They were efforts, indeed; for if I had come from a foreign land, and spoken an unknown language, I could hardly have had more difficulty in finding a topic of common interest or in making myself intelligible, for old-fashioned English seemed to be less understood than any others of the numerous tongues I heard.

I could hear from my window, Mexicans, Chinamen, Indians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards chatting in the plaza, until I could almost guess what they said, but the vernacular of the American miner and rancher is beyond comprehension.

There are about four topics discussed at the Eldorado tables, chief of all, the mines, and to this day I cannot talk coherently about drifts and leads and dumps, and the like.

Then there were the games, the most absorbing of all, who had lost and won, and as I don’t know one card nor one game from another, I am not interested in that subject. There was, it seemed to me, a fresh murder or robbery or Indian fight to discuss every morning at breakfast; and the ranch talk, in which my most intelligent questions always provoked a shout of laughter. When I quoted Talmage one morning, a young man looked at me pityingly, and said, “Oh, he’s dead a year ago! He had one of the finest saloons in Las Vegas; he was a smart man, poor fellow!” My attempts to interest my table companions in a description of the Chautauqua and its purpose, and the mission of the W. C. T. U., and their painful efforts to be politely interested, almost sent my son into convulsions in consequence of laughing into his coffee-cup; and the intense earnestness with which the man they called Bunco Brown asked, “And didn’t they sell no booze there?” and then, “Well, then, how in thunder do they get it if they’re too pious to steal?” might have seemed amusing to one who was not struck by the horror of the fact that the man could not conceive of life for any person without drink.

So, owing to the missionary’s usual difficulty in making himself understood, I had to wait to learn a means of communication with my subject. I even ventured to the door of the billiard room and tried to manifest an interest in the science of the game, but here, 187 also, I was too hopelessly old-fashioned to be able to comprehend the beauty of the angles, and beat an ignominious retreat. I heard Charlie remark as I went up-stairs: “Game, for such a pious old lady, isn’t she?” I took it as a compliment.

But my opportunity finally came through the humble instrumentality of an onion. It was about the size of a dinner-plate, and lay on the newel-post as I came down stairs one morning. Charlie was standing in the front door, with his back to me, peeling an orange. He turned around at my exclamation of surprise and asked, “Why, don’t they grow like that where you live?”

“In New England? Oh dear, no!” I cried; and then he asked me a number of questions, and seemed very much interested in my account of vegetables and fruit and trees and flowers in the East. I was delighted to tell him, although I had a lurking suspicion that such a remarkable ignorance of that country was feigned. And yet his eyes, so wonderfully like Chester Mansfield’s, except in expression, had a certain vacant honesty—for which, I presume, an accustomed story-teller could find a better expression—that I was obliged to believe genuine. As soon as he found that I was curious about the flora and fauna of the locality, he took great pains in bringing me specimens, and on two occasions took me out for a walk to see something that could not be brought. In this closer acquaintance I found so much that was kind and pleasant, and so many peculiar little resemblances to my dead friend—a backward toss of the head when he laughed, a frown when listening, an odd little gesture with the left hand in explaining anything—that he puzzled me more and more. Among the few books that I could find to read in the town was the “Woman in White,” which I read with compunction, not having been addicted to works of fiction, and the curious resemblance between the two women made a deep impression upon me, and seemed to have a strange significance just at this time. Although I had as yet not succeeded in drawing any confidence from Charlie—who, indeed, seldom spoke of himself, and never related any past experience—a very suspicious trait I thought, I felt sure that time would unravel the dark mystery that enveloped him.