None of the volunteers faltered until Maurice Dawson decided to leave his daughter at the settlement until his return, if so be he should be permitted to return. He knew of no better or safer place for her, nor of any friends to whose care he would more cheerfully commit her, in case it should be his lot to fall on the field of battle.
It had been Parson Brush's intention to be Dawson's comrade in his perils, but when the father begged him to stay behind to look after his child he consented. And so the programme, so fraught with momentous consequences, was arranged.
The four years of stupendous war came to an end. The sun of the Southern Confederacy went down in gloom and defeat behind the hills of Appomattox, never to rise again, and blessed peace brooded over a reunited nation, which shall endure through the coming ages to the end of time.
It was only the faint echoes of the mighty struggle that, faintly reverberating across prairie and mountain, reached the little mining settlement nestling among the solitudes of the Sierras. Vose Adams made more frequent journeys to Sacramento, in order to gather news of the terrific events, which were making history at an appalling rate. Upon his return, the miners gathered round Parson Brush, or some other one with a good voice, who stood up, with every eye centred on him and every ear keyed to the highest point and they listened with breathless interest until the thrilling story was read through to the end.
The same diversity of sentiment that appeared at first continued to the last, but the parson's earnest words and his insistence that no quarrels should take place among the neighbors prevented any outbreak, though more than once the point was perilously near.
"If your sympathies are with the Union or with the South," he said impressively, "there is nothing to prevent your taking up arms, but it must be on the battle field and not here."
And this wise counsel prevailed. Now and then some ardent partisan shouldered his rifle, bade his friends a hasty good-by and hurried away. One by one, they went until the new recruits numbered five. Thus the population of New Constantinople dwindled to about one-half, and retaining its exclusive tastes, permitted no new comers to join them, so that the boom which in its early days was so confidently looked for sank to zero and vanished. In truth it looked as if New Constantinople was doomed to die of dry rot.