"Yes, Marse Job's sick; dassen't come out."
But Job was not sick, as Tony thought. He was in the Robinson parlor, sitting with Miss Bright before the flickering log fire, which dimly lit the long, low room with its rag carpet and old-fashioned furniture. They were talking over their friendship, and she was flattering him upon his superiority to those country greenhorns who lived up here; she always knew he had city blood in him. Job was acting sillier than anybody would have dreamed Job Malden could act, in his evident pride at her flattery and the strange feelings which drew him to her. She laughed at his attempts to compliment her, and, on his departure, followed him to the door and said how heart-broken she was to leave the mountains and him.
Job went home in raptures, and lay awake all night planning how to get away from the mountains and the rude people who lived there, and down into the city somewhere—anywhere where Fanny Bright lived.
All that week he wandered about as if lost, cross and good for nothing at work. His city idol had gone home.
It was two days after Christmas that Job tore the wrapper off a 'Frisco paper and sat down to read, when, glancing over the columns, his eyes met the following:
"Unity Church made a brilliant scene on Christmas night at the wedding of Miss Frances Evelyn Bright, a charming young society lady, to Walter Graham Davis, the well-known actor. Miss Bright had just returned from Grizzly county, where she has been for her health, so her friends made the reception that followed one in a double sense."
It was a haggard, red-eyed young fellow who crept down the stairs after dusk, stole out to the stable, and saddled Bess. All night he rode up and down the mountain roads. He hated the ground Miss Bright had walked over, hated the house she had lived in, hated the school, vowed he'd never enter it again, hated himself. She was gone, Jane was gone—long since he had let Dan have her to himself—his church was gone, all his peace of soul, all his religion, was gone. He would ride up on Lookout Point and plunge over into the Gulch to death and eternity, he and Bess together. Who cared? They were all alike—all were heartless. Poor boy! he was learning a lesson that many a one has learned—a bitter lesson—and all the forces of evil seemed to fight for his soul that dark night as he climbed Lookout Point on Bess.
He had reached the top when the moon came up over El Capitan and drove away the gloom, lighting up the white-topped peaks and the dark, black ravine. Somehow, he thought of his mother. There had been one good woman in the world, after all. He hesitated, then turned slowly down the hill and toward home.