presentation. The house
was full, and everybody was in a pleasant mood. After the prize had been
presented in due form and with a little flourish, Lowry arose, and
producing a costly Bible, in a few words telling how magnanimously and
gallantly Jonathan had retired from the contest, presented it to the
pleased and blushing boy. The boys and girls applauded California
fashion, and the old man's face glowed with satisfaction. He had in him
curiously mingled the elements of the Puritan and the Cavalier--the
uncompromising persistency of the one, and the chivalrous impulse and
openhandedness of the other.

The old man had too many crotchets and too much combativeness to be
popular. He spared no opinion or habit he did not like. He struck every
angle within reach of him. In the state of society then existing in the
mines there were many things to vex his soul, and keep him on the
warpath. The miners looked upon him as a brave, good man, just a little
daft. He worked a mining-claim on Wood's Creek, north of town, and lived
alone in a tiny cabin on the hill above. That was the smallest of
cabins, looking like a mere box from the trail which wound through the
flat below. Two little scrub-oaks stood near it, under which he sat and
read his Bible in leisure moments. There, above the world, he could
commune with his own heart and with God undisturbed, and look down upon
a race he half pitied and half despised. From the spot the eye took in a
vast sweep of hill and dale: Bald Mountain, the most striking object in
the near background, and beyond its dark, rugged mass the snowy summits
of the Sierras, rising one above another, like gigantic stair-steps,
leading up to the throne of the Eternal. This lonely height suited
Lowry's strangely compounded nature. As a cynic, he looked down with
contempt upon the petty life that seethed and frothed in the camps
below; as a saint, he looked forth upon the wonders of God's handiwork
aroun