The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

She saw he was anxious to leave her and offered him her hand, which looked very small and white as it lay in his broad palm. For an instant his fingers closed over it with something like a slight pressure and his face was a study, as if two sets of feelings were contending in his mind with an equal chance for the mastery.

Dropping her hand he said, “Are your diamonds very valuable?”

“Yes,” Fanny answered quickly. “They are worth thousands of dollars and are sewed up in the ribbon bows of my hat. I don’t believe they would think of looking there. Do you?”

He laughed a hearty, ringing laugh, and when Fanny looked inquiringly at him he said, “I beg your pardon. I couldn’t help it. I thought you were not to tell where your diamonds were, and you have told me! But, never mind, you are safe. Good bye. I think we may meet again.”

He bowed and left the hotel, while Fanny joined her mother in the small room allotted them. There had been a long discussion between them as to the disposition of the diamonds during their absence from San Francisco. Remembering what Inez had said Fanny wished to put them in a safe deposit company’s vault while her mother insisted upon taking them with her. She didn’t know about San Francisco. If it were New York it would be different, and she wanted them with her. She was one of those nervous women who feel that nothing is safe unless they can see it. Her baggage was always taken to the hotel and to her room, if she was only to pass the night. She knew then where it was, and the diamonds must go with her to the Yosemite. She had left most of them in New York at Tiffany’s, and only had with her a small cluster pin, her rings and Fanny’s, and her large pear-shaped ear-rings,—the heirlooms which Mark Hilton had taken with him when he left Ridgefield and which were to be Fanny’s on her wedding day. After devising various places of concealment, Fanny finally decided to sew the diamonds in the knots of heavy ribbon on her hat, where their safety could be ascertained at any moment. This done, Mrs. Prescott felt quite secure and listened composedly to all that was said of the robbers. She had only brought money enough for the trip, and unknown to any one a part of that was twisted up in her back hair. She had nothing to lose or fear, and she slept soundly in her small quarters at Chinese Camp. Fanny, on the contrary, could not sleep and sat by the open window looking out into the night starting at every sound and wishing Mr. Hardy had not left them. She was not superstitious, but felt oppressed with a feeling of impending danger and wished many times that she was safely back in San Francisco.

At a very early hour in the morning the stage started, for there was many a mile of rocks and hills between the Camp and the valley, and the sleepy passengers shivering in the cool morning air took their seats, wondering what would befall them before the day was over. Nor were they in any degree reassured when, as they were ascending a long hill the driver suddenly stopped and announced to them, “This is where they had the hold-up and that the clump of trees the robber was behind.”

Involuntarily Fanny’s hand went up to her hat while the passengers shrank into their seats as if to escape a danger. Then, remembering there was none they looked curiously at the spot and two or three alighted and walked around the trees trying to conjecture just where the brigand stood before he made his appearance at the horses’ heads.

“If it had been the little one instead of the big one he wouldn’t have been drove off so easy. I tell you Dick is a terror. Why, they say he can jump straight up and land in the coach, or the box, either. Must have been a circus rider,” the driver said, while every passenger breathed a prayer to be delivered from the terrible Dick.

As long as they were in the open country they felt safe, but the moment they came near to ledges and woods they fancied a robber behind every tree and rock and were glad when as night was closing in they began to descend into the valley under the shadow of old Capitan and into a region of fertility and civilization. As soon as Mrs. Prescott was settled in her small room, which had once been a bathroom, and in which she declared she could neither breathe nor sleep, she made inquiries for Mr. Rayborne, the guide, as she wished to secure his services for herself and daughter whenever they went on trails:

“That is, if he is really as good as I heard he was in San Francisco,” she said to the landlord, who replied, “There’s none better in the valley. No, nor so good either. You see he’s a gentleman, and people like that, but I doubt if he is home. He has not been round the hotel for a week. His cottage is two or three miles from here. I’ll send and inquire.”