“Rice?” queried the stranger. “Was that her husband's name, Stephen Rice?”
“I reckon! You knew him?”
“Yes,—when the tide came up to the tules, yonder,” answered the stranger musingly. “And the other daughter,—I suppose she has made a good match, being a beauty and the sole heiress?”
The Tasajaran made a grimace. “Not much! I reckon she's waitin' for the Angel Gabriel,—there ain't another good enough to suit her here. They say she's had most of the big men in California waitin' in a line with their offers, like that cue the fellows used to make at the 'Frisco post-office steamer days—and she with nary a letter or answer for any of them.”
“Then Harcourt doesn't seem to have been as fortunate in his family affairs as in his speculations?”
Peters uttered a grim laugh. “Well, I reckon you know all about his son's stampeding with that girl last spring?”
“His son?” interrupted the stranger. “Do you mean the boy they called John Milton? Why, he was a mere child!”
“He was old enough to run away with a young woman that helped in his mother's house, and marry her afore a justice of the peace. The old man just snorted with rage, and swore he'd have the marriage put aside, for the boy was under age. He said it was a put-up job of the girl's; that she was older by two years, and only wanted to get what money might be comin' some day, but that they'd never see a red cent of it. Then, they say, John Milton up and sassed the old man to his face, and allowed that he wouldn't take his dirty money if he starved first, and that if the old man broke the marriage he'd marry her again next year; that true love and honorable poverty were better nor riches, and a lot more o' that stuff he picked out o' them ten-cent novels he was allus reading. My women-folks say that he actually liked the girl, because she was the only one in the house that was ever kind to him; they say the girls were just ragin' mad at the idea o' havin' a hired gal who had waited on 'em as a sister-in-law, and they even got old Mammy Harcourt's back up by sayin' that John's wife would want to rule the house, and run her out of her own kitchen. Some say he shook THEM, talked back to 'em mighty sharp, and held his head a heap higher nor them. Anyhow, he's livin' with his wife somewhere in 'Frisco, in a shanty on a sand lot, and workin' odd jobs for the newspapers. No! takin' it by and large—it don't look as if Harcourt had run his family to the same advantage that he has his land.”
“Perhaps he doesn't understand them as well,” said the stranger smiling.
“Mor'n likely the material ain't thar, or ain't as vallyble for a new country,” said Peters grimly. “I reckon the trouble is that he lets them two daughters run him, and the man who lets any woman or women do that, lets himself in for all their meannesses, and all he gets in return is a woman's result,—show!”