Summarize why the suspense in "The Californian's Tale" is important.

From the first sentence of Mark Twain's short story "The Californian's Tale," the author uses suspense to generate uncertainty, thereby securing the reader's attention and creating a desire for the uncertainty to be resolved. "Thirty-five years ago," the narrator remarks, "I was out prospecting on the Stanislaus, tramping all day long with pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt here and there, always expecting to make a rich strike, and never doing it." This sentence offers an object lesson on how subtly and artfully to generate suspense. We know that something important is about to be described, because the narrator would not be thinking of it thirty-five years later if it were not important. Yet we are initially told of an event that is not much of an event at all: what the narrator is recalling from thirty-five years earlier is merely disappointment. He is remembering looking for gold that he never found. Thus, Twain indicates that this first description will not be of the event that is at the heart of the story. The story of trying to find gold and finding dirt instead is not enough of a tale to constitute a distinctive Californian tale. The title promises such a tale, and by not delivering it at once, Twain creates suspense by his expert use of the narrative device of indirection.
Twain uses his powers of description to generate suspense as well:

It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful expanses of grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse of man or beast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon, when I caught sight of a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a man about forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages.

Because of the sharp contrast that Twain sets up between the landscape and the cozy cottage, the reader is prompted to wonder what is different about the inhabitant of the cottage. Again, Twain uses delay and indirection to explore the sources of this difference. The use of suspense prevents the story from lapsing into a sentimental anecdote. The source of the suspense is the deep mystery of how it is that some human beings maintain hope in the face of a lonely and tragic existence. In effect, Twain subtly blends four genres: the sentimental fable, the suspense narrative, the philosophical, contemplative piece, and the humorous folktale.
Once the missing woman has been introduced (by way of Twain's portrait of her absence and her presence), the story shifts gears a bit in terms of its generation of suspense. Characterization and voice are now the primary means through which Twain ponders uncertainty about the world, not just about people and events. The man remarks of the decorations in his home,"I've seen her fix all these things so much that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know the law of any of them. But she knows the law." The woman who is not there is the source of law and order; the man left behind can follow the law, but he does not understand it. At this point, the reader thinks, "Who exactly is this source of law?"
The narrator becomes a proxy for the reader, who is trying to figure out the secret that is apparently right there in front of them. "I became conscious," the narrator comments, "in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that there was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to discover for myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by furtive indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right track." This is almost a parody of someone trying to be a detective; we see Twain playing with the literary conventions of suspenseful fiction.
Twain's comic intent aside, however, the story uses suspense as a bridge to genuine fear and distress. The narrator picks up the man's discomfort and begins to feel it as well: "I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said it was a habit of mine when I was in a state of expectancy. But he didn't seem quite satisfied; and from that time on he began to show uneasiness." The reader wonders about the source of this uneasiness and hence is in a state of suspense with respect to its source. Not until the very end of the story do we learn what is really going on: that the mystery underlying the man's difference from his surroundings is rooted in trauma and tragedy.