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: