--And what was to be the lesson THEY were to learn from it? They
had heard what had been achieved by labor, enterprise, and diligence.
Perhaps they would believe, and naturally too, that what labor,
enterprise, and diligence had done could be done again. But was that
all? Was there nothing behind these qualities--which, after all, were
within the reach of every one here? Had they ever thought that back
of every pioneer, every explorer, every pathfinder, every founder and
creator, there was still another? There was no terra incognita so rare
as to be unknown to one; no wilderness so remote as to be beyond a
greater ken than theirs; no waste so trackless but that one had already
passed that way! Did they ever reflect that when the dull sea ebbed and
flowed in the tules over the very spot where they were now standing, who
it was that also foresaw, conceived, and ordained the mighty change that
would take place; who even guided and directed the feeble means employed
to work it; whose spirit moved, as in still older days of which they had
read, over the face of the stagnant waters? Perhaps they had. Who then
was the real pioneer of Tasajara,--back of the Harcourts, the Peterses,
the Billingses, and Wingates? The reverend gentleman gently paused for
a reply. It was given in the clear but startled accents of the half
frightened, half-fascinated Johnny Billings, in three words:--
"'Lige Curtis, sir!"
CHAPER VI
The trade wind, that, blowing directly from the Golden Gate, seemed to
concentrate its full force upon the western slope of Russian Hill,
might have dismayed any climber less hopeful and sanguine than that most
imaginative of newspaper reporters and most youthful of husbands, John
Milton Harcourt.
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