Category: Historical Novels

Gabriel Conroy

I. WITHOUT 1 II. WITHIN 9 III. GABRIEL 21 IV. NATURE SHOWS THEM THE WAY 26 V. OUT OF THE WOODS--INTO THE SHADOW 30 VI. FOOTPRINTS 36 VII. IN WHICH THE FOOTPRINTS BEGIN TO FADE 40 VIII. THE FOOTPRINTS GROW FAINTER 43 IX. IN WHICH THE FOOTPRINTS ARE LOST FOR EVER 47

Chapters

36. CHAPTER I.

After the visit of Mr. Peter Dumphy, One Horse Gulch was not surprised at the news of any stroke of good fortune. It was enough that he, the great capitalist, the successful spe...

52. CHAPTER I.

A quarter of an hour before the messenger of Peter Dumphy had reached Poinsett's office, Mr. Poinsett had received a more urgent message. A telegraph despatched from San Antonio...

38. CHAPTER III.

It was a hot day on the California coast. In the memory of the oldest American inhabitant its like had not been experienced, and although the testimony of the Spanish California...

30. CHAPTER I.

The manner in which One Horse Gulch received the news of Gabriel Conroy's marriage was characteristic of that frank and outspoken community. Without entering upon the question o...

27. CHAPTER VI.

"But not toward San Francisco," said the Padre. "Listen! Your wish of yesterday has been attained. You are to have your desired interview with the fair invisible. Do you compreh...

19. CHAPTER III.

Olly's allusion to Mrs. Markle and her criticism had recurred to Gabriel more or less uneasily through the night, and as he rose betimes the next morning and stood by the table...

44. CHAPTER II.

The capture had been effected quietly. To the evident astonishment of his captor, Gabriel had offered no resistance, but had yielded himself up with a certain composed willingne...

48. CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Dumphy's confidence in himself was so greatly restored that several business enterprises of great pith and moment, whose currents for the past few days had been turned awry,...

31. CHAPTER II.

As no word has been handed down of the conversation that night between Olly and her sister-in-law, I fear the masculine reader must view their subsequent conduct in the light of...

54. CHAPTER III.

Gabriel's petition on behalf of Mr. Hamlin was promptly granted by the sheriff. The waggon was at once put into requisition to convey the wounded man--albeit screaming and prote...

21. CHAPTER V.

"You're wet all through, you awful Gabe, and covered with mud into the bargain. Go and change your clothes, or you'll get your death, as sure as you're a born sinner!"

53. CHAPTER II.

For once, by a cruel irony, the adverse reports regarding the stability of the Conroy mine were true. A few stockholders still clung to the belief that it was a fabrication to d...

50. CHAPTER VIII.

Although a large man, Gabriel was lithe and active, and dropped the intervening distance where the rope was scant, lightly, and without injury. Happily the falling of the statue...

42. CHAPTER VII.

Ramirez was not as happy in his revenge as he had anticipated. He had, in an instant of impulsive rage, fired his mine prematurely, and, as he feared, impotently. Gabriel had no...

49. CHAPTER VII.

The day following the discovery of the murder of Victor Ramirez was one of the intensest excitement in One Horse Gulch. It was not that killing was rare in that pastoral communi...

39. CHAPTER IV.

"An earthquake!" echoed Mr. Rollingstone, cheerfully, to his guests; "now you've had about everything we have to show. Don't be alarmed, madam," he continued to Mrs. Raynor, who...

17. CHAPTER I.

It was a season of unexampled prosperity in One Horse Gulch. Even the despondent original locator, who, in a fit of depressed alcoholism, had given it that infelicitous title, w...

26. CHAPTER V.

The Rancho of the Blessed Fisherman looked seaward as became its title. If the founder of the rancho had shown a religious taste in the selection of the site of the dwelling, hi...

63. CHAPTER XII.

"----the baby is doing well. And only think--Gabe has struck it again! And you was the cause, dear--and he says it all belongs to you--like the old mule that he is. Don't you re...

22. CHAPTER I.

A thick fog, dense, impenetrable, bluish-grey and raw, marked the advent of the gentle summer of 1854 on the California coast. The brief immature spring was scarcely yet over; t...

51. CHAPTER IX.

He stood for a moment breathless and paralysed with surprise; then he began slowly and deliberately to examine the tunnel step by step. When he had proceeded a hundred feet from...

33. CHAPTER IV.

For some weeks Mr. Hamlin had not been well, or, as he more happily expressed it, had been "off colour." The celebrated Dr. Duchesne, an ex-army surgeon, after a careful diagnos...

9. CHAPTER II.

The hut into which Ashley descended was like a Greenlander's "iglook," below the surface of the snow. Accident rather than design had given it this Arctic resemblance. As snow u...

45. CHAPTER III.

The cool weather of the morning following Mr. Dumphy's momentous interview with Colonel Starbottle, contributed somewhat to restore the former gentleman's tranquillity, which ha...

35. CHAPTER VI.

A cold, grey fog had that night stolen noiselessly in from the sea, and, after possessing the town, had apparently intruded itself in the long, low plain before the _hacienda_ o...

57. CHAPTER VI.

The utter and complete astonishment created by Gabriel's reply was so generally diffused that the equal participation of Gabriel's own counsel in this surprise was unobserved. M...

60. CHAPTER IX.

With his lips sealed by the positive mandate of the lovely spectre, Mr. Hamlin resigned himself again to weakness and sleep. When he awoke, Olly was sitting by his bedside; the...

20. CHAPTER IV.

Notwithstanding his assumed ease and a certain relief, which was real, Gabriel was far from being satisfied with the result of his visit to Mrs. Markle. Whatever may have actual...

47. CHAPTER V.

Once free from the trammelling fascinations of Sophy and the more dangerous espionage of Madame Eclair, and with the object of his mission accomplished, Mr. Hamlin recovered his...

18. CHAPTER II.

Mr. Ramirez followed the porter upstairs, and along a narrow passage, until he reached a larger hall. Here the porter indicated that he should wait until he returned, and then d...

37. CHAPTER II.

The Grand Conroy Hotel was new, and had the rare virtue of comparative cleanliness. As yet the odours of bygone dinners, and forgotten suppers, and long dismissed breakfasts had...

56. CHAPTER V.

The day of the trial was one of exacting and absorbing interest to One Horse Gulch. Long before ten o'clock the Court-room, and even the halls and corridors of the lately rehabi...

40. CHAPTER V.

The hot weather had not been confined to San Francisco. San Pablo Bay had glittered, and the yellow currents of the San Joaquin and Sacramento glowed sullenly with a dull sluggi...

34. CHAPTER V.

Happily for Mr. Hamlin, the young girl noticed neither the effect of her unconscious baptismal act, nor its object, but moved away slowly to the door. As she did so, Jack steppe...

25. CHAPTER IV.

When Arthur Poinsett, after an hour's rapid riding over the scorching sand-hills, finally drew up at the door of the Mission Refectory, he had so far profited by his own advice...

8. CHAPTER I.

Snow. Everywhere. As far as the eye could reach--fifty miles, looking southward from the highest white peak,--filling ravines and gulches, and dropping from the walls of cañons...

43. CHAPTER I.

When Donna Dolores after the departure of Mrs. Sepulvida missed the figure of Mr. Jack Hamlin from the plain before her window, she presumed he had followed that lady and would...

24. CHAPTER III.

If there was a spot on earth of which the usual dead monotony of the California seasons seemed a perfectly consistent and natural expression, that spot was the ancient and time-...

32. CHAPTER III.

Peter Dumphy was true to his client. A few days after he had returned to San Francisco he dispatched a note to Victor, asking an interview. He had reasoned that, although Victor...

29. CHAPTER VIII.

The absolute freedom of illimitable space, the exhilaration of the sparkling sunlight, and the excitement of the opposing wind, which was strong enough to oblige him to exert a...

23. CHAPTER II.

The street into which Ramirez plunged at first sight appeared almost impassable, and but for a certain regularity in the parallels of irregular, oddly-built houses, its original...

28. CHAPTER VII.

He had scarcely concluded before Diego entered ready for the journey. When he had gone, Arthur waited with some impatience the reappearance of Donna Dolores. To his disappointme...

41. CHAPTER VI.

I am sorry to say that Mrs. Conroy's expression as she fled was not entirely consistent with the grieved and heart-broken manner with which she had just closed the interview wit...

12. CHAPTER V.

Happily Grace was wrong. Her ankle was severely sprained, and she could not stand. Philip tore up his shirt, and, with bandages dipped in snow water, wrapped up the swollen limb...

46. CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Jack Hamlin did not lose much time on the road from Wingdam to Sacramento. His rapid driving, his dust bespattered vehicle, and the exhausted condition of his horse on arriv...

16. CHAPTER IX.

A fervid May sun had been baking the adobe walls of the Presidio of San Ramon, firing the red tiles, scorching the black courtyard, and driving the mules and vaqueros of a train...

58. CHAPTER VII.

When Gabriel opened his eyes to consciousness, he was lying on the floor of the jury room, his head supported by Olly, and a slight, graceful, womanly figure, that had been appa...

55. CHAPTER IV.

Thus admonished by the practical-minded Olly, Gabriel retired precipitately to the secure fastnesses of Conroy's Hill, where, over a consolatory pipe in his deserted cabin, he g...

10. CHAPTER III.

It was found the next morning that the party was diminished by five. Philip Ashley and Grace Conroy, Peter Dumphy and Mrs. Brackett, were missing; Dr. Paul Devarges was dead. Th...

11. CHAPTER IV.

It was a spur of the long grave-like ridge that lay to the north of the cañon. Up its gaunt white flank two figures had been slowly crawling since noon, until at sunset they at...

59. CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Jack Hamlin was in very bad case. When Dr. Duchesne, who had been summoned from Sacramento, arrived, that eminent surgeon had instantly assumed such light-heartedness and le...

15. CHAPTER VIII.

It was Philip Ashley! Philip Ashley--faded, travel-worn, hollow-eyed, but nervously energetic and eager. Philip, who four days before had left Grace the guest of a hospitable tr...

61. CHAPTER X.

There was little difficulty in establishing the validity of Grace Conroy's claim to the Conroy grant under the bequest of Dr. Devarges. Her identity was confirmed by Mr. Dumphy-...

13. CHAPTER VI.

For two weeks an unclouded sun rose and set on the rigid outlines of Monument Point. For two weeks there had been no apparent change in the ghastly whiteness of the snow-flanked...

14. CHAPTER VII.

The surgeon did not reply, but rose and examined the scattered specimens. One of them he picked up and placed first to his nose and then to his lips. After a pause he replied qu...

62. CHAPTER XI.

I regret that no detailed account of the reconciliatory visit to Mrs. Conroy has been handed down, and I only gather a hint of it from after comments of the actors themselves. W...

7. BOOK VII.--THE BED ROCK.

I. IN THE TRACK OF A STORM 409 II. THE YELLOW ENVELOPE 423 III. GABRIEL MEETS HIS LAWYER 435 IV. WHAT AH FE DOES NOT KNOW 447 V. THE PEOPLE _v._ JOHN DOE _alias_ GABRIEL CONROY,...

6. BOOK VI.--A DIP.

I. MR. HAMLIN'S RECREATION CONTINUED 317 II. MR. HAMLIN TAKES A HAND 325 III. MR DUMPHY TAKES POINSETT INTO CONFIDENCE 338 IV. MR. HAMLIN IS OFF WITH AN OLD LOVE 349 V. THE THRE...

5. BOOK V.--THE VEIN.

I. IN WHICH GABRIEL RECOGNISES THE PROPRIETIES 243 II. TRANSIENT GUESTS AT THE GRAND CONROY 257 III. IN WHICH MR. DUMPHY TAKES A HOLIDAY 266 IV. MR. DUMPHY HAS NEWS OF A DOMESTI...

3. BOOK III.--THE LEAD.

I. AN OLD PIONEER OF '49 108 II. A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 118 III. THE CHARMING MRS. SEPULVIDA 125 IV. FATHER FELIPE 132 V. IN WHICH THE DONNA MARIA MAKES AN IMPRESSION 140 VI. THE...

1. BOOK I.--ON THE THRESHOLD.

I. WITHOUT 1 II. WITHIN 9 III. GABRIEL 21 IV. NATURE SHOWS THEM THE WAY 26 V. OUT OF THE WOODS--INTO THE SHADOW 30 VI. FOOTPRINTS 36 VII. IN WHICH THE FOOTPRINTS BEGIN TO FADE 4...

4. BOOK IV.--DRIFTING.

I. MR. AND MRS. CONROY AT HOME 178 II. IN WHICH THE TREASURE IS FOUND--AND LOST 191 III. MR. DUMPHY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 205 IV. MR. JACK HAMLIN TAKES A HOLIDAY 212 V. VICTOR MAK...

2. BOOK II.--AFTER FIVE YEARS.