Thousands
of horses and cattle, now crossed and improved, are wealth wandering
at will on every side. Hardin's dark eyes grow eager and envious.
He gazes excitedly on this lordly domain. Suppose Valois should never
come back. This would be a royal heritage. He puts the maddening
thought away. Within a few miles, mill and flume tell of the tracing
down of golden quartz lodes. The pick breaks into the hitherto
undisturbed quartz ledges of Mariposa gold. Is there gold to be
found here, too? Perhaps.
Only an old prating priest, a simple woman, and an infant, between
him and these thousands of rich acres, should Valois be killed.
Philip Hardin becomes convinced of final defeat, as 1863 draws to
a close. The days of Gettysburg and Vicksburg ring the knell of
the Confederacy. Even the prestige of Chancellorsville, with its
sacred victory sealed with Stonewall Jackson's precious blood,
was lost in the vital blow delivered when the columns of Longstreet
and Pickett failed to carry the heights of Gettysburg.
The troops slain on that field could never be replaced. Boyhood
and old age, alone, were left to fill the vacant ranks. Settling
slowly down, the gloomy days of collapse approach.
While Lee skilfully faced the Army of the Potomac, and the Confederacy
was drained of men to hold the "sacred soil," the Western fields
were lit up by the fierce light of Grant and Sherman's genius.
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