It was at the end of the Bonanza¹ times, that period of startling upheavals² and downfalls, when miners had suddenly become millionaires, and rich men found themselves paupers³, that Bill Cannon⁴ built his mansion⁵ in San Francisco. He had made his fortune in Virginia City, not in a few meteoric⁶ years, as the public, who loves picturesque⁷ histories, was wont⁸ to recount relishingly, but in a series of broken periods of plenty with lean years in between. The Crown Point and Belcher rise made him a man of means, and its collapse⁹ was said to have ruined him. Afterward¹⁰, wiseacres shook their heads and there were rumors¹¹ that it was not Bill Cannon who was ruined. In the dead period which followed this disastrous¹² cataclysm¹³ of fortune and confidence, he was surreptitiously loyal to the capricious town from which men had withdrawn¹⁵ their affection and belief as from a beguiling¹⁷ woman, once loved and trusted, now finally proved false.  
In those short years of mourning and lost faith between the downfall of Crown Point and the rise of the Con¹⁴. Virginia and the Rey del Monte, Bill Cannon “lay low.” His growing reputation as an expert mining man and a rising financier had suffered. Men had disbelieved in him as they did in Virginia, and he knew the sweetness of revenge when he and the great camp rose together in titanic¹⁸ partnership¹⁹ and defied them. His detractors had hardly done murmuring together over the significant fact that Crown Point “had not scooped²¹ every dollar he had” when the great ore-body was struck on the thousand-foot level of the Rey del Monte, and Bill Cannon became a Bonanza King.
 
That was in seventy-four. The same year he bought the land in San Francisco and laid the foundation for the mansion on Nob Hill. His wife was still living then, and his son and daughter—the last of seven children, five of whom had died in infancy—were as yet babies. A year later the house was completed and the Cannon family, surrounded by an aura of high-colored, accumulating anecdote²², moved down from Nevada and took possession.
 
Mrs. Cannon, who in her girlhood had been the prettiest waitress in the Yuba Hotel at Marysville and had married Bill Cannon when he was an underground miner, was the subject of much gossip in the little group which at that time made up San Francisco’s fashionable world. They laughed at her and went to her entertainments. They told stories of her small social mistakes, and fawned²³ on her husband for positions for their sons. He understood them, treated them with an open cynical²⁴ contempt, and used them. He was big enough to realize his wife’s superiority, and it amused him to punish them for their patronizing airs by savage²⁵ impertinences that they winced²⁶ under but did not dare resent. She was a silent, sensitive, loving woman, who never quite fitted into the frame his wealth had given her. She did her best to fill the new rôle, but it bewildered her and she did not feel at ease in it. In her heart she yearned²⁷ for the days when her home had been a miner’s cabin in the foot-hills, her babies had known no nurse but herself, and her husband had been all hers. Those were her beaux jours.
 
She died some twelve years after the installation in San Francisco. Bill Cannon had loved her after his fashion and always respected her, and the withdrawal²⁸ of her quiet, sympathetic presence left a void behind it that astonished, almost awed²⁹ him. The two children, Eugene and Rose, were eighteen and thirteen at the time. She had adored them, lived for them, been a mother at once tender and intelligent, and they mourned her with passion. It was to dull the ache left by her death, that Gene³⁰, a weak and characterless changeling in this vigorous breed, sought solace³¹ in drink. And it was then that Rose, assuming her mother’s place as head of the establishment, began to show that capacity for management, that combination of executive power and gentle force—bequests from both parents—that added admiration³² to the idolizing love the Bonanza King had always given her.
 
The house in which this pampered³³ princess ruled was one of those enormous structures which a wealth that sought extravagant³⁴ ways of expending³⁵ itself reared upon that protuberance in the city’s outline called by San Franciscans Nob Hill. The suddenly-enriched miners of the Comstock Lode³⁶ and the magnates of the railway had money waiting for investment, and the building of huge houses seemed as good a one as any other.
 
Here, from their front steps, they could see the city sweeping³⁷ up from its low center on to the slopes of girdling hills. It was a gray city, crowding down to the edge of the bay, which, viewed from this height, extended far up into the sky. In summer, under an arch of remote, cold blue, its outlines blurred³⁸ by clouds of blown dust, it looked a bleak³⁹, unfriendly place, a town in which the stranger felt a depressing, nostalgic chill. In winter, when the sun shone warm and tender as a caress⁴⁰, and the bay and hills were like a mosaic⁴¹ in blue and purple gems⁴², it was a panorama⁴³ over which the passer-by was wont to linger. The copings of walls offered a convenient resting-place, and he could lean on them, still as a lizard⁴⁴ in the bath of sun.
 
Bill Cannon’s house had unbroken command of this view. It fronted on it in irregular, massive majesty⁴⁵, with something in its commanding bulkiness that reminded one of its owner. It was of that epoch⁴⁶ when men built their dwellings⁴⁷ of wood; and numerous bay-windows and a sweep of marble steps flanked by sleeping stone lions were considered indispensable adjuncts to the home of the rich man who knew how to do things correctly. Round it spread a green carpet of lawns, close-cropped and even as velvet⁴⁸, and against its lower story deep borders of geraniums were banked in slopes of graduated scarlet⁴⁹ and crimson⁵⁰. The general impression left by it was that of a splendor⁵¹ that would have been ostentatious and vulgar had not the studied elegance⁵² of the grounds and the outflung glories of sea, sky and hills imparted to it some of their own distinction and dignity.
 
On the day following their departure from Antelope⁵³, Cannon and his daughter reached home at nightfall. The obsequiously-welcoming butler—an importation from the East that the Bonanza King confided⁵⁴ to Rose he found it difficult to refrain from kicking—acquainted them with the fact that “Mr. Gene had been up from San Luis Obispo” for two days, waiting for their arrival. Even as he spoke⁵⁵ a masculine voice uttered a hail from the floor above and a man’s figure appeared on the stairway and ran quickly down. Cannon gave a careless look upward.
 
“Ah there, Gene,” he observed, turning to the servant who was helping⁵⁶ him off with his coat. “Come up to town for a spell?”
 
The young man did not seem to notice anything especially ungracious in the greeting or probably was used to it.
 
“Yes, just up for a look around and to see how you and Rosey were. Got snowed in, didn’t you?” he said, looking at his sister.
 
She kissed him affectionately and drew him to the light where she subjected him to a sharp, exploring scrutiny⁵⁷. Evidently the survey was satisfactory, for she gave him a little slap on the shoulder and said,
 
“Good boy, Gene, San Luis is agreeing with you. Yes, we were snowed in for nearly three weeks. Papa’s been half crazy. And you’ve been in town two days, Prescott says. It must have been dull here all alone.”
 
“Oh, I haven’t been dull. I’ve been going round seeing the boys and”—his sister’s sudden, uneasy look checked him and he answered it with quick reassurance⁵⁸ of glance and tone. “Everything strictly⁵⁹ temperance. Don’t you get uneasy. I’ve lived up to my promises. The ranch⁶⁰ is mine all right, father.”
 
He had a high, rather throaty voice, which, without seeing his face, would have suggested weakness and lack of purpose. Now as he looked at his father with a slight and somewhat foolish air of triumph, the old man responded to his remark with a sound which resembled a grunt⁶¹ of scornful incredulity.
 
“Really, Gene,” said his sister, her manner of fond gratification in marked contrast to her father’s roughness, “that’s the best news I’ve heard for a year. It’s worth being snowed up to hear that when you come out. Of course you’ll get the ranch. I always knew you would. I always knew you could pull up and be as straight as anybody if you tried.”
 
The old man, who had been kicking off his rubbers, here raised his head with a bull-like movement, and suddenly roared at the retreating butler who was vanishing toward the dining-room.
 
“My cigars. Where in hell are they? Why doesn’t somebody attend here?”
 
The servant, with a start of alarm and a murmured excuse, disappeared for a moment, to reappear, hurrying breathlessly with a box of cigars. Cannon selected one and turned to the stairway.
 
“How long are you down for?” he said to his son as he began ascending⁶².
 
“I thought a week, perhaps two,” answered the young man. “A feller gets darned lonely, down there in the country.”
 
There was something apologetic, almost pleading in his words and way of speech. He looked after his father’s receding⁶³ figure as if quite oblivious⁶⁴ to the rudeness of the large, retiring back and the manner of careless scorn.
 
“Make it three,” said the Bonanza King, turning his head slightly and throwing the sentence over his shoulder.
 
Gene Cannon was now twenty-nine years of age and had drunk since his eighteenth year. His mother had died in ignorance of his vice⁶⁵. When his father discovered it, it simply augmented⁶⁶ the old man’s impatience⁶⁷ against the feeble youth who would carry on his name and be one of the inheritors of his fortune. Bill Cannon had never cared much for his only son. He had early seen the stuff of which the boy was made. “Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,” he would say, throwing the words at his wife over the bitten end of his cigar. He could have forgiven the drinking, as he could other vices⁶⁸, if Gene had had some of his own force, some of that driving power which had carried him triumphant⁶⁹ over friend and foe⁷⁰. But the boy had no initiative, no brains, no energy. “How did I ever come to have such a son?” he queried⁷¹ sometimes in an access of disgust in which the surprise was stronger than the disgust. The question possessed⁷² a sort of scientific interest for him which was deeper than the personal and over which the disappointed magnate would ponder.
 
As Gene grew older and his intemperance⁷³ assumed more serious proportions, the father’s scorn grew more open and was augmented by a sort of exasperated⁷⁴ dislike. The Bonanza King had no patience with those who failed from ill-health or the persistent⁷⁵ persecutions of bad luck. His contention⁷⁶ was that they should not have been ill, and they should have conquered their bad luck. He had no excuses for those who were beaten back against the wall—only death should be able to do that. But when it came to a useless, hampering⁷⁷ vice, a weakness that in itself was harmless enough, but that was allowed to gain paralyzing proportions, his original contempt was intensified⁷⁸ into a fierce intolerance which would have been terrifying if it had not been tempered with an indifferent disdain⁸⁰.
 
Rose’s attitude toward her brother was a source of secret wonder to him. She loved the feeble youth; a tie of the deepest affection existed between them, upon which Gene’s intemperance seemed to have no effect. The Bonanza King had always admitted that the ways of the gentler sex were beyond his comprehension, but that the two women he had known best—his wife and his daughter—should have lavished⁸¹ the tenderest love upon an intemperate⁸², incompetent⁸³, useless weakling was to him one of the fathomless⁸⁴ mysteries of life.
 
It was Rose’s suggestion that Gene should be withdrawn from temptation by sending him to the country. As the only son of Bill Cannon he was the object of a variety of attentions and allurements⁸⁵ in the city to which a stronger-willed man might have succumbed⁸⁶. The father readily agreed to the plan. He could graciously subscribe⁸⁷ to all Rose said, as the removal of Gene’s amiable⁸⁸ visage and uninspired conversation would not cause him any particular distress⁸⁹ or sense of loss.
 
But when Rose unfolded the whole of her scheme he was not so enthusiastically in accord with her. It was that Gene should be put on his father’s ranch—the historic Rancho of the Santa Trinidad near San Luis Obispo—as manager, that all responsibility should be placed in his hands, and that if, during one year’s probation⁹⁰, he should remain sober and maintain a record of quiet conduct and general good behavior, the ranch should be turned over to him as his own property, to be developed on such lines as he thought best.
 
The Rancho of the Santa Trinidad was one of the finest pieces of agricultural property in California. The Bonanza King visited it once a year, and at intervals⁹¹ received crates⁹² of fruit and spring chickens raised upon it. This was about all he got out of it, but when he heard Rose calmly arranging to have it become Gene’s property, he felt like a man who suddenly finds himself being robbed. He had difficulty in restraining a roar of refusal. Had it been any one but Rose he would not have restrained it.
 
Of course he gave way to her, as he always did. He even gave way gracefully⁹³ with an effect of a generosity⁹⁴ too large to bother over trifles, not because he felt it but because he did not want Rose to guess how it “went against him.” Under the genial⁹⁵ blandness⁹⁶ of his demeanor⁹⁷ he reconciled himself to the situation by the thought that Gene would certainly never keep sober for a year, and that there was therefore no fear of the richest piece of ranch land in the state passing into the hands of that dull and incapable⁹⁸ young man.
 
The year was nearly up now. It had but three months to run and Gene’s record had been exemplary. He had come to the city only twice, when his father noticed with a jealously-watchful eye that he had been resolutely⁹⁹ abstemious¹⁰⁰ in the matter of liquor and that his interest in the great property he managed had been the strongest he had so far evinced in anything. The thought that Gene might possibly live up to his side of the bargain and win the ranch caused the old man to experience that feeling of blank chagrin¹⁰¹ which is the state of mind of the unexpectedly swindled. He felt like a king who has been daringly and successfully robbed by a slave.
 
At dinner that evening Gene was very talkative. He told of his life on the ranch, of its methodical monotony, of its seclusion¹⁰², for he saw little of his neighbors and seldom went in to the town. Rose listened with eager interest, and the old man with a sulky, glowering¹⁰³ attention. At intervals he shot a piercing look at his boy, eying him sidewise with a cogitating¹⁰⁴ intentness of observation. His remarks were f............