islature of the State that gave him power to do almost anything
he wished, suddenly found himself balked by the fact that the people in
the mountain region which he wished to reach with his road were so
bitterly opposed to any such innovation that it jeopardized his entire
scheme. From the richest man in that section, an old cattle-dealer and
lumberman named Rawson, to Tim Gilsey, who drove the stage from Eden to
Gumbolt Gap, they were all opposed to any "newfangled" notions, and they
regarded everything that came from carpet-baggers as "robbery and
corruption."

He learned that "the most influential man down there" was General Keith,
and that his place was for sale.

"I can reach him," said Mr. Wickersham, with a gleam in his eye. "I will
have a rope around his neck that will lead him." So he bought the place.

Fortunately, perhaps, for Mr. Wickersham, he hinted something of his
intentions to his counsel, a shrewd old lawyer of the State, who thought
that he could arrange the matter better than Mr. Wickersham could.

"You don't know how to deal with these old fellows," he said.

"I know men," said Mr. Wickersham, "and I know that when I have a hold
on a man--"

"You don't know General Keith," said Mr. Bagge. The glint in his eye
impressed the other and he yielded.

So Mr. Wickersham bought the Keith plantation and left it to Greene
Bagge, Esq., to manage the business. Mr. Bagge wrote General Keith a
diplomatic letter eulogistic of the South and of Mr. Wickersham's
interest in it, and invited the General to remain on the place for the
present as its manager.

General Keith sat for some time over that letter, his face as grave as
it had ever been in battle. What swept before his mental vision who
shall know? The history of two hundred years bound the Keiths to
Elphinstone. They had carved it from the forest and had held it against
the Indian. From there they had gone to the highest office of the State.
Love, marriage, death--all the sanctities of life--were bound up with
it. He talked it over with Gordon.

Gordon's face fell.

"Why, father, you will be nothing but an overseer."

General Keith smiled. Gordon remembered long afterwards, with shame for
his Speech, how wistful that smile was.

"Yes; I shall be something more than that. I shall be, at least, a
faithful one. I wish I could be as successful a one."

He wrote saying that, as he had failed for himself, he did not see how
he could succeed for anoth