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Title: Treasure and Trouble Therewith: A Tale of California

Author: Geraldine Bonner

Release date: January 1, 2006 [eBook #9775]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

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                    TREASURE _and_ TROUBLE THEREWITH

                         _A TALE OF CALIFORNIA_

                          BY GERALDINE BONNER

                                 1917




I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

JOHN BONNER

WHO, HIMSELF A WRITER, TRAINED ME IN THE WORK HE LOVED. WHAT MERIT THE
READER MAY FIND IN THESE PAGES IS THE RESULT OF THAT TRAINING, UNDERTAKEN
WITH A FATHER'S PRIDE, CARRIED ON WITH A FATHER'S BELIEF AND
ENCOURAGEMENT.

GERALDINE BONNER




CONTENTS

      I. HANDS UP

     II. THE TULES

    III. MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

     IV. THE DERELICT

      V. THE MARKED PARAGRAPH

     VI. PANCHA

    VII. THE PICAROON

   VIII. THOSE GIRLS OF GEORGE'S

     IX. GREEK MEETS GREEK

      X. MICHAELS THE MINER

     XI. THE SOLID GOLD NUGGET

    XII. A KISS

   XIII. FOOLS IN THEIR FOLLY

    XIV. THE NIGHT RIDER

     XV. THE LAST DINNER

    XVI. THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

   XVII. THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

  XVIII. OUTLAWED

    XIX. HALF TRUTHS AND INFERENCES

     XX. MARK PAYS A CALL

    XXI. A WOMAN SCORNED

   XXII. THEREBY HANGS A TALE

  XXIII. THE CHINESE CHAIN

   XXIV. LOVERS AND LADIES

    XXV. WHAT JIM SAW

   XXVI. PANCHA WRITES A LETTER

  XXVII. BAD NEWS

 XXVIII. CHRYSTIE SEES THE DAWN

   XXIX. LORRY SEES THE DAWN

    XXX. MARK SEES THE DAWN

   XXXI. REVELATION

  XXXII. THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

 XXXIII. THE MORNING THAT CAME

  XXXIV. LOST

   XXXV. THE UNKNOWN WOMAN

  XXXVI. THE SEARCH

 XXXVII. HAIL AND FAREWELL




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

He ... heard the feller at the wheel say, "Hands up!" _Frontispiece_

"Oh, silly, unbelieving child!" came his voice

As it came it sent up a hoarse cry for food

The ghost of a smile touched her lips




TREASURE _and_ TROUBLE THEREWITH




CHAPTER I

HANDS UP


The time was late August some eleven years ago. The place that part of
central California where, on one side, the plain unrolls in golden
levels, and on the other swells upward toward the rounded undulations of
the foothills.

It was very hot; the sky a fathomless blue vault, the land dreaming in
the afternoon glare, its brightness blurred here and there by shimmering
heat veils. Checkered by green and yellow patches, dotted with the black
domes of oaks, it brooded sleepily, showing few signs of life. At long
intervals ranch houses rose above embowering foliage, a green core in the
midst of fields where the brown earth was striped with lines of fruit
trees or hidden under carpets of alfalfa. To the west the foothills rose
in indolent curves, tan-colored, as if clothed with a leathern hide.
Their hollows were filled with the darkness of trees huddled about hidden
streams, ribbons of verdure that wound from the mountains to the plain.
Farther still, vision faint, remote and immaculate, the white peaks of
the Sierra hung, a painting on the drop curtain of the sky.

Across the landscape a parent stem of road wound, branches breaking from
it and meandering thread-small to ranch and village. It was white-dusted
here, but later would turn red and crawl upward under the resinous
dimness of pine woods to where the mining camps clung on the lower wall
of the Sierra. Already it had left behind the region of farms in
neighborly proximity and the little towns that were threaded along it
like beads upon a string. Watching its eastward course, one would have
noticed that after it crested the first rise it ran free of habitation
for miles.

Along its empty length a dust cloud moved, a tarnishing spot on the
afternoon's hard brightness. This spot was the one point of energy in the
universal torpor. From it came the rhythmic beat of flying hoofs and the
jingle of harness. It was the Rocky Bar stage, up from Shilo through
Plymouth, across the Mother Lode and then in a steep, straining grade on
to Antelope and Rocky Bar, camps nestling in the mountain gorges. It was
making time now against the slow climb later, the four horses racing, the
reins loose on their backs.

There was only one passenger; the others had been dropped at towns along
the route. He sat on the front seat beside Jim Bailey the driver, his
feet on a pine box and a rifle across his knees. He and Jim Bailey knew
each other well, for he had often come that way, always with his box and
his rifle. He was Wells Fargo's messenger and his name was Danny Leonard.
In the box at his feet were twelve thousand dollars in coin to be
delivered that night to the Greenhide Mine at Antelope.

With nothing of interest in sight, talk between them was desultory. Jim
Bailey thought they'd take on some men at Plymouth when they stopped
there to victual up. The messenger, squinting at the swimming yellow
distance, yawned and said it might be a good thing, nobody knew when
Knapp and Garland would get busy again. They'd failed in the holdup of
the Rockville stage last spring and it was about time to hear from
them--the road after you passed Plymouth was pretty lonesome. Jim Bailey
snorted contemptuously and spat over the wheel--he guessed Knapp and
Garland weren't liable to bother _him_.

After this the conversation dropped. The stifling heat, the whirling dust
clouds broken by whiffs of air, dry as from a kiln and impregnated with
the pungent scent of the tarweed, made the men drowsy. Jim Bailey nodded,
the reins drawing slack between his fingers. Leonard slipped the rifle
from his knees to the floor and relaxed against the back of the seat.
Through half-shut lids he watched the whitened crests of the Sierra
brushed on the turquoise sky.

The horses clattered down a gulley and galloped across a wooden bridge
that spanned a dead watercourse. The ascent was steep and they took it
at a rush, backs humped, necks stretched, hoofs clattering among
loosened stones.

A sudden breeze carried their dust ahead, and for a moment the prospect
was obscured, the trees that filled the gulley, bunched at the summit
into a thicket, just discernible in foggy outline. The horses had gained
the level, Jim Bailey, who knew the road in his sleep, had cheered them
with a familiar chirrup, when the leaders stopped, recoiling in a clatter
of slackened harness on the wheelers. The stage came to a halt so violent
that Jim Bailey lurched forward against the splashboard, the reins jerked
out of his hands. He did not know what had happened, could see nothing
but the horses' backs, jammed together, lines and traces slapping about
their flanks.

Afterward, describing it at Mormons Landing, he laid it all to the dust.
In that first moment of surprise he hadn't made out the men, and anyway
who'd have expected it--on the open road in the full of the afternoon?
You couldn't put any blame on him, sprawled on his knees, the whole thing
coming so quick. When he picked himself up he looked into the muzzle of a
revolver and saw behind it a head, only the eyes showing between the hat
brim and a gunny sack tied round the lower part of the face.

After that it all went so swift you couldn't hardly tell. He didn't even
then know there were two of them--heard the feller at the wheel say,
"Hands up," and thought that was all there was to it--when the one at the
horses' heads fired. Leonard had given an oath and reached for his gun,
and right with that the report came, and Leonard heaved up with a sort of
grunt, and then settled and was still. The other feller came along down
through the dust, and Jim Bailey, paralyzed, with his hands up, knew
Knapp and Garland had got him at last.

The one at the wheel kept him covered while the other pulled out the box.
He could see him plain, all but his face, a big powerful chap, shoulders
on him like a prize fighter's, and freckled hands covered with red hair.
He got the box out with a jerk and dropped it, and then, snatching up a
stick, struck the near wheeler a blow on the flank and jumped back into
the bushes.

The horses started, mad, like they were locoed; it was a wonder the stage
wasn't upset, racing this way and that, up the bank and down on the other
side. Jim Bailey crawled out on the axle, picked up the dragging reins
and got back just in time to keep Leonard from bouncing out. He heaved
him up and held him round the body, and when he got the horses going
straight, took a look at him. That first time he thought he was dead,
white as chalk and with his eyes turned up. But after a spell of going he
decided there was life in him yet, and holding him with one arm,
stretched the other over the splashboard, shaking the reins on the
wheelers' backs, and the way those horses buckled to their work was worth
gettin' held up to see.

Half an hour later the Rocky Bar stage came like a cyclone into Mormons
Landing, Jim Bailey hopping like a grasshopper on the front seat, and on
his arm Danny Leonard, shot through the lung. They drew up in front of
the Damfino Saloon, and Mormons Landing, dead among its deserted ditches,
knew again a crowded hour of glorious life. Everybody came running and
lined up along the sidewalk, later to line up along the Damfino Bar. The
widow woman who ran the eating house put Danny Leonard in her own bed and
sent one of her sons, aged six, to San Marco for a doctor, and the other,
aged eight, to Jackson for the sheriff.

Before night fell the news had flashed through the countryside. On ranch
piazza and in cabin doorway, in the camps along the Mother Lode and the
villages of the plain, men were telling one another how Knapp and
Garland had held up the Rocky Bar stage and got away with twelve
thousand dollars in gold.




CHAPTER II

THE TULES


The place of the holdup was on the first upward roll of the hills.
Farther back, along more distant slopes, the chaparral spread like a dark
cloth but here there was little verdure. The rainless California summer
had scorched the country; mounded summit swelled beyond mounded summit
all dried to a uniform ochre. But if you had stood on the rise where the
stage stopped and faced toward the west, you would have seen, stretching
to the horizon, a green expanse that told of water.

This was the tules, a vast spread of marsh covered with bulrushes, flat
as a floor, and extending from a distant arm of the bay back into the
land. It was like a wedge of green thrust through the yellow, splitting
it apart, at one end meeting the sky in a level line, at the other
narrowing to a point which penetrated the bases of the hills. From these
streams wound down ravine and rift till their currents slipped into the
brackish waters of the marsh. Such a stream, dried now to a few stagnant
pools, had worn a way along the gulley where the holdup had occurred.

Down this gulley, the box between them, the bandits ran. Alders and bay
grew thick, sun spots glancing through their leaves, boughs slapping and
slashing back from the passage of the rushing bodies, stones rolling
under the flying feet. The heat was suffocating, the narrow cleft holding
it, the matted foliage keeping out all air. The men's faces were
empurpled, the gunny sacks about their necks were soaked with sweat. They
spoke little--a grunt, a muttered oath as a stone turned. Doubled under
the branches, crashing through a covert with closed eyes and warding arm,
they fled, now and then pausing for a quick change of hands on the box or
the sweep of a sleeve across a dripping brow. Nearly a half hour from the
time they had started they emerged into brighter light, the trees growing
sparse, the earth moist, a soft coolness rising--the creek's conjunction
with the tules.

The sun was sloping westward, the sky infinitely blue and clear, golden
light slanting across the plain's distant edges. Before them, silent, not
a breath stirring the close-packed growth, stretched the marshes. They
were miles in extent; miles upon miles of these level bulrush spears
threaded with languid streams, streams that curved and looped, turned
back upon themselves, narrowed into gleaming veins, widened to miniature
lakes on whose bosom the clouds, the birds and the stars were mirrored.
They were like a crystal inlay covering the face of the tules with an
intricate, shining pattern. No place was ever more deserted, alien,
uninhabitable, making no compromise with the friendly, fruitful land.

Against the muddy edge a rotten punt holding a pole swung deliberate from
a stake. The men put the box in, then followed, and the elder, standing
in the stern, took the pole and, pushing against the bank, drove the boat
into deep water. It floated out, two ripples folding back oily sleek from
its bow. After the Indian fashion, the man propelled it with the pole,
prodding against the bottom. He did it skillfully, the unwieldly hulk
making a slow, even progress. He also did it with a singular absence of
sound, the pole never grating on the gunnel, feeling quietly along the
soft mud of the shores, rising from the water, held suspended, then
slipping in again as noiseless as the dip of the dragon flies.

No words passed between them. Sliding silent over the silent stream, they
were like a picture done in a few strong colors, violent green of the
rushes, violent blue of the sky. Their reflection moved with them, two
boats joining at the water line, in each boat two figures, every fold of
their garments, every shade and high light, minutely and dazzlingly
reproduced.

Highwayman is a word of picturesque suggestion, but there was nothing
picturesque about them. They looked like laborers weather-worn from wind
and sun; the kind of men that crowd the streets of new camps and stand
round the cattle pens at country fairs. Knapp, sitting in the bow, was
younger than the other--under thirty probably. He was a big-boned,
powerful animal, his thick, reddish hair growing low on his forehead, his
face, with its wide nose and prominent jaw, like the study of a face left
in the rough. In his stolid look there was something childlike, his eyes
following the flight of a bird in the air, then dropping to see its
reflection in the water.

Garland was older, fully fifty, burly, thickset, strong as an ox. His hat
lay in the bottom of the boat and his head, covered with curly, grizzled
hair, was broad and well-shaped. A corresponding grizzle of beard clothed
his chin and fringed a straight line of lip. The rest of his face showed
the skin sun-dried and lined less from age than a life in the open.
Wrinkles radiated from the corners of his eyes, and one, like a fold in
the flesh, crossed his forehead in a deep-cut crease. His clothes were of
the roughest, a dirty collarless shirt with a rag of red bandanna round
the neck, a coat shapeless and dusty, and overalls grease and
mud-smeared with the rubbing of his hands. His boots were the iron-hard
clouts of the rancher, his hat a broken black felt, sweat-stained and
torn. Passing him on the road, you would have set him down as a farm hand
out of a job.

The boat had passed beyond the shelter of the hills to where the tules
widened. Pausing, he glanced about. Far to the right he could see a small
white square--the lodge of a sportsman's club which in the duck shooting
season would disgorge men and dogs into the marsh. It was closed now, but
on the plain beyond there were ranches. He dropped to his knees, shipped
the pole, and drew from the bottom of the boat a piece of wood roughly
shaped into a paddle. Here in the heart of the tules, where a head moving
over the bulrush floor might be discerned, sound would not carry far. He
dipped in the paddle, the long spray of drops hitting the water with a
dry, running patter.

The man in front moved and looked ahead.

"We'd ought to be near there."

"A few yards over to the right," came the answer, and with it the boat
took a sharp turn to the left, nosing along the bank, then stole down a
waterway, a crystal channel between ramparts of green. This looped at a
right angle, shone with a sudden glaze of sun, slipped into shadow and,
rounding a point, an island with a bare, oozy edge came into view.

A deep stroke of the paddle sent the boat forward, its bow burrowing into
the mud, and Knapp jumped out and beached it. The place was a small
islet, one side clear, a wall of rushes, thick as grass, clothing the
other. Over the water line the earth was hard, its surface cracked and
flaked by the sun. On this open space lay two battered kerosene oil cans,
their tops torn away, and a pile of stones. The hiding place was not a
new one and the properties were already prepared.

With a knife and chisel they broke open the box. The money was in small
canvas sacks, clean as if never used before and marked with a stenciled
"W. F. & Co." They took it out and looked at it; hefted its weight in
their hands. It represented the first success after several failures, one
brought to trial, others frustrated in the making or abandoned after
warnings from the ranchers and obscure townsfolk who stood in with them.
Knapp had been discouraged. Now he took a handful and spread it on his
palm, golden eagles, heavy, shining, solid. Swaying his wrist, he let the
sun play on them, strike glints from their edges, burnish their surface.

"Twelve thousand," he murmured. "We ain't but once before got that much."

The elder, pulling the gunny sack from his neck, dropped it into one of
the oil cans, pressing it against the sides like a lining.

"I can get the ranch now; six thousand'll cover everything."

"Are you honestly calculatin' to do that?" Knapp had reached for the
other can. With arm outstretched, he looked at Garland, gravely curious.

"I am. I told you so before. I had a look at it again last week. They'll
sell for four thousand, and it'll take five hundred to put it into shape.
I'll bank the rest."

"And you'll quit?"

"Certain. I've had enough of the road."

The younger man pondered, watching the hands of his partner fitting the
money bags into the can. "Mebbe you got the right idea," he muttered.

"It's the right idea for me. I'm not what I once was, I'm old. It's time
for me to lay off and rest. I can't keep this up forever and now I got
the chance to get out and I'm goin' to."

He had filled his can and rose, taking off his coat and throwing it on
the ground. Picking up the knife and chisel he went back to where the
bulrushes began and crushed in among them. Knapp, packing the other can,
could hear the sound of his heavy movements, the hacking of the knife at
the bulrush stalks and then the thud of falling earth. When he had filled
his can he saw that there were two sacks left over. He took them up and,
looking about, caught sight of a newspaper protruding from the pocket of
Garland's coat. He pulled it out, calling as he did so:

"There's two sacks I can't get in. I'm goin' to put 'em in this here
paper you got."

A grunt of acquiescence came from the bulrushes, the hacking of the
knife, the thuds going on. Knapp unfolded the paper, set the sacks in it,
and, gathering it about them, placed it on the top of his can. He heaved
the whole up and crashed through the rushes to where Garland had already
cleared a space and was digging a hole in the mud. When it was finished,
the cans--the newspaper bundle on top--were lowered into it, and earth
and roots replaced. No particular attempt was made at concealment; the
cache was as secure against intrusion as if it were on the crest of the
Sierra, and within the week they would be back to empty it. The box was
filled with stones and sunk in the stream.

Then they rested, prone on the ground, at first talking a little. There
was a question about the messenger; Knapp had shot and was casually
confident he had only winged him. The matter seemed to give him no
anxiety, and presently, his head burrowed into his arm, he fell asleep,
a great, sprawled figure with the sun making his red hair shine like a
copper helmet.

Garland lay on his back, his coat for a pillow, smoking a blackened pipe
and thinking. He saw the sky lose its blue, and fade to a thin, whitish
transparency, then flush to rose, bird specks skimming across it. He saw
the tules grow dark, black walls flanking paths incredibly glossy,
catching here and there a barring of golden cloud. He felt the breath of
the marshes chill and salt-tainted, and watched the first star, white as
a diamond, prick through the vault.


Then he rose and shook his partner, waking him with voluble profanity.
The night had come, the dark that was to hide their stealthy exit. They
went different ways; Knapp by a series of trails and planks to the south
bank and thence across country, footing it through the night to his lair
near Stockton. Garland would move north to friends of his up toward the
mining camps along the Feather. They made a rendezvous for a night six
days distant. Then they would carry away the money to places of safety
which they went to prepare.

The sky was star-strewn as Garland's punt slipped away from the island.
It was intensely still, a whisper of water round the moving prow, the
sibilant dip of the paddle the only sounds. He could see the water as a
pale, winding shimmer ahead, dotted with star reflections like small,
scattered flowers. Once, rising to make sure of his course, he saw the
tiny yellow light in a ranch house far away. He stood for a moment
looking at it, and when he crouched again the light had kindled his
imagination. Its spark glowed wide till it showed the ranch kitchen,
windows open to the blue night, earth smells floating in, the table with
its kerosene lamp, the rancher reading the paper, his dog sleeping at
his feet, peaceful, unguarded, secure.

Conscious of distance to be traversed before he became a creature of wary
instincts and watchful eyes, he let his thoughts have way. They slipped
about and touched the future with a sense of ease, then veered to the
past. Here they steadied, memories rising photographically distinct like
a series of pictures, detached yet revealing an underlying thread of
connection:

First it was his youth in the Southwest when he had been Tom Michaels, a
miner, well paid, saving his wages. Then his marriage with Juana Ramirez,
the half-breed girl at Deming, and the bit of land he had bought--with a
mortgage to pay--in the glaring, green river valley. Glimpses of their
life there, children and work--stupefying, tremendous work--to keep them
going and to meet the interest; he had been a giant in those days.

And even so he hadn't been able to do it. Six years after they took
possession they moved out, ruined. He remembered it as if it had been
yesterday--the adobe house with its flat roof and strings of red peppers
hanging on the walls, the cart piled high with furniture, Juana on the
front seat and Pancha astride of the mule. Juana had grown old in those
six years, fat and shapeless, but she had been dog-loyal, dog-loving, his
woman. Never a word of complaint out of her--even when the two children
died she had just covered her head with the blanket and sat by the
hearth, stoical, dry-eyed, silent.

He could see now that it was his dream of making money--big money--that
had been wrong. If he'd been content with a wage and a master he'd have
done better by her, but from the start he'd wanted his freedom, balked at
being roped and branded with the herd. That was why he drifted back to
mining, not a steady job, though he could have got it, but as a
prospector, leaving Arizona and moving to California. There were years of
it; he knew the mineral belt from the Panamint mountains to the Kootenai
country. Juana and Pancha plodded from town to town, seeing him at
intervals, always expecting to hear he'd struck "the ledge," and be
hardly able to scrape a living for them from the bottom of his pan.

One picture stood out clearer than the rest, ineffaceable, to be carried
to his grave--the day he came back and heard that Juana was dead. He had
left them at a place in Inyo, a scattering of houses on the edge of the
desert. Pancha saw him coming, and her figure, racing to meet him in a
blown flutter of cotton skirt, was as plain before his eyes as if she
were running toward him now along the shining water path. She was twelve,
brown as a nut, and scarecrow-thin, with a tangle of black hair, and
narrow, dark eyes. He could recall the feel of her little hard hand
inside his as she told him, excited at imparting such news, pushing the
hair off her dirty face to see how he took it.

It had crushed the heart in him and some upholding principle of hope and
resolution broke. He found a place for Pancha with Maria Lopez, the
Mexican woman who ran the Buon Gusto restaurant at Bakersfield and
agreed to look after the girl for pay. Then he went back to the open,
not caring much, the springs of his soul gone dry. He had no energy for
the old life and did other things, anything to make his own food and
Pancha's keep--herded sheep, helped on the cattle ranges, tended store,
hung on the fringes of the wilderness, saw men turn to savages and
turned himself.

At long intervals he went down to the settlements and saw Pancha, growing
into a gawky girl, headstrong, and with the wildness of her mother's
people cropping out. She hated Maria Lopez and the work in the restaurant
and wanted him to take her to the mountains. When she was sixteen a spell
of illness laid him up and after that he had difficulty in getting work.
Two months passed without a payment and when he finally got down to
Bakersfield he found that Pancha had gone, run away with a traveling
company of actors. Maria Lopez and he had a fight, raged at one another
in mutual fury, and then he started out to find his girl, not knowing
when he did what he would do with her.

She solved that problem; she insisted on staying with the actors. She
liked the life, she could sing, they told her she had a future. She had
fixed and settled everything, even to her name; she would retain that of
Lopez, which she was already known by in Bakersfield. There was nothing
for it but to let her have her way; a man without home, money or
prospects has no authority. But the sense of his own failure, of the
hopelessness of his desire to shelter and enrich her, fell on his
conscience like a foot on a spark and crushed it out. He returned to the
mountains, his hand against all men, already an outlaw, love for his own
all that was left of the original man. That governed him, gave him the
will to act, stimulated his brain, and lent his mind an unfailing
cunning. The meeting with Knapp crystallized into a partnership, but when
Garland the bandit rose on the horizon, no one, least of all Pancha, knew
he was Michaels the miner.

He stood up in the boat and again reconnoitered; he was near the shore.
The country slept under the stars, gray rollings of hills and black
blotches of trees, very still in its somber repose. Dropping back to the
seat, he plied the paddle with extraordinary softness, wary, listening,
alert. Soon, in a week or two, if he could settle the sale, he would be
on his way to San Francisco to tell Pancha he had sold his claim at last
and had bought the ranch. Under his caution the pleasure of this thought
pervaded him with an exquisite satisfaction. He could not forbear its
indulgence and, leaning on the paddle, allowed himself a last, delightful
vision--the ranch house piazza with Pancha--her make-up off--sitting on
the steps at his feet.

That night he slept in the cowshed of an abandoned ranch. A billet of
wood under his head, his repose was deep and dreamless, but in the dawn's
light he woke, suddenly called out of slumber by a thought. It floated on
the surface of his conciousness, vaguely disturbing, then took slow shape
and he sat up feeling in the pockets of his coat. The paper was gone;
Knapp saying he had taken it was not a dream. For a space he sat, coming
to clearer recollection, his partner's voice calling, vaguely heard, its
request unheeded in his preoccupation. He gave a mutter of relief, and
dropping back settled himself into comfort. The paper was as safe there
as in his own pocket and he'd have it again inside of a week. With the
first light in his eyes, he lapsed off again for another hour.




CHAPTER III

MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE


A few miles below where the stage was held up a branch road breaks from
the main highway and cuts off at right angles across the plain. This is a
ranchers' road. If you follow it southward you come to the region of vast
holdings, acres of trees in parallel lines as straight as if laid with a
tape measure, great, fawn-colored fields, avenues of palm and oleander
leading to white houses where the balconies have striped awnings and
people sit in cushioned wicker chairs.

The other end of it runs through lands of decreasing cultivation
till--after it passes Tito Murano's cottage--it dips to the tules and
that's the end of it. To be sure, a trail--a horse path--breaks away and
makes a detour round the head of the marshes, but this is seldom used, a
bog in winter and in summer riven with dried water-courses and overgrown
with brambles. To get around the tules comfortably you have to strike
farther in and that's a long way.

The last house before you get to Tito Murano's, which doesn't count, is
the Burrage Ranch. In the white mansions among the fruit trees the
Burrage Ranch doesn't count much either. It is old and small, fifty
acres, a postage stamp of a ranch. There is no avenue to the house,
which is close to the road behind a picket fence, and instead of
encircling balconies and striped awnings, it has one small porch with a
sagging top, over which climbs a rose that stretches long festoons to
the gable. In its yard grow two majestic live oaks, hoary giants with
silvered limbs reaching out in a thick-leaved canopy and casting a great
spread of shade.

Old Man Burrage had had the ranch a long time as they reckon time in
California. In his youth he had seen the great epoch in Virginia City,
figured in it in a humble capacity, and emerged from its final _débâcle_
with twenty thousand dollars. He should have emerged with more and that
he didn't made him chary of mining. Peace and security exerted their
appeal, and after looking about for a few reflective years, he had
married the prettiest waitress in the Golden Nugget Hotel in Placerville
and settled down to farming. He had settled and settled hard, settled
like a barnacle, so firm and fast that he had never been able to pull
himself loose. Peace he had found but also poverty. If the mineral vein
was capricious, so were the elements, insect pests and the fruit market.
Thirty years after he had bought the ranch he was still there and still
poor with his wife Mary Ellen, his daughter Sadie and his son Mark.

Mark's advent had followed the decease of two older boys and his mother
had proclaimed his preciousness by christening him Marquis de Lafayette.
Her other sons had borne the undistinguished appellations of relatives,
but this one, her consolation and her Benjamin, would be decked with the
flower of her fancy. Of the original bearer of the name she knew nothing.
Waiting on table at the Golden Nugget and later bearing children and
helping on the ranch had not left her time for historical study. When her
son, waking to the blight she had so innocently put upon him, asked her
where she had found the name, she had answered, "In a book," but beyond
that could give no data. When, unable to bear his shame, he had
abbreviated it to "Mark D.L." she had been hurt.

Otherwise he had not disappointed her. When she had crowned him with a
title she had felt that a high destiny awaited him and the event proved
it. After a youth on the ranch, Mark, at sixteen, grew restive, at
seventeen announced that he wanted an education and at eighteen packed
his grip and went to work his way through Stanford University. Old Man
Burrage made himself a bore at the crossroads store and the county fair
telling how his boy was waiting on table down to Stanford and doing
typewriting nights. Some boy, that!

When Mark came home on his vacations it was like the return of Ulysses
after his ten years' wandering--they couldn't look at him enough, or get
enough time to listen. His grammar was straightened out, his chin smooth,
the freckles gone from his hands, and yet he was just the same--no fancy
frills about _him_, Old Man Burrage bragged to his cronies. And then came
the coping stone--he told them he was going to be a lawyer. Some of the
neighbors laughed but others grew thoughtful and nodded commendingly.
Even on the balconies of the white houses in the wicker chairs under the
awnings Mark and his aspirations drew forth interested comment. Most of
these people had known him since he was a shock-headed, barefoot kid, and
when they saw him in his store clothes and heard his purified grammar,
they realized that for youth in California belongs the phrase "the world
is my oyster."

Now Mark had graduated and was studying in a large law office in San
Francisco. He was paid twenty dollars a week, was twenty-four years old,
rather silent, five-feet-ten and accounted good-looking. At the time this
story opens he was spending his vacation--pushed on to the summer's end
by a pressure of work in the office--on the ranch with his parents.

It was late afternoon, on the day following the holdup, and he was
sitting in the barn doorway milking the brown cow. The doorway was
shadowed, the blackness of the barn's interior behind it, the scent of
clean hay drifting out and mingling with the scents of baked earth and
tarweed that came from the heated fields. With his cheek against the
cow's side he could see between the lower limbs of the oaks the country
beyond, rust-colored and tan, streaked with blue shadows and the mottled
blackness below the trees. Turning a little further he could look down
the road with the eucalyptus tall on either side, the yellow path barred
by their shade. From the house came a good smell of hot bread and a sound
of voices--Mother and Sadie were getting ready for supper. At intervals
Mother's face, red and round below her sleeked, gray hair, her spectacles
up, her dress turned in at the neck, appeared at the window to take a
refreshing peep at her boy milking the brown cow.

The milk sizzed and foamed in the pail and the milker, his forehead
against the cow's warm pelt, watched it rise on the tin's side. It made a
loud drumming which prevented his hearing a hail from the picket fence.
The hail came again in a husky, dust-choked voice:

"Hello, can you give me a drink?"

This time Mark heard and wheeled on the stool. A tramp was leaning
against the fence looking at him.

Tramps are too familiar in California for curiosity or interest, also
they are unpopular. They have done dreadful things--lonely women in
outlying farms have guns and dogs, the one loaded, the other cultivated
in savagery against the visits of the hobo.

Mark rose unwelcoming, but the fellow did look miserable. He was gaunt
and dirty, long ragged locks of hair falling below the brim of his torn
straw hat, an unkempt straggle of beard growing up his cheeks. His
clothes hung loose on his lean frame, and he looked all the same color,
dust-brown, his hair, his shirt, his coat, even his face, the tan lying
dark over a skin that was sallow. Only his eyes struck a different note.
They were gray, very clear in the sun-burned face, the lids long and
heavy. Their expression interested Mark; it was not the stone-hard, evil
look of the outcast man, but one of an unashamed, smoldering resentment.

The same quality was in his manner. The request for water was neither
fawningly nor piteously made. It was surly, a right churlishly
demanded. Mark moved to the pump and filled the glass standing there.
The tramp leaning on the pickets looked at him, his glance traveling
morose over the muscular back and fine shoulders, the straight nape,
the dark head with its crown of thick, coarse hair. As Mark advanced
with the glass he continued his scrutiny, when, suddenly meeting the
young man's eyes, his own shifted and he said in that husky voice,
hoarse from a parched throat:

"It's the devil walking in the heat on these rotten dusty roads."

The other nodded and handed him the glass. He drained it, tilting his
head till the sinews in his haggard throat showed below his beard. Then
he handed it back with a muttered thanks.

"Been walking far?" said Mark.

The tramp moved away from the pickets, jerking his head toward the road
behind him. For the first time Mark noticed that he had a basket on his
arm, containing a folded blanket.

"From the fruit farms down there. I've been working my way up fruit
picking. But it's a dog's job; better starve while you're about it. Thank
you. So long."

It was evident he wanted no further parley, for he started off down the
road. Mark stood looking after him. He noticed that he was tall and
walked with a long stride, not the lazy shuffle of the hobo. Also he had
caught a quality of education in the husky voice. Under its coarsened
inflections there was an echo of something cultured, not fitting with his
present appearance, a voice that might once have known very different
conditions. Possibly a dangerous chap, Mark thought; had an ugly look, a
secret, forbidding sort of face. When the educated kind dropped they were
apt to fall further and come down harder than the others. He threw the
glass into the bushes and went in to wash up. Before he was called to
supper he had forgotten all about the man.

In the cool of the evening the Burrages sat on the porch, rather crowded
for the space was small. Mark, on the bottom step, smoked a pipe and
watched the eucalyptus leaves printed in pointed black groupings against
the Prussian-blue sky. This was the time when the family, released from
its labors, sat back comfortably and listened to the favored one while he
told of the city by the sea. Old Man Burrage had a way of suddenly asking
questions about people he had known in the brave days of the Comstock,
some dead now, others trailing clouds of glory eastward this many years.

Tonight he was minded to hear about the children of George Alston whom
Mark had met. Long ago in Virginia City Old Man Burrage had often seen
George Alston, talked with him when he was manager of the Silver Queen
and one of the big men of that age of giants. Mother piped up
there--_she_ wasn't going to be beaten. Many's the time she'd waited on
George Alston when he and the others would come riding over the Sierras
on their long-tailed horses--a bunch of them together galloping into
Placerville like the Pony Express coming into Sacramento.

"And some of 'em," said the old woman, rocking in easeful reminiscence,
"would be as fresh with me as if I'd given 'em encouragement. But George
Alston, never--he'd treat me as respectful as if I was the first lady in
the land. Halting behind to have a neighborly chat and the rest of them
throwin' their money on the table and off through the dining room
hollerin' for their horses."

Her son, on the lower step, stirred as if uncomfortable. These memories,
once prone to rouse a tender amusement, now carried their secret sting.

"He was the real thing," the farmer gravely commented. "There wasn't many
like him."

Sadie, who was not interested in a man dead ten years ago, pushed the
conversation on to her own generation.

"His daughters are grown up. They must be young ladies now."

Mark answered:

"Yes--Miss Chrystie's just eighteen, came of age this summer. The other
one's a few years older."

"Up in Virginia," said the farmer, "George Alston was a bachelor. Every
woman was out with her lariat after him but he give 'em all the slip.
And afterward, when he went back East to see his folks, a little girl in
his home town got him--a girl a lot younger than him. She died after a
few years."

There was regret in his tone, not so much for the untimely demise of the
lady as for the fact that George Alston had not found his mate in
California.

"What are they like?" said Sadie--"pretty?"

Mark had his back toward her. She could see the shape of it, pale in its
light-colored shirt, against the dark filigree of shrubs at the bottom
of the steps. His answer sounded indifferent between puffs of his pipe:

"Yes, I guess so. Miss Chrystie's a big, fine sort of girl, with yellow
hair and lots of color. She's nearly as tall as I am. The other, Miss
Lorry--well, she's small."

"They'd ought to have a heap of money," said the farmer. "But when he
died I heard he hadn't cut up as rich as you'd think. Folks said he was
too honest."

"They've got enough--four hundred thousand each."

"Well, well, well," said Mother with a lazy laugh, "that'd do _me_."

Her husband wouldn't have it.

"Lord, that's small for him," he mourned. "But I'm not surprised. He
wouldn't 'a' stood for what some of the rest of 'em did."

"Is the house grand?" asked Sadie.

"I suppose it is; it's big enough, lots of bay windows and rooms and
piazzas. It's on Pine Street, near town, with a garden round it full of
palms and trees."

"Do they have parties there?"

"No--at least I never heard of any. They're quiet sort of girls, don't go
out much. Just live there with an old lady--Mrs. Tisdale--some relative
of their mother's."

Sadie was disappointed. Having been led to expect so much from these
children of wealth, she felt cheated and was inclined to criticize. She
rather grumbled about their being so quiet. Mother disagreed:

"It sounds as if they were nice and genteel. Not the flashy, fashionable
kind. And their mother dying when they were so young--that makes a
difference."

"It was Crowder got you acquainted with them?" said the old man.

Charlie Crowder was a college chum of Mark's who had spent several
vacations on the ranch and who was regarded by the Burrages as a fount of
wisdom. Mark from the steps said yes, Crowder had taken him to the house.

There was a pause after this, the parents sunk in gratified musings. The
farmer, the simple, unaspiring male, saw no further than the fact of Mark
a guest in George Alston's home, but Mother had far-reaching fancies,
glimpsed future possibilities. It was she who broke the silence,
observing casually as if all doors must be open to her brilliant son,

"I'm glad you know them, honey. There's no better companions for a young
man making his way, than quiet, refined girls."

Sadie saw it as astonishing. She could hardly encompass the thought of
her brother, a few years ago working on the ranch like a hired man, now
moving in the glittering spheres that she read about in the Sunday
edition of the _Sacramento Courier._

"Do you go there often?" she asked.

"Oh, now and again. I haven't much time for calling."

It was Mark who turned the conversation, difficult at first. The farmer
was tractable, but Mother and Sadie showed a tendency to cling to the
Alston sisters. He finally diverted their attention by telling them
about Pancha Lopez, the greaser girl, who was the new leading woman at
the Albion Opera House, and a friend of Charlie Crowder's. Mother forgot
the Alstons.

"You don't know _her_, do you, Mark?" she said uneasily.

"No, Mother, I've only seen her act."

The farmer stirred and rumbled warningly out of the darkness,

"And you don't want to, son. A hard-working boy don't want to waste his
time lallygaggin' round with actresses."

When they dispersed for the night, Mother noticed that Mark was
abstracted, almost as if he was depressed. No one else saw it; eyes and
tongues were heavy at bedtime on the ranch. Sadie, dragging up the stairs
to be awake tomorrow at sunrise, might have been depressed but she
wasn't. And the farmer and his wife, creaking about in their stuffy room
over the kitchen, their old bones stiff with fatigue, were elated.

A part of the attic, lighted by one window in the gable, had been Mark's
den since he was eight. Here was the table with its hacked edge where he
had done his "homework" when he went to the public school up the road,
his shelf of books, the line of pegs for his clothes, the rifle his
father had given him when he shot fifty rabbits in one month. He lit the
lamp and looked about, his eyes seeing it as mean and unlovely, and his
heart reproaching him that he should see it so.

He sat down by the table and tried to read, but the book fell to his
knees and he stared, thought-tranced, at the pegs along the wall. What he
thought of was the eldest Alston girl, Lorry, the one he had described as
"small." Usually he did not permit himself to do this, but tonight the
talk on the porch, his people's naive pleasure that he should know one so
fine and far-removed, called up her image--dominant, imperious, not to be
denied. With the lamplight gilding his brooding face, the back-growing
crest of dark hair, the thick eyebrows, the resolute mouth, lip pressed
on lip in an out-thrust curve, he sat motionless, seeing her against the
background of her home.

Details of its wealth came to him, costly elegancies of her
surroundings--the long parlor with its receding vista to a dining room
where silver shone grandly, rich, still curtains, pictures, statues; the
Chinese servants offering delicate food, coming at the touch of a bell,
opening doors, carrying trays. It was not really as imposing as Mark
thought. There were people who sniffed at the Alstons' way of living, in
that queer, old-fashioned house far down town with the antiquated,
lumbering furniture their father had bought when he married. But Mark had
not the advantage of a comparative standard. Her setting gained its
splendor not only from his inexperience, but by comparison with his own.
He saw their two homes in contrast, just as he saw her in contrast with
the other girls he had known, her fortune in contrast with his twenty
dollars a week. It brought him a new, sharp pain, pain that he should
have seen the difference, that he had acknowledged it, that what had once
seemed good and fitting now looked poor and humble. He loved his people
and hugged the love to him with a fierce loyalty, but it could not hide
the fact that they were not as her people. It was the first jar to his
glad confidence, the first blow in his proud fight for power and place,
the first time the thought of his poverty had come with a humiliating
sting. He was sore and angry with himself and would have liked to be
angry with her. But he couldn't--she was so sweet!




CHAPTER IV

THE DERELICT


The tramp walked down the road, first on the grizzled grass, then, the
earth under it baked to an iron hardness, back on the softened dust. He
passed Tito Murano's cottage with dogs and chickens and little Muranos
sporting about the kitchen door and then noticed a diminishing of trees
and a sudden widening of the prospect. From here the road dwindled to a
trail that sloped to the marsh which spread before him. He sat down on a
bank by the roadside and looked at it.

Under the high, unsullied heavens it lay like an unrolled map,
green-painted, divisions and subdivisions marked by the fine tracings of
streams. His eye traveled down its length to where in a line,
ruler-straight, it met the sky, then shifted to its upper end, a jagged
point reaching to the hills. He had heard of it on the ranches where he
had been picking fruit--"It's easy traveling till you reach the tules,
but it's some pull round _them_." He gauged the distance round the point,
and oaths, picturesque and fluent, came from him. He had sixteen dollars
in the lining of his coat, and for days as he tramped and worked, he saw
this hoard expended in San Francisco--a bath, clean linen, and a dinner,
a dinner in a rôtisserie with a pint of red wine and a cigar. He saw no
further than that--sixteen dollars' worth of comfort and good living.

Now he was like a child deprived of its candy. He ached with fatigue, his
feet were blistered, his throat dry as a kiln. Throwing off his hat, he
leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and cursed the marsh as if it
were a living thing, cursed it with a slow, unctuous zest, spat out upon
it the venom and wrath that had accumulated within him.

Seeing him thus, his hat off, sullen indifference replaced by a malign
animation, he was a very different being from the man who had accosted
Mark. A dangerous chap beyond doubt, dangerous from a dark soul and a
stored power of malevolence. His face, vitalized with rage, was handsome;
a narrow forehead, the hair receding from the temples, a high-bridged
nose with wide-cut nostrils, lips thin and fine, moving flexibly as they
muttered. It matched with what the voice had told Mark, was not the face
of the brutalized hobo or low-bred vagrant, but beneath its hair and dirt
showed as the mask of a man who might have fallen from high places. Even
his curses went to prove it. They were not the dull profanities of the
loafer, but were varied, colorful, imaginative, such curses as might come
from one who had read and remembered.

Suddenly they stopped and his glance deflected, alert and
apprehensive--his ear had caught a low crooning of song. It came from a
small boy who, a little wooden boat in his hand, was advancing up the
slope. This was Tito Murano, Junior, Tito's first-born, nine years old,
softly footing it home after a joyous hour along the edge of the tules.

Tito's mother was Irish, but the Latin strain had flowered forth strong
in her son. He was bronze-brown, with a black bullet head and eyes like
shoe buttons. A pair of cotton trousers and a rag of shirt clothed him
and his feet were bare and caked with mud. A happy day behind him and the
prospect of supper made his heart light and he gave forth its joy in
fresh, bird-sweet carolings.

He did not see the tramp and a sharp, "Hey, there, kid," made him halt,
startled, gripping the treasured boat against his breast. Then he made
out the man, and stood staring, poised to run.

"Is there any way of getting across this infernal place?" The tramp's
hand swept the prospect.

Bashfulness held Tito speechless, and he stood rubbing one foot across
the other.

The man's eyes narrowed with a curious, ugly look.

"Are you deaf?" he said very quietly.

A muttered negative came from the child. The question contained a quality
of scorn that he felt and resented.

"I want to cross the marsh, get to the railway. What's the best
way to go?"

Tito's arm made a sweeping gesture round the head of the tules.

"That. There's a trail. You go round."

"Good God--that's _miles_. How do people go, the people here, when they
want to get to the other side?"

"That way." Tito repeated his gesture. "But they don't go often, and they
mostly rides."

The man gave a groaning oath, picked up his hat, then cast it from him
with fury, and, planting his elbows on his knees, dropped his forehead on
his hands. Tito was sorry for him, and advanced charily, his heart full
of sympathy.

"The duck shooters have laid planks," he murmured encouragingly.

The man raised his head.

"Planks--where?"

Tito indicated the marsh.

"All along. They lay 'em when they come to shoot and then they let 'em
lay. Nobody don't ever go there 'cept the duck shooters."

"You mean I can get across by the planks?"

Tito forgot his bashfulness and drew nearer. He was emboldened by the
thought that he could help the tramp, give assistance as man to man.

"_You_ couldn't. It's all mud and water, and turns too, like you was
goin' round in rings. But _I_ could--I bin acrost, right over to the
Ariel Club." He pointed to a small white square on the opposite
side. "That's where. The railroad's a ways beyont that, but it ain't
awful far."

The man looked and nodded, then smiled, a slight curling of his lip, a
slight contraction of the skin round his eyes.

"If you show me the way I'll give you a quarter," he said, turning the
smile on Tito.

Tito did not like the smile; it suggested a dog's lifted lip when
contemplating battle. Also he had been forbidden to go into the marsh;
some of the streams were deep, the mud treacherous. But a quarter had
seldom crossed his palm. He saw himself spending it at the crossroads
store, and, tucking his boat up under his arm, said manfully:

"All right--I'll get you over before sundown."

They started, the child running fleet-footed ahead, the man following
with long strides. There was evidently a way and Tito knew it. His black
head bobbed along in front, now a dark sphere glossed by the sunlight,
now an inky silhouette against the white shine of water. There were
creeks to jump and pools to wade--the duck shooters' planks only spanned
the deep places--and the way was hard.

Once the tramp stopped, surly-faced, and measured the distance to the
Ariel Club house. It seemed but little nearer. He told Tito so, and the
child, pausing to look back, cheered him with heartening phrases. But it
was a hard pull, crushing through the dense growth, staggering on the
slippery ooze, and he began to mutter his curses again. Tito, hearing
them, made no reply, a little scared in the sun-swept loneliness with the
swearing in his ears.

Finally the man, floundering on a bank of mud, slipped and fell to his
knees. He groveled, his hands caked, and when he rose a fearful stream of
profanity broke from him. Tito stopped, chilled, peering back between the
rushes. If it had been a rancher or one of the boys he would have
laughed. But he had no inclination to laugh at the staggering figure,
with the haggard, sweat-beaded face and furious eyes.

"I said it was long, but we're gettin' there. We're halfway acrost now,"
his little pipe, mellow-sweet, was in strange contrast with what had
come before.

"You're a liar, a damnable liar. You've led me into the middle of
this--place that you don't know any more of than I do."

His eyes, ranging about in helpless desperation, saw, some distance
beyond, a rise of dry ground. The sight appeared to divert him, and he
stood looking at it. He had the appearance of having forgotten Tito, and
the child, uneasy at this sudden stillness as he was ready to be at
anything the tramp did, said with timid urgence:

"Say, come on. I got to get home for supper or I'll get licked."

For answer the man moved in an opposite direction, to where the stream
widened. He saw there was deep water between him and the dry place, but
he wanted to get there, rest, smoke, unroll his blanket and sleep. Tito's
uneasiness increased.

"You're goin' the wrong way," he pleaded. "You can't get round there,
it's all water."

Suddenly the man turned on him savagely. His brooding eyes widened and
their look, a threatening glare, made the boy's heart quail.

"Get out," he shouted, "get out, I'm done with you. You're a fakir."

Tito retreated, crushing the rushes under his naked feet, his face
extremely fearful.

"But I was takin' you. I sure was--"

"Get out. You don't know anything about it. You're a liar."

"I do. I was takin' you straight--and you promised me a quarter."

"To hell with you and your quarter. Didn't you hear me say get out?"

The thought of the quarter gave Tito a desperate courage; his voice rose
in a protesting wail:

"But I done half already--you're halfway acrost. You'd oughter give me a
dime. I've done more than a dime's worth."

The tramp, with a smothered ejaculation, bent and picked up a bit of
iron, relic of some sportsman's passage. Tito saw the raised hand and
ducked, hearing the missile hurtle over his head and plop into the water
behind him. It frightened him, but not so much as the man's face. Like a
small, terrified animal he bent and fled. The breaths came quick from
his laboring breast, and as he ran, his head low, the rushes swaying
together over his wake, sobs burst from him, not alone for fear, but for
his lost quarter.

The sun was the dazzling core of a golden glow when he crept on to the
dry ground, mud-soaked, tear-streaked, his wooden boat still in his hand.
His terror was over and he padded home in deep thought, inventing a lie.
For if his parents knew of his wanderings he would be beaten and sent to
bed without supper.

The tramp picked his way round to the stream that separated him from the
desired ground, slipped out of his clothes and, putting them in the
basket, plunged in the current. On the opposite bank he stood up, a lean,
shining shape, the sunlight gilding his wet body, till it looked like a
statue of brass. The bath refreshed him; he would eat some fruit he had
in his basket, take a smoke, and rest there for the night.

Still wet, he pulled on his clothes, stretched out, and drawing a pear
from the basket began to eat it. As he did so his glance explored the
place and brought up on a mark at the water's edge. It interested him,
and still gnawing the pear, he crawled down to it--a footprint, large and
as clearly impressed as if cast in plaster. Not far from it was a
triangular indentation, its point driven deep--the mark of a boat's prow.

Both looked fresh, the uppressed outlines of mud crisp and flakey, which
would happen quickly under such a sun. Among his fellow vagrants he had
learned a good deal about the tules, one fact, corroborated by the child,
that at this season no one ever disturbed their loneliness. Still
squatting he glanced about--at the foot of the rush wall behind him were
two burnt matches. Men had recently been there, come in a boat, and
smoked; there were no traces of a fire.

To perceptions used to the open dealings of an unobservant honesty, it
would have signified nothing. But to his, trained for duplicity, learned
in the ways of a world where concealments were a part of life, it carried
a meaning. His face took on an animal look of cunning, his movements
became alert and stealthy. Rising to his feet, he moved about, staring,
studying, saw other footprints and then a break in the rushes at the
back. He went there, parted the broken spears and came on a space where
some were cut away, the ground disturbed, and still moist.

Half an hour later, the sun, sending its last long shafts across the
marsh, played on a strange picture--a tramp, white-faced, with trembling
hands, and round him, on the ground, about his sprawled legs, falling
from his shaking fingers, yellow in the yellow light, gold, gold, gold!




CHAPTER V

THE MARKED PARAGRAPH


The first half of the night he spent moving the money to the marshes'
edge. Its weight was like the weight of millstones but disposed about
him, in the basket, in the gunny sacks slung from his shoulders, in the
newspaper carried in his hands, he dragged it across. When he reached the
bank he fell like one dead. Outstretched beside his treasure he lay on
his back and looked with half-closed eyes at the black vault and the cold
satiric stars.

Before the dawn came he wrapped part of it in the paper and buried it
among the sedge; the rest he put in his basket and his pockets. Early
morning saw him, an inconspicuous, frowsy figure, slouching up to a way
station on the line to Sacramento.

In the train he found a newspaper left by a departed traveler, and on its
front page, featured with black headlines, the latest news of the Knapp
and Garland holdup. After he had read it he sat very still. He knew what
he had found and was relieved. It cleared the situation if it added to
its danger. But he was intrigued by the difficulty of disposing of the
money. To bank it was out of the question; he must rouse no curiosity and
he could give no references. To leave it on the marshes' edge was
impracticable. He had heard of men who kept their loot buried, but he
feared the perils of a cache, to be dug and redug, ungettable, in a
solitary place, hard to find and dangerous to visit. He must put it
somewhere not too remote, secure against discovery, where he could come
and go unnoticed and free from question. By the time the train reached
Sacramento he had formulated a plan.

He knew the city well, had footed the streets of its slums before he went
South. In a men's lodging house, kept by a Chinese, he engaged a room,
left what gold he had there--he had to take his chance against theft--and
in the afternoon took a down train to the marsh. He was back with the
rest of the money that night, buying a secondhand suitcase on his way
from the depot. In this he packed it, still in the canvas sacks, the
newspaper folded over it. He saw to it that the suitcase had a lock, and
lead-heavy he laid it flat under the bed.

The next morning he rose, nerved to a day of action. He was out early,
his objective the small, mean stores of the poorer quarter. In these he
bought shoes, the coarse brogans of the workman, and a hat, a rusty,
sweat-stained Stetson. A barber's shop in a basement was his next point
of call. Here he was shaved and his hair cut. When he emerged into the
light of day the tramp had disappeared. The ragged growth gone, the proud
almost patrician character of his face was strikingly apparent. It
matched so illy with his wretched clothes that passersby looked at him.
He saw it and slunk along the walls, his hat on his brows, uneasily aware
of the glances of women which usually warmed him like wine. At a
secondhand dealer's, a dark den with coats and trousers hanging in layers
about the entrance, he bought a suit of clothes and an overcoat. Carrying
these in a bundle he went back to his room and put them on.

The transformation was now complete. He studied himself in the blotched
and wavy mirror and nodded in grave approval. He might have been an
artisan, a small clerk, or a traveling salesman routed through the
country towns.

Half an hour later saw him at the desk of the Whatcheer House. This was a
third-rate men's hotel, a decent enough place where the transient male
population from the interior met the restless influx from the coast. Here
floated in, lodged a space, then drifted out a tide of men, seekers of
work, of pleasure, of change, of nothing at all. The majority were of the
world's rovers impelled by an unquenchable wanderlust, but among them
were the industrious and steady, quartered in the city or shifting to a
new center of activity. He registered as Harry Romaine of Vancouver and
described himself as a traveling man who would use Sacramento as a base
of operations. He took a room in the back--No. 19--said he would probably
keep it all winter and paid a month's rent in advance.

By afternoon he had the money there and with it a chisel and hammer. It
was intensely hot, the sun beating on the wall and sloping in through the
one window. Complete silence from the rooms on either side reassured him,
and in the scorching stillness he worked with a noiseless, capable speed.
In one corner under the bed he pulled up the carpet and pried loose the
boards. Some of the money went there, some below the pipes in the
cupboard under the stationary washstand, the rest behind a piece of the
baseboard.

Before he replaced the boards in the corner cache--the largest and least
difficult to disturb--he glanced about for anything overlooked or
forgotten for which the hole would be a convenient hiding-place. On the
floor, outspread and crumpled, lay the newspaper. The outer sheets were
brown and disintegrated from contact with the mud, but the two inner ones
were whole and clean. Probably it would be better to take no chances and
hide it; someone might notice it and wonder how it came to be in such a
state. He picked it up, looked it over, and saw it was the _Sacramento
Courier_ of August 25. That would make it only three days old, the issue
of the day before the holdup. If anything was needed to convince him that
the cache was Knapp and Garland's this was it. He opened it on the table
to fold, brushing out the creases, when suddenly his hand dropped and his
glance became fixed. A marked paragraph had caught his attention.

The light was growing dim and he took the paper to the window. The
paragraph was at the end of a column, was encircled by two curved
pencil strokes, and on the edge of clean paper below it was written,
also in pencil, "Hello, Panchita. Ain't you the wonder. Your best
beau's proud of you."

He pulled a chair to the window, folded back the page and read the
marked item. The column was headed "C. C.'s San Francisco Letter," was
dated August 21, and was mainly concerned with social and business news
of the coast city. That part of it outlined by the pencil strokes ran
as follows:

As to matters theatrical there's nothing new in sight, except that Pancha
Lopez--our Pancha--made a hit this week in "The Zingara," the gypsy
operetta produced on Sunday night at the Albion. I can't tell much about
"The Zingara"--maybe it was good and maybe it wasn't. I couldn't reckon
with anything but Pancha; she was the whole show. She's never done
anything so well, was as dainty as a pink, as brilliant as a humming
bird, danced like a fairy, and sang--well, she sang way beyond what she's
led us to expect of her. Can I say more? The public evidently agrees with
me. The S.R.O. sign has been out at the cozy little home of comic opera
ever since Sunday. C.C., who can't keep away from the place, has seen so
many dress shirt fronts and plush cloaks that he's rubbed his eyes and
wondered if he hasn't made a mistake and it's the grand opera season come
early with a change of dates. But he hasn't. Pacific and Van Ness avenues
are beginning to understand that we've got a little song bird right here
in our midst that they can hear for half a dollar and who gives them more
for that than the Metropolitans do for a V. Saluda, Pancha! Here's
looking at you. Some day the East is going to call you and you're going
to make a little line of footsteps across the continent. But for our
sakes postpone it as long as you can. Remember that you belong to us,
that we discovered you and that we can't get on without you.

He read it twice and then studied the penciled words, "Hello, Panchita!
Ain't you the wonder. Your best beau's proud of you." In the dying light
he murmured them over as if their sound delighted him and as he murmured
a slight, sardonic smile broke out on his face.

His sense of humor, grim and cynical, was tickled. He, the picaroon,
companion of rogues and small marauders, had seen many and diverse love
affairs. On the shady bypaths he had followed, edging along the rim of
the law, he had met all sorts of couples, men and women incomprehensibly
attracted, ill-assorted, mysterious, picturesque. This seemed to him one
of the most piquant combinations he had ever encountered--a bandit and a
comic opera singer. It amused him vastly and he crooned over the paper,
grinning in the dusk. The fellow had evidently marked the item and
written his congratulations, intending to send it to her, then needed it
to wrap round the money, and confident in the security of his cache, left
it there against his return. That thought increased his amusement, and he
laughed, a low, smothered chuckle.

It was dark and he rose and lit the lamp. Then he tore out the piece of
the paper and put it in the pocket of his suitcase. The rest he folded
and placed in the hole under the money. As he knelt, fitting the boards
back, he thought of the singing woman, Pancha Lopez. The beloved of a
highwayman, with a Spanish name, he pictured her as a dark, flashing
creature, coarsely opulent and mature. It was evident that she too
belonged to the world of rogues and social pirates, and he laughed again
as he saw himself, swept back by a turn of fate, into the lives of the
outlawed. He must see Pancha Lopez; she promised to be interesting.




CHAPTER VI

PANCHA


A week later, at eleven at night, a large audience was crowding out of
the Albion Opera House. If you know San Francisco--the San Francisco of
before the fire--you will remember the Albion. It stood on one of those
thoroughfares that slant from the main stem of Market Street near Lotta's
Fountain. That part of the city is of dubious repute; questionable back
walls look down on the alley that leads to the stage door, and after
midnight there is much light of electricity and gas and much unholy noise
round its darkened bulk.

But that is not the Albion's fault. It did not plant itself in the
Tenderloin; it was the Tenderloin that grew. Since it first opened its
doors as a temple of light opera--fifty cents a seat and a constant
change of bill--its patrons have been, if not fashionable, always
respectable. Smoking was permitted, also the serving of drinks--the seat
in front had a convenient shelf for the ladies' lemonade and the
gentleman's beer--but even so, no one could say that a strict decorum did
not prevail in the Albion's audiences even as it did in the Albion's
productions.

A young man with a cheerful, ugly face stood in a side aisle, watching
the crowd file out. He had a kindly blue eye, a merry thick-lipped mouth,
and blonde hair sleeked back across his crown, one lock, detached from
the rest, falling over his forehead. He had a way of smoothing back this
lock with his palm but it always fell down again and he never seemed to
resent it. Of all that pertained to his outward appearance, he was
indifferent. Not only his patience with the recalcitrant lock, but his
clothes showed it--dusty, carelessly fitting, his collar too large for
his neck, his cravat squeezed up into a tight sailor's knot and shifted
to one side. He was Charlie Crowder, not long graduated from Stanford and
now a reporter on the _Despatch_, where he was regarded with interest as
a promising young man.

His eye, exploring the crowd, was the journalist's, picking salient
points. It noted fur collars and velvet wraps, the white gloss of shirt
bosoms, women's hair, ridged with artificial ripples--more of that kind
in the audience than he'd seen yet. "The Zingara" had made a hit; he'd
just heard at the box office that they would extend the run through the
autumn. It pleased him for it verified his prophecy on the first night
and it was a bully good thing for Pancha.

He stepped out of a side entrance, edged through the throngs on the
pavement, dove up an alley and reached the stage door. A single round
lamp burned over it and already dark shapes were issuing forth, mostly
women, Cinderellas returned to their dingy habiliments. There was a great
chatter of feminine voices as they skirmished off, some in groups, some
alone, some on the arms of men who emerged from the darkness with
muttered greetings.

Crowder crossed the back of the large stage where supers were pulling
scenery about; weights and ropes, forest edges, bits of sky and parlor
ceilings, hanging in layers from the flies. The brick wall at the back
was whitewashed and against it a line of men and girls passed scurrying
to the exit, throwing remarks back and forth, laughing, pulling on their
coats. Some of them hailed him and got a cheery word in reply. Then,
skirting the wings, he turned down a passage and brought up at a door on
which a small star was drawn in chalk. He knocked, and a woman's voice
called from inside:

"Who is it?"

"Your faithful press agent."

The woman's voice answered:

"Enter Charlie, rear, smiling."

He opened the door, went in. The place was the Albion's best dressing
room. It was small, with white-washed walls, and lighted by a gas jet
inclosed in a wire shield. A mirror, its frame dotted with artificial
flowers, bits of ribbon, notes and favors, surmounted the dressing table.
This was a litter of paint pots, hair pins, toilet articles, powder rags,
across which, like a pair of strayed snakes, lay two long braids of black
hair. A powerful scent of cosmetics and stale perfumery mingled with the
faint, thrilling breath of roses.

Seated in front of the glass in a soiled red satin kimono embroidered in
storks, was Pancha Lopez, leading woman of the Albion. She was wiping off
her make-up, a large jar of cold cream on the table before her, a grease
rag in her hand. The kimono, falling richly, outlined a thin, lithe body,
flat-backed, muscular and supple. The make-up still on her face turned
her brown skin to a meerschaum pallor and the dusky brick-red of her
cheeks to an unnatural rose. A long neck upheld a small, finely shaped
head, the hair now drawn back and twisted in a tight knot to which the
two long braids had been pinned. The Indian strain in her revealed itself
in the flattened cheek-bones, the wide-cut, delicate nostrils and the
small, high-set eyes as clearly black and white as if made of enamel.
They were now outlined and elongated with lamp black which still clung to
her lashes in flakes. She was twenty-two years old, and had been on the
stage for six years.

After a glance over her shoulder and a flashing smile she returned to her
work, pushing her hair still further off her forehead with one hand, and
sweeping the greasy cloth over her face with the other.

"Well," said Crowder, standing beside her and looking at her reflection,
"how's the baby-grand Patti tonight?"

"Fine!" She drew down her upper lip and slowly rubbed round her mouth,
Crowder, as if fascinated, watching the process in the mirror. "Just sit
down on something. Hang up my costume and take that chair if there isn't
any other. I got to get this thing off before I can talk comfortably."

Her costume, a glittering heap of red and orange, lay across a chair,
the pile surmounted by an open cardboard box whence the heads of roses
protruded from tissue paper. He feared to touch that, and finding
another chair against the wall, drew it to the side of the dressing
table and sat down.

"Have you been in front?" she asked, rubbing along her jaw.

"Yes, it's packed. But I only came in just before the curtain. How was
the house?"

She threw a radiant look at him.

"Ate it up, dearie. Couldn't get enough. Six encores for my Castanet
song. Oh, Charlie," she dropped the hand with its rag to the edge of the
table and looked at him, solemnly earnest, "you don't know how I
feel--you don't know. It's hard to believe and yet it's true. I can see
the future stretching up like a ladder, and me mounting, step by step, on
rungs made of gold."

Pancha Lopez, unlettered, almost illiterate, child of the mountains and
the ditches, wandering vagabond of the stage, would sometimes indulge in
unexpected felicities of phrase. Her admirers said it was another
expression of that "temperament" with which she was endowed. Crowder, who
knew her better than most, set it down to the Indian blood. From that
wild blend had come all that lifted her above her fellows, her flashes of
deep intelligence, her instinct for beauty, her high-mettled, invincible
spirit. He even maintained to his friend Mark Burrage--Mark was the only
person he ever talked her over with--that it was the squaw in her which
had kept her pure, made her something more than "a good girl," a proud
virgin, self-sufficing, untamable, jealous of her honor as a vestal.

"That's what you ought to see," he said in answer to her serious eyes.
"Haven't I always said it? Didn't I tell you so up there in Portland when
we first met and you were doing a turn between six saxaphone players and
a bunch of trained cockatoos?"

She nodded, laughing, and returned to her rubbing.

"You surely did, and fanned up the flame that was just a tiny spark
then. Dear old press agent, I guess I'll have to change your name to
the Bellows."

"A. 1. Have you read the last blast I've given out?" She shook her head
and he thrust his hand into his overcoat pocket. "I've brought it along,
though I thought your father might have sent it to you."

"Pa's in the mountains." Drawing down her upper lip she pressed on her
cheeks with painted finger tips, scrutinizing her face in the mirror. "I
haven't heard from him for weeks. He's off on the lode somewhere."

"Then he hasn't seen it. It's the best I've done yet, and it's true,
every word."

He had drawn from his pocket a paper which he now opened. As he folded it
back, Pancha took out her hairpins and shook down her hair. It extended
to her shoulders, a thick, curly bush, through which she pulled the comb
with short, quick sweeps.

"Read that," said the young man and handed her the paper. "_Sacramento
Courier_--'C. C's San Francisco Letter.'"

She took it and read while he watched her with twinkling eyes. They were
great pals, these two; had been since they met in Portland, five years
ago. He was on his way to Stanford, and had seen her doing a singing and
dancing act in a wretched vaudeville company. That vision of a girlhood,
beset and embattled, the pitifulness of its acquired hardness, had called
to his western chivalry and made him her champion. Ever since he had
helped and encouraged, his belief and friendship a spur to the ruthless
energy, the driving ambition, that had landed her in the Albion six
months before.

As she read she began to smile, then squeals of delight broke from her.

"You old press agent!" she cried, hitting at him with the comb and still
reading, and then: "You pet, you precious pet!"

She finished on a little cry and cast the paper to the floor.

"Oh, Charlie, oh, my good, _dear_ Charlie!" Her face was suddenly stirred
with an upswelling of emotion. No other man in her hard and sordid
experience had been to her what Charlie Crowder had, never a lover,
always a friend.

"Now, Pancha," he said pleadingly, "don't look at me like that or I'll
burst into sobs."

She rose and, putting her hands on his shoulders, kissed him on the
forehead with a sexless tenderness. Her eyes were wet and to hide it she
turned to where her costume lay on the chair. Crowder had nothing to
say; these bursts of gratitude from his friend made him embarrassed.

"Look," she cried suddenly and snatched up the box of roses, "even a
Johnny at the stage door. That's going some," and thrusting her hand
into the box, she plucked up by their heads a handful of blossoms. Their
pure sweet breath flowed out on the coarse scents with which the small
place reeked.

Crowder affected a shocked surprise.

"What's this? A lover at last and I kept in ignorance."

"This is his first appearance, not a yap till tonight. And look at the
yap." She dropped the box and took out from under the paper a card which
she held toward him, "Some style about _that_ yap."

It was the square of pasteboard furnished by the florist. On it was
written in a small, upright hand, "Let me offer you these roses, sweet as
your voice, delicate as your art, and lovely as yourself. An admirer."

Crowder raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in exaggerated
amazement.

"Well, well, well! I must look into this. Who _is_ the gentleman ?"

"I haven't a guess." She took the card and dwelt on it delightedly.
"Ain't it stylish writing--scratchy and yet you can read it? And the
words, they're almost poetry. I never got flowers before with a sentiment
as swell as that."

"Don't you honest know who it is?" said Crowder, impressed by the flowery
profusion of "the sentiment."

"Not me. Jake brought 'em in after the second curtain. They were left by
a messenger boy. Whoever he is he certainly does things in a classy way.
Maybe he's a newspaper man to write like that."

Crowder opined he was not. He could hardly imagine one of his
fellows--even secure in his anonymity--permitting his pen such
florid license.

"When you break through the dark secret let me know. Then I'll come round
and cast my searchlight eye over him and see if he's a proper companion
for little Panchita."

"No fear," she cried, throwing the card back in the box. "Little
Panchita's got a searchlight eye of her own. Believe _me_, it's a good,
trained, old eye. Now skiddoo. I've got to slip into my togs and then me
for home and a glass of milk. If he comes to the surface with another
gasp I'll tell you."

When he had gone she dropped the kimono and put on a blouse and skirt,
both old and shabby. Her actions were quick and harmonious, no
unnecessary moves made, the actions of one trained to an economy of time
and labor. On a wall hook behind a curtain she hung her gypsy dress,
touching it lightly, flicking off dust, settling the folds. Poverty had
taught her this care, as ambition was teaching her a thrift that made her
associates call her mean.

What they thought was a matter of indifference to her. Before she had
reached the Albion she knew herself superior and had plans that stretched
far. About these she was secret. Not one, not even her father, knew the
amount of money she had saved, or that, when she had accumulated enough,
she intended going East and to Europe. She felt her powers and dreamed of
a future on stages far finer than the Albion's. Once she had thought her
father could help her. Two years ago he _had_ sold a prospect for four
thousand dollars, but he had lost the money in an unlucky mining venture
in Oregon. That ended all hopes of his assistance. Even if he did make
another strike he needed what he got for himself; he was getting on, he
wanted to buy a ranch and settle down. If she was to reach the summit of
her desire--and she would reach it or die--she must do it herself. So she
worked doggedly, nursed her voice, hoarded her earnings and said nothing.

She was ready to leave, her hat, a little black velvet toque, pulled down
over her hair, a long shaggy ulster clothing her to the ankles. As she
went to the dressing table to put out the light she saw her image in the
glass and paused, eyeing it. So far her appearance had had no value for
her save as a stage asset. Now she looked at herself with a new, critical
interest. Behind the footlights she was another person, blossomed into an
exotic brilliance, took on fire and beauty with the music and excitement.
Might not a man seeing her there be disappointed when he met her as she
really was? She studied her face intently, viewing it at different
angles, judging it by the standards of her world. By these she found it
wanting, and with a wistful sigh she stretched out her hand and turned
off the light.

It was nearly midnight when she walked down the side streets that led to
the car line which took her home. Overhead the fog hung, covering the
city with a luminous rack which here and there parted, showing segments
of dark, star-dotted sky. Passing men looked at her, some meeting a
defiant stare, others a face so chastely unresponsive that they averted
their eyes as if rebuked. On the car she took an outside seat, for she
loved the swift passage through the night with the chill air on her face.
The grip man knew her and smiled a greeting, and as she mounted the step
she answered cheerily. Now and then as the car stopped he spoke to her,
leaning over his lever, and she twisted round to reply, friendly, frank,
intimate. Until she came to San Francisco his class was the best she had
ever known.

It was part of her economy to live in the Mission. She had two rooms
there in the old Vallejo Hotel, a hostelry once fashionable, now fallen
on dreary days. It fronted on a wide street where new business buildings
rose beside gabled houses, detached and disconsolate in the midst of
withered lawns. The Vallejo was a connecting link between these samples
of the new and the old. It belonged to the ornate bay-windowed period of
the seventies. Each of its "front suites" had the same proud bulge, and
its entrance steps were flanked by two pillars holding aloft ground glass
globes upon which its name was painted in black. Tall buildings were
unknown in those days; the Vallejo boasted only three stories and its
architect had never dreamed of such an effete luxury as an elevator.
Built on the filled-in ground of Mission Creek, it had developed a
tendency to sag in the back, and when you walked down the oil-clothed
hall to the baths, you were conscious of a list to starboard.

The Vallejo patrons did not mind these drawbacks, or if they did, thought
of the low rates and were uncomplaining. All things considered, you got a
good deal for your money. The place was quiet and respectable; even in
its downfall it clung desperately to its traditions. It took no
transients, required a certain standard of conduct in its lodgers, and
still maintained a night clerk in the office of its musty front hall.

Pancha thought it quite regal. If it was a proud elevation for her to
reign at the Albion, it was a corresponding one for her to have two rooms
to herself in a real hotel. As she ascended the stairs--her apartment was
on the second floor--she looked about her, taking in satisfactory
details, the worn moquette carpet, the artificial palm on a pedestal in
the corner, the high, gilt-topped mirror at the turn on the stairs. It
all seemed to her what she would have called "refined"; she need never be
ashamed to have a visitor come there.

In her parlor she lit the light and surveyed her surroundings with an
increasing satisfaction. It was a startlingly ugly room, but she thought
it a bower of elegance. What gave her authority on the stage, what had
already lifted her above the mass, seemed to fall from her with her
costume. That unwavering sense of beauty and grace, that instinctive
taste which lent her performance poetry and distinction, left her at the
wings. Now her eye dwelt, complacent, on the red plush chairs, the
coarse lace curtains, the sofa pillows of etched leather and dissonant
colors, the long mirror between the windows, and each and all received
her approval. As she had thought on the stairs, she thought again--no
one would be ashamed to receive a visitor, no matter how stylish, in
such a room.

She put her roses in a vase and then fetched a bottle of milk from the
window sill and a box of crackers from the bureau drawer. Setting these
on the marble-topped table beside the droplight she sat and ate. It was
too cold to take off her coat and from its pocket she drew the card that
had come with the flowers. As she sipped and munched, the shadows of the
room hovering on the light's circular edge, she read over the words,
murmuring them low, her voice lingering on them caressingly.

It was the first knock at the door of her dreams, the first prismatic ray
of romance that had penetrated the penumbra of brutal realities in which
she had lived.




CHAPTER VII

THE PICAROON


The Argonaut Hotel--all San Franciscans will remember it--had, like the
Vallejo, started life with high expectations and then declined. But not
to so complete a downfall. Fashion had left it, but it still did a good
business, was patronized by commercial travelers and old customers from
the interior, and had a solid foundation of residentials, married couples
beaten by the servant question and elderly men with no ties. Its position
had been against it--on that end of Montgomery Street where the land
begins to rise toward Telegraph Hill, with the city's made ground behind,
and in front "the gore" where Dr. Coggeswell's statue used to stand.
People who lived there were very loyal to it--not much style, but
comfort, quiet and independence.

Three days before the events in the last chapter a man entered its office
and asked for rooms. He was an impressive person, of the kind who usually
went to the Palace or the St. Francis. Ned Murphy, the clerk, sized him
up as an Easterner or maybe a foreigner. There was something
foreign-looking about him--you couldn't just tell what; it might be the
way he wore his hair, brushed back straight from his forehead, or an
undemocratic haughtiness of bearing. He looked as if he was used to the
best, and he acted that way; had to be shown four suites before he was
satisfied and then took the most expensive, second floor front, two rooms
and bath, and you could see he didn't think much of it. Ned Murphy lived
up to him with an unbroken spirit, languidly whistled as he slid the
register across the counter, looked up the hall with a bored air, and
then winked at the bell boy holding the bags. But when the stranger had
followed the boy up the stairs--the Argonaut had no elevator--he pulled
the register round and eagerly read the entry--"Boyé Mayer, New York." A
foreign name all right; you couldn't fool him.

He told the switchboard girl, who had been taking it all in from her
desk, and she slid over to size up the signature. She thought he mightn't
be foreign--just happened to have that sort of name--he didn't talk with
any dialect. When the bell boy came back they questioned him, but he was
grouchy--feller'd only given him a dime. And say, one of them suit cases
was all battered and wore out, looked like the kind the hayseeds have
when they come up from the country.

In his room the man went to the window, hitched back the lace curtains
and threw up the sash. Life in the open had made these shut-in places
stifling, and he drew in the air with a deep relish. Evening was falling,
a belated fog drifting in, wreathing in soft whorls over the hills,
feeling its way across their summits and through their hollows. It made
the prospect depressing, everything enveloped in a universal, dense
whiteness. He surveyed it, frowning--the looming shapes of the high land
beyond, the line of one-story hovels sprawled on the gore. To the right
the street slanted upward toward Telegraph Hill whence smaller streets
would decline to the waterfront and the Barbary Coast. He knew that
section well and smiled a little as he thought of it and of himself, a
ragged vagrant, exploring its byways.

His thoughts stopped at that memory--the lowest point of his fall--hung
there contemplative and then turned backward. They passed beyond his
arrival in California, his days of decay before that, the first gradual
disintegration, back over it all to the beginning.

Thirty-six years ago he had been born in New York, a few months after
the arrival of his parents. They were Austrians, his father an officer
in the Royal Hungarian Guards, his mother a dancer at the Grand Opera
House in Vienna. When Captain Ruppert Heyderich, of a prosperous
Viennese family, had, in a burst of passionate chivalry, married Kathi
Mayer, end coryphée on the second row, he had deserted the army, his
country and his world and fled to America. Captain Heyderich had not
committed so radical a breach of honor and convention without something
to do it on, and the early part of the romance had moved smoothly in a
fitting environment. Their only child, Lothar, could distinctly recall
days of affluence in an apartment on the Park. He had had a governess,
he had worn velvet and furs.

Then a change came; the governess disappeared, also the velvet and furs,
and they began moving. There was a period when to move was a feature of
their existence, each habitat showing a decrease in size and splendor.
Lothar was nine, a lanky boy with his hair worn _en brosse,_ in baggy
knickerbockers and turn-over white collars, when they were up on the West
Side in six half-lighted rooms, with a sloppy Hungarian servant to do all
the work. That was the time when his father taught languages and his
mother dancing. But _he_ went to a private school. Captain Heyderich
never got over his European ideas.

Those lean years came to a sudden end; Captain Heyderich's mother died in
Vienna and left him a snug little fortune. They moved once more, but this
time it was a hopeful, jubilant move, also a long one--to Paris. They
settled there blithely in an apartment on the Rue Victor Hugo, Lothar,
placed at a Lycée, coming home for weekends. He remembered the apartment
as ornate and over-furnished, voluble guests coming and going, a great
many parties, his mother, elaborately dressed, always hurrying off to
meet people in somebody's else house or hurrying home to meet them in her
own. Several times Austrian relations visited them, and Lothar had a
lively recollection of a fight one Sunday evening, when an uncle, a
large, bearded man, had accused his mother of extravagance and she had
flown into a temper and made a humiliating scene.

He was seventeen when his father died, and it was discovered that very
little money was left. Some of the relations came from Vienna and there
was a family conclave at which it was suggested to Lothar that he return
to Vienna with them and become a member of the clan. Separation from his
mother was a condition and he refused. He did this not so much from love
of her as from fear of them. They represented a world of which he was
already shy, of high standards, duties rigorously performed, pledges to
thrift and labor. Life with Kathi was more to his taste. He loved its
easy irresponsibility, its lack of routine, its recognition of amusement
as a prime necessity. He delivered his dictum, his mother wept triumphant
tears, and the relations departed washing their hands of him.

After that they went to London and Lothar made his first attempts at
work. They were fitful; the grind of it irked him, the regular hours wore
him to an ugly fretfulness. He tried journalism--could have made his
place for he was clever--but was too unreliable, and dropped to a space
writer, drifting from office to office. In his idle hours, which were
many, he gambled. That was more to his taste, done in his own way, at his
own time--no cramping restrictions to bind and stifle him. He was often
lucky and developed a passion for it.

He was twenty-three when they returned to New York, Kathi having begged
some more money from Vienna. She was already a worn, old witch of a
woman, dressed gayly in remnants of past grandeur and always painting
her face. She and her son held together in a partnership strained and
rasping, but unbreakable, united by the mysterious tie of blood and a
deep-rooted moral resemblance. They led a wandering life, following
races, hanging on the fringes of migrating fashion, sometimes hiding
from creditors, then reestablished by a fortunate coup. But in those
days he was still careful to pick his steps along the edges of the law,
just didn't go over though it was perilous balancing. When she died he
was relieved and yet he grieved for her. He felt free, no longer
subject to her complaints and bickerings, but in that freedom there was
a chill, empty loneliness--no one was beside him in that gingerly
picking of his steps.

It was when he was twenty-seven--not quite lost--that the news came from
Vienna of an unexpected legacy. His uncle, dying at the summit of a
successful career, had relented and left him fifty thousand dollars. He
assured himself he would be careful--poverty had taught him--and at first
he tried. But the habits of "the years that the locust had eaten" were
too strong. Augmented by several successful speculations it lasted him
for six years. At the end of that time he was ruined, worn in body,
warped in mind, his mold finally set.

After that he ceased to pick his way along the edges of the law, he
slipped over. He followed many lines of endeavor, knew the back waters
and hinterlands of many cities, ceased to be Lothar Heyderich and was
known by other names. It was in Chicago, the winter before this story
begins, that an attack of pneumonia brought him to the public ward of a
hospital. Before his discharge, a doctor--a man who had noticed and been
interested in him--gave him a word of warning:

"A warm climate--no more lake breezes for you. If you stay here and keep
on swinging round the circle it won't be long before you swing back here
to us--swing back to stay. Do you get me?"

He did, his face gone gray at this sudden vision of the end of all
things. The doctor, in pity for what he was now and evidently once had
been, gave him his fare to California.

It had been hell there. The climate had done its work, he was well, but
he had felt himself more a pariah than ever before. He had seemed like a
fly crawling over a glass shield under which tempting dainties are
clearly visible and maddeningly unattainable. A man wanted money in
California--with money could lead the life, half vagabondage, half lazy
luxury, that was meat to his longing. Never had he been in a place that
allured him more and that held him more contemptuously at arm's length.

He had sunk to his lowest depth in this tantalizing paradise, tramped the
streets of cattle towns, herded with outcasts lower than himself. In Los
Angeles he had washed dishes in a cafeteria, in Fresno polished the
brasses in a saloon. And all around him was plenty, an unheeding prodigal
luxuriance, Nature rioting in a boundless generosity. Her message came to
him from sky and earth, from sweep of flowered land, from embowered
village and thronging town--that life was good, to savor it, plunge in
it, live it to the full. At times he felt half mad, struggling to exist
in the midst of this smiling abundance.

When he began that upward march through the state he had no purpose, his
mind was empty as a dried nut, the terrible lethargy of the tramp was
invading him. From down-drawn brows he looked, morose, at a world which
refused him entrance, and across whose surface he would drift aimless as
a leaf on the wind. Then, the strength regained by exercise and air, the
few dollars made by fruit picking, gave a fillip to his languishing
spirit and an objective point rose on his vision. He would go to San
Francisco--something might turn up there--and with his hoarded money buy
cleanliness and one good meal. It grew before him, desirable, dreamed of,
longed for--the bath, the restaurant, the delicate food, the bottle of
wine. He was obsessed by it; the deluge could follow.

The wind, blowing through the open casement, brought him back to the
present. The night had fallen, the street below a misty rift, its lights
smothered in swimming vapor. There was brightness about it, blotted and
obscured but gayly intentioned, even the sheds on the gore sending out
golden gushes that suffused the milky currents with a clouded glow. He
lighted the gas and looked at his watch--nearly seven. He would go out
and dine--that dinner at last--and afterward drop in at the Albion and
see Pancha Lopez, "the bandit's girl."




CHAPTER VIII

THOSE GIRLS OF GEORGE'S


The Alstons were finishing dinner. From over the table, set with the
glass and silver that George Alston had bought when he came down from
Virginia City, the high, hard light of the chandelier fell on the three
females who made up the family. It was devastating to Aunt Ellen
Tisdale's gnarled old visage--she was over seventy and for several years
now had given up all tiresome thought processes--but the girls were so
smoothly skinned and firmly modeled that it only served to bring out the
rounded freshness of their youthful faces.

The Alstons were conservative, clung to the ways of their parents. This
was partly due to inheritance--mother and father were New Englanders--and
partly to a reserved quality, a timid shyness, that marked Lorry who, as
Aunt Ellen ceased to exert her thought processes and relapsed into a
peaceful torpor, had assumed the reins of government. They conformed to
none of those innovations which had come from a freer intercourse with
the sophisticated East. The house remained as it had been in their
mother's lifetime, the furniture was the same and stood in the same
places, the table knew no modern enhancement of its solidly handsome
fittings. Fong, the Chinese cook--he had been with George Alston before
he married--ruled the kitchen and the two "second boys." No women
servants were employed; women servants had not been a feature of domestic
life in Bonanza days.

That was why the house was lit by chandeliers instead of lamps, that was
why dinner was at half past six instead of seven, that was why George
Alston's daughters had rather "dropped out." They would not move with the
times, they would not be brought up to date. Friends of their mother's
had tried to do it, rustled into the long drawing-room and masterfully
attempted to assist and direct. But they had found Lorry unresponsive,
listening but showing no desire to profit by the chance. They asked her
to their houses--replenished, modern, object lessons to rich young
girls--and hinted at a return of hospitalities. It had not been a
success. She was disappointing, no snap, no go to her; the young men who
sat beside her at dinner were bored, and the house on Pine Street had not
opened its doors in reciprocal welcome. By the time she was twenty they
shrugged their shoulders and gave her up--exactly like Minnie, only
Minnie had always had George to push her along.

As the women friends of Minnie did their duty, the men friends of
George--guardians of the estate--did theirs. They saw to it that the
investments were gilt-edged, and the great ranch in Mexico that George
had bought a few years before his death was run on a paying basis. At
intervals they asked their wives with sudden fierceness if they had
called on "those girls of George's," and the wives, who had forgotten all
about it, looked pained and wanted to know the reason for such an
unnecessary question. Within the week, impelled by a secret sense of
guilt, the ladies called and in due course Lorry returned the visits. She
suffered acutely in doing so, could think of nothing to say, was
painfully conscious of her own dullness and the critical glances that
wandered over her best clothes.

But she did not give much thought to herself. That she lacked charm, was
the kind to be overlooked and left in corners, did not trouble her.
Since her earliest memories--since the day Chrystie was born and her
mother had died--she had had other people and other claims on her mind.
Her first vivid recollection--terrible and ineffaceable--was of her
father that day, catching her to him and sobbing with his face pressed
against her baby shoulder. It seemed as if the impression made then had
extended all through her life, turned her into a creature of poignant
sympathies and an unassuagable longing to console and compensate. She had
not been able to do that for him, but she had been able to love--break
her box of ointment at his feet.

From that day the little child became the companion of the elderly man,
her soft youth was molded to suit his saddened age, her deepest desire
was a meeting of his wishes. Chrystie, whose birth had killed her
mother, became their mutual joy, their shared passion. Chrystie-worship
was inaugurated by the side of the blue and white bassinet, the nursery
was a shrine, the blooming baby an idol installed for their devotion.
When George Alston died, Lorry, thirteen years old, had dedicated
herself to the service, held herself committed to a continuance of the
rites. He had left her Chrystie and she would fulfill the trust even as
he would have wished.

Probably it was this enveloping idolatry that had made Christie so unlike
parents and sister. She was neither retiring nor serious, but social and
pleasure-loving, ready to dance through life as irresponsibly enjoying as
a mote in a sunbeam. And now Lorry had wakened to the perplexed
realization that it was her affair to provide the sunbeam and she did not
know how to do it. They were rich, they had a fine house, but nothing
ever happened there and it was evident that Chrystie wanted things to
happen. It was a situation which Lorry had not foreseen and before which
she quailed, feeling herself inadequate. That was why, at twenty-three, a
little line had formed between her eyebrows and her glance dwelt
anxiously on Chrystie as an obligation--her great obligation--that she
was not discharging worthily.

The glare of the chandelier revealed the girls as singularly
unlike--Lorry--her full name was Loretta--was slender and small with
nut-brown hair and a pale, pure skin. The richest note of color in her
face was the rose of her lips, clearly outlined and smoothly pink. She
had "thrown back" to her New England forbears. On the elm-shaded
streets of Vermont villages one often sees such girls, fragile, finely
feminine, with no noticeable points except a delicate grace and
serenely honest eyes.

Chrystie was all California's--tall, broad-shouldered, promising future
opulence, her skin a warm cream deepening to shades of coral, her hair a
blonde cloud, hanging misty round her brows. She was as unsubtle as a
chromo, as fragrantly fresh as a newly wakened baby. Her hands, large,
plump, with flexible broad-tipped fingers, were ivory-colored and
satin-textured, and her teeth, narrow and slightly overlapping, would go
down to the grave with her if she lived to be eighty. Two months before
she had passed her eighteenth birthday and was now of age and in
possession of more money than she knew how to spend. She was easily
amused, overflowing with good nature and good spirits as a healthy puppy,
but owing to her sheltered environment and slight contact with the world
was, like her sister, shy with strangers.

The meal was drawing to its end when the doorbell rang.

"A visitor," said Chrystie, lifting her head like a young stag. Then she
addressed the waiting Chinaman, "Lee, let Fong open the door, I want
more coffee."

Lee went to fetch the coffee and direct Fong. Everybody in the house
always did what Chrystie said.

Aunt Ellen laid her old, full-veined hand on the table and pushed her
chair back.

"Maybe it isn't a visitor," she said, looking tentatively at Lorry--she
hated visitors, for she had to sit up. "Do you expect someone?"

Lorry shook her head. She rarely expected anyone; evening callers were
generally school friends of Chrystie's.

Fong, muttering, was heard to pass from the kitchen.

"I do hope," said Christie, "if it's some horrible bore Fong'll have
sense enough to shut them in the reception room and give us a chance
to escape."

Chrystie, like Aunt Ellen, was fond of going to bed early. She had tried
to instruct Fong in an understanding of this, but Fong, having been
trained in the hospitable ways of the past, could not be deflected into
more modern channels.

In his spotless white, his pigtail wound round his head, his feet in
thick-soled Chinese slippers, he passed up the hall to the front door.
Another chandelier hung there but in this only one burner was lit. At
five in winter and at six in summer Fong lit this as he had done for the
last twenty-four years. No one, no matter what the argument, could make
him light it any earlier, any later, or turn the cock at a lesser or
greater angle.

The visitor was Mark Burrage, and seeing this Fong broke into smiles and
friendly greeting:

"Good evening, Mist Bullage--Glad see you, Mist Bullage. Fine night,
Mist Bullage."

Fong was an old man--just how old nobody knew. For thirty-five years he
had served the Alstons, had been George Alston's China boy in Virginia
City, and then followed him, faithful, silent, unquestioning to San
Francisco. There he had been the factotum of his "boss's" bachelor
establishment, and seen him through his brief period of married
happiness. On the day when Minnie Alston's coffin had passed through the
front door, he had carefully swept up the flower petals from the parlor
carpet, his brown face inscrutable, his heart bleeding for his boss.

Now his devotion was centered on the girls; "Miss Lolly and Miss Clist,"
he called them. He ruled them and looked out for their welfare--refused
to buy canvasbacks till they fell to the price he thought proper,
economized on the kitchen gas, gave them costly presents on the New Year,
and inquired into the character of every full-grown male who crossed
their threshold.

Mark Burrage he liked, found out about him through the secret channels of
information that make Chinatown one of the finest detective bureaus in
the land, and set the seal of his approval on the young man's visits. He
would no more have shown him into the reception room and gone to see if
"Miss Lolly and Miss Clist" were receiving, than he would have permitted
them to change the dinner hour.

"You bin away, Mist Bullage," he said, placing the card the young man
gave him on the hall table--cards were only presented in the case of
strangers.

"How did you know that?" Mark asked, surprised.

Fong's face suggested intense, almost childish amusement.

"I dunno--I hear some place--I forget."

"I've been up in Sacramento County with my people--maybe Crowder
told you."

"Maybe--I not good memly, I get heap old man." He made a move for the
parlor door, his face wrinkled with his innocent grin. "Miss Lolly and
Miss Clist here; awful glad see you," and he threw the door open.

Mark took a deep breath and strode forward, pulling his cuffs over his
hands, which at that moment seemed to him to emerge from his sleeves
large and unlovely as two hams. The place always abashed him, its sober
air of wealth, its effortless refinement, its dainty feminine atmosphere.
No brutal male presence--one never thought of Chinese servants as
men--seemed ever to have disturbed with a recurring, habitual foot its
almost cloistral quietude. Now with memories of his own home fresh in his
mind, dinner in the kitchen, the soiled tablecloth, the sizzling pans on
the stove, he felt he had no place there and was an impostor. Their
greeting increased his discomfort. They were so kind, so hospitable,
making him come into the dining room and take a cup of coffee. It was an
uprush of that angry loyalty, that determination to hold close to his
own, which made him say as soon as he was seated,

"I've been home for two weeks."

"Home?" said Lorry gently.

And, "Where _is_ your home?" came from Aunt Ellen, as if she had just
recognized the fact that he must have one somewhere but had never thought
about it before.

The sound of his voice, gruff as a day laborer's after these flute-sweet
tones, increased his embarrassment. Nevertheless he determined that he
would tell them about his home.

"Up in Sacramento County not far from the tules. My father's a rancher,
has a little bit of land there."

"Yes, Charlie Crowder told us," said Lorry. She didn't seem to notice
the "little bit of land," it was just as if he'd said four or five
thousand acres and described a balconied house with striped awnings and
cushioned chairs.

He cast a glance of gratitude toward her, met her eyes and dropped his
own to his cup. There they encountered his hand, holding the coffee
spoon, the little finger standing out from the others in a tricksy curve.
With an inward curse he straightened it, sudden red dyeing his face to
the temples. He began to hate himself and didn't know how to go on.

Chrystie unexpectedly came to the rescue.

"Sacramento County," she exclaimed with sudden animation, "not far from
the tules! There was a holdup round there two or three weeks ago. I read
it in the papers."

Aunt Ellen moved restlessly. She wanted to get to her chair in the
drawing-room.

"Holdup?" she murmured. "They're always having holdups somewhere."

"Not like this," said Chrystie. "It was a good one--Knapp and
Garland--and they shot Wells Fargo's messenger."

"It was while I was there," said Mark, "up toward the foothills above
our ranch."

The young ladies were immensely interested. They wanted to hear all about
it and moved into the parlor to be settled and comfortable. They tried to
make Mark sit in a massive, gold-trimmed armchair, but he had his wits
about him by this time and took a humbler seat beside Lorry. Aunt Ellen
sank into her rocker with a sigh of achievement and Chrystie perched on
the piano stool. Then he told them the story, forgetting his bashfulness
under the spell of their attentive eyes.

"Why can't they catch them," said Chrystie, "if they know their names?"

He couldn't help laughing at that.

"Why, of course they have other names," Lorry explained. "They don't go
about as Knapp and Garland."

"But people must see them," Chrystie insisted, "somebody must know what
they look like."

Mark had to straighten it out for her.

"Their friends do--ranchers up in the hills, and their pals in the
towns. But the sheriffs and the general public don't. When they're out
for business they cover their faces, tie handkerchiefs or gunny sacks
round them."

Chrystie shuddered delightedly.

"How awful they must be! I'd love to be held up just to see them."

Mark and Lorry looked at one another and smiled, as age and experience
smile at the artlessness of youth. It was an interchange of mutual
understanding, a flash of closer intimacy, and as such lifted the young
man to sudden heights.

"Where do they put the money?" said Aunt Ellen, her thought
processes, under the unusual stimulus of a conversation on bandits,
stirred to energy.

"That's what we'd like to know, Mrs. Tisdale. They have a cache somewhere
but nobody's been able to find it. I saw the sheriff before I left and
_he_ thinks it's up in the hills among the chaparral."

"Is the messenger dead?" asked Lorry.

"Oh, no--he's getting on all right. They don't shoot to kill, just put
him out of business for the time being."

"That's merciful," Aunt Ellen announced in a sleepy voice.

Chrystie, finding no more delicious shudders in the subject, twirled
round on the stool and began softly picking out notes on the piano. For a
space Mark and Lorry talked--it was about the ranch near the
tules--rather dull as it came to Chrystie through her picking. The young
man kept looking at Lorry's face, then dropping his glance to the floor,
abashed before the gentle attention of her eyes, fearful his own might
say too much. He thought it was just her sweetness that made her ask
about his people, but everything about Mark Burrage interested her. Had
he guessed it he would have been as much surprised as she had she known
that he thought her beautiful.

Presently Chrystie's notes took form and became a tinkling tune. She
tried it over once then whirled round on the stool.

"There--I've got it! Listen. Isn't it just like it, Lorry?"

Lorry immediately ceased talking and listened while the tune ran a
halting course through several bars.

"Like what?" she said. "I don't know what it's meant to be."

"Oh!" Chrystie groaned, then shook her head at Mark. "Trust your
relations to take down your pride. Why, it's the Castanet song from 'The
Zingara!' Tum-tum-tum, tum-tum-tum," and she began swaying her body in
time, humming an air and banging out the accompaniment, "'With my
castanets, with my castanets.' That's exactly the way it goes only I
don't know the words." She whirled again to Mark. "It's the most
_delicious_ thing! Have you seen it?"

He hadn't, and Chrystie sank together on the stool in reproachful
surprise.

"Oh, Mr. Burrage, you _must_ go. Don't lose a minute, this very night."

Lorry breathed an embarrassed "Chrystie!"

"I didn't mean _that_ and he knows it. I mean the soonest night _after_
tonight. We went yesterday and even Aunt Ellen loved it. Didn't you,
Aunt Ellen?"

Aunt Ellen, startled from surreptitious slumber, gave an unnaturally
loud assent to which Chrystie paid no attention.

"It's the new opera at the Albion and Pancha Lopez is--" She threw out
her hands and looked at the ceiling, words inadequate.

"She's never done anything so good before," Lorry said.

"All in red and orange, and coins everywhere. Orange stockings and cute
little red slippers, and two long braids of black hair. Oh, down to
there," Chrystie thrust out her foot, her skirt drawn close over a
stalwart leg, on which, just above the knee, she laid her finger tips.
Her eyes on Mark were as unconscious as a baby's. "I don't think it's all
her own, it's too long--I'll ask Charlie Crowder."

Aunt Ellen had not gone off again and to prove it said,

"How would he know?"

"Well he'd see it, wouldn't he? He'd see it when she took off her hat,
all wound round her head, yards and yards of it. No, it's false, it was
pinned on under that little cap thing. And after the second act when she
came on to bow she carried a bunch of flowers--oh, that big," her arms
outlined a wide ellipse, "the same colors as her dress, red carnations
and some sort of yellowish flower I couldn't see plainly."

Mark, seeing some comment was expected of him, hazarded a safe,

"You don't say!"

"And just as she was going off"--Lorry took it up now--"she looked at
someone in a box and smiled and--"

But Chrystie couldn't bear it. She leaned toward her sister imploringly.

"Now, Lorry, let me tell that--you _know_ I noticed it first." Then to
Mark, "She was close to the side where they go off and I was looking at
her through the glasses, and I saw her just as plain give a sort of quick
look into the box and then smile and point to the flowers. It was as if
she said to the person in there, 'You see, I've got them.'"

"Who was in the box?"

Chrystie bounced exuberantly on the stool.

"That's the joke. None of us could see. Whoever he was he was far back,
out of sight. It was awfully exciting to me for I simply adore Pancha
Lopez and Charlie Crowder, who knows her so well, says she hasn't an
admirer of any kind."

Aunt Ellen came to the surface with,

"Perhaps she's going to get one now."

And Lorry added,

"I hope, if she is, he'll be somebody nice. Mr. Crowder says she's had
such a hard life and been so fine and brave all along."

Soon after that Mark left. There had been a time when the first move for
departure was as trying as the ordeal of entrance, but he had got beyond
that. Tonight he felt that he did it in quite an easy nonchalant way, the
ladies, true to a gracious tradition, trailing after him into the hall.
It was there that an unexpected blow fell; Chrystie, the _enfant
terrible, _delivered it. Gliding about to the hummed refrain of the
Castanet song her eye fell on his card. She picked it up and read
it:

"Mark D.L. Burrage. What does D.L. stand for?"

It was Mark's habit, when this was asked, to square his shoulders, look
the questioner in the eye, and say calmly, "Daniel Lawrence."

But now that fierce loyalty to his own, that chafed pride, that angry
rebellion which this house and these girls roused in him, made him
savagely truthful. A dark mahogany-red stained his face to the forehead
and he looked at Chrystie with a lowering challenge.

"It stands for de Lafayette."

"De Lafayette!" she stared, amazed.

"Yes. My given name is Marquis de Lafayette."

There was a moment's pause. He saw Chrystie's face, blank, taking it in,
then terrible rising questions began to show in her eyes. He went on,
glaringly hostile, projecting his words at her as if she was a target and
they were missiles:

"My mother liked the name. She thought it was unusual. It was she who
gave it to me."

Chrystie's lips opened on a comment, also on laughter. He could see both
coming and he braced himself, then Lorry's voice suddenly rose, quiet,
unastonished, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to have
such a name:

"What a fine thing for her to do! She admired Lafayette and called you
after him. I think it was splendid of her."

Outside, in the darkness of the street, he could almost have wept, in
rage with himself, in the smart of her kindness.

He wished his mother had been there, in that hall, in her old clothes. He
would have hugged her to him, protested that his name was the crowning
glory of his life. He would have liked to face them down, show them his
pride in her, let them hear him tell her that whatever she had done was
in his opinion right.

The place where he lived was not far, a lodging house on one of the steep
streets that sloped to the city's hollow. As he swung down the hills he
thought of the hour of work he had promised himself, looked forward to
with relish. Now his enthusiasm was gone, extinguished like a spark
trodden out by a haughty foot. All he had done looked suddenly trivial,
his rise from a farm hand a petty achievement, he himself a rough,
uncultured boor. What right had he at the house of Lorry Alston, breaking
himself against unsurmountable barriers? In the beginning he had only
thought to enthrone her as an ideal, lovely, remote, unaspired to. She
would be a star fixed in his sky, object of his undesiring worship. But
it had not been that way. The star had not changed but he had ceased to
bow in contemplation--looked up, loved and longed.

The back wall of his dwelling rose above the trees and he saw the
darkling panes of his own windows. Soon his lamplight would glow through
them, and he would be in the armchair with his book and his pipe. The
picture brought back a surge of his conquering spirit. Nothing he had set
his hand to had beaten him yet. If he fought as he had fought for his
education, was fighting now for his place, he could fight up to her side.
There was no rival in sight; Crowder, who knew them well, had told him
so. He could put out all his energies, do more than man had ever done
before, climb, if not to her proud place, at least where he did not come
as a beggar to a queen. Then, on his feet, the future clearing before
him, he could go to her and try and win. He drew a deep breath and looked
up at the stars, remote as she had seemed that evening. The lift of his
passion swept him aloft on a wave of will and he murmured, "If she were
there among you, I'd try and get to her and carry her away in my arms."

Meantime he would not go to her house any more--at least not for a long
time. There was no good; he was not the man to sit round in parlors
looking and acting like a fool. He could only work, blaze the trail,
make the clearing, raise the homestead, and when it was ready go and
tell her so.




CHAPTER IX

GREEK MEETS GREEK


Early on the evening when the Alstons had seen "The Zingara," Boyé Mayer
walked up Kearney Street looking into florists' windows. A cigarette
depended from his lip, his opened overcoat disclosed the glossy whiteness
of a shield-like shirt bosom, his head was crowned by a shining top hat.
He was altogether a noticeable and distinguished figure.

He had been twice to the Albion and was going again this evening, having
already engaged the right-hand stage box. Now he was purporting to send
Pancha Lopez a third floral tribute and with it reveal his identity. The
two previous ones had been anonymous, but tonight her curiosity--roused
to a high pitch, or he knew nothing of women--would be satisfied. She
would not only know who her unknown admirer was, but she would see him
sitting in stately solitude in the right-hand box.

She had been a great surprise. Where he had expected to find an
overblown, coarse woman with the strident voice of the music hall and its
banal vulgarities, he had seen a girl, young, spontaneous, full of a
sparkling charm. He had heard enough singing to know that her voice,
fresh and untrained, had promise, and that the spirited dash of her
performance indicated no common gifts. Under any circumstances she would
have interested him; how much more so now when he knew of her affiliation
with a notorious outlaw! She was evidently a potent personality, lawless
and daring. The situation appealed to his slyly malign humor, she
confidently secure, he completely informed. It was a fitting sequel to
the picaresque adventure and he anticipated much entertainment from
meeting her, saw himself, with stealthy adroitness, worming his way
toward her guilty secrets.

A florist's window, a bower of blossoms under the gush of electric
lights, attracted him and he turned into the shop. The proprietor came
forward, ingratiatingly polite, his welcoming words revealing white teeth
and a foreign accent.

The gentleman wanted a large sheaf bouquet in two colors, red and
orange--certainly, and a Gallic wave of the hand indicated a marble slab
where flowers were ranged in funnel-shaped green vases. Looking over
them, the gentleman lapsed into a French so perfect that the florist
suggested Monsieur was of that nation, also his own. Monsieur neither
admitted nor denied the charge, occupied over the flowers. He was very
particular about them--perhaps the florist would understand better what
he wanted when he knew they were for Miss Lopez at the Albion and were
designed to match her gypsy dress.

Ah, perfectly--several vases were drawn forward--and over these the two
men talked of Miss Lopez and her admirable performance.

"A true artist," the florist thought, "young, and without training as
Monsieur can see. A Californian, a girl of the people, risen from
nothing. But no doubt Monsieur has already heard her history."

Monsieur was a stranger, he knew little of the lady, and, apparently
engrossed in his selection of the flowers, heard such facts in the career
of Pancha Lopez as the public were allowed to know. The florist ended the
biography with what should be--for the gentleman ordering so costly a
bouquet--the most notable item--Miss Lopez was a girl of spotless
reputation.

Monsieur looked surprised:

"Has no favored one, no lovers?"

The florist, combining a scarlet carnation with a sunset rose, shrugged
his shoulders, treating the subject with the lively gravity of the Gaul:

"None, Monsieur. It is known that many men have paid their court, but
no--good-day to you and out they go! She wants nobody--it is all work,
work, work. A good, industrious girl, very unusual when one considers her
beginnings. But being so, and with her talents, she will arrive. My God,
it is certain."

Monsieur appeared no longer interested. He paid for his bouquet, which
was to be sent to the stage door that evening, then wrote a message on a
card. This time the card bore no "swell sentiment;" the words were frank
and to the point:

"Why can't I know you? I want to so much. I am alone here and a stranger.
If you care to look me over and see if you think I'm worth meeting, I'll
be in the right-hand stage box tonight.

"BOYÉ MAYER,

"Argonaut Hotel."

As he walked to the Albion he thought over what he had heard. It was very
different from what he had expected to hear and increased his interest in
her. He had given her credit for a high artistic intelligence, but
evidently she possessed the other kind too. How else could she have
spread an impression of herself so unlike what she really was? A deep,
_rusée_ girl! He began to be very keen to meet her and see which of the
two would be the more expert in the duel of attack and parry.

The flowers and the note were delivered in the first entr'acte. With a
sliding rush Pancha was back on the stage, her eye glued to the peephole
in the curtain. What she saw held her tranced. Like Mark, her standards
suffered from a limited experience. That the effective pose was studied,
the handsome face hard and withered, the evening dress too showily
elegant, escaped her. She had never--except on the covers of
magazines--seen such a man.

The stage hands had to pull her away from the curtain and she went to her
dressing room with her cheeks crimson under the rouge and her eyes like
black diamonds. Upon his own stage, plumed, spurred and cloaked, romance
had entered with the tread of the conqueror.

After the second gift of flowers her curiosity was as lively as Mayer had
expected. But she was not going to show it, she was going to be cool and
indifferent till he made himself known. Then she contemplated a guarded
condescension, might agree to be met and even called upon; a man who
wrote such sentiments and gave such bouquets should not be treated with
too much disdain. But when she saw him, her surprise was so great that
she forgot all her haughty intentions. Gratified vanity surged through
her. At one moment she thrilled with the anticipation of meeting such a
personage, and at the next drooped to fears that she might disappoint his
fastidious taste.

That night she answered the letter, writing it over several times:

MR. BOYÉ MAYER,

DEAR FRIEND:

Thanks for the flowers. They're grand. I ain't ever before had such
beautys espechully the ones that matched my dress. I looked you over and
I don't think you're so bad, so if you still want to know me maybe you
can. I live in the Vallejo Hotel on Balboa Street and if you'd give
yourself the pleasure of calling I'll be there Tuesday at four.

Yours truly,

Miss PANCHA LOPEZ.

P. S. Balboa Street is in the Mission.

The next evening she received his answer, thanking her for her kindness
and saying he would come.

She prepared for him with sedulous care, not only her room and her
clothes, but herself. She was determined she would comport herself
creditably, would be equal to the occasion and fulfill the highest
expectations. She was going to act like a lady--no one would ever suspect
she had once waited on table in the Buon Gusto restaurant, or been a
barefoot, miner's kid. As she put on her black velveteen skirt and best
crimson crêpe blouse, she pledged herself to a wary refinement, laid the
weight of it on her spirit. The only models she had to follow were the
leading ladies of the road companies she had seen, and she impressed upon
her mind details of manner from the heroines of "East Lynne" and "The
Banker's Daughter."

When four o'clock struck she was seated by the center table, a book
negligently held in one hand, her feet, in high-heeled, beaded slippers,
neatly crossed, and a gold bracelet given her by her father on her arm.
She took a last, inspecting glance round the room and found it entirely
satisfactory. On the table beside her a battered metal tray held a bottle
of native Chianti, two glasses and a box of cigarettes. In Pancha's world
a visitor was always offered liquid refreshment and she had chosen the
Chianti as less plebeian than beer and not so expensive as champagne. She
had no acquaintance with either wine or cigarettes; her thrifty habits
and care of her voice made her shun both.

Mayer recognized the room as a familiar type--he had been in many such
in many lands. But the girl did not fit it. She looked to him very
un-American, more like a Spaniard or a French midinette. There was
nothing about her that suggested the stage, no make-up, none of its bold
coquetry or crude allure. She was rather stiff and prim, watchful, he
thought, and her face added to the impression. With its high cheek bones
and dusky coloring he found it attractive, but also a baffling and
noncommittal mask.

He was even more than she had anticipated. His deep bow over her hand,
his deference, thrilled her as the Prince might have thrilled Cinderella.
She was very careful of her manners, keeping to the weather, expressing
herself with guarded brevity. A chill constraint threatened to blight the
occasion, but Mayer, versed in the weaknesses of stage folk, directed the
conversation to her performance in "The Zingara," for which he professed
an ardent admiration.

"I was surprised by it, even after what I'd heard. I wonder if you know
how good it is?"

Her color deepened.

"I try to make it good, I've been trying for six years."

He smiled.

"Six years! You must have begun when you were a child."

This was too much for Pancha. Her delight at his praise had been hard to
suppress; now it burst all bonds. She forgot her refinement and the
ladylike solemnity of her face gave place to a gamin smile.

"Oh, quit it. You can't hand me out that line of talk. I'm twenty-two and
nobody believes it."

Then _he_ laughed and the constraint was dissipated like a morning mist.
They drew nearer to the table and Pancha offered the wine. To be polite
she took a little herself and Mayer, controlling grimaces as he sipped,
asked her about her career. She told him what she was willing to tell;
nothing of her private life which she thought too shamefully sordid. It
was a series of jumps from high spot to high spot in her gradual ascent.
He noticed this and judged it as a story edited for the public, it
tallied so accurately with what he had heard already from the florist.
There was evidently a rubber stamp narrative for general circulation.

After she had concluded he made his first advance, lightly with an air
of banter.

"And how does it come that in this long, lonely struggle you've stayed
unmarried?"

A belated coquetry--Pancha climbing up had wasted no time on such
unassisting arts--stirred in her. She tilted her head and shot a look at
him from the sides of her eyes.

"I guess no one came along that filled the bill."

"Among all the men that must have come along?"

"Um-um," she stood her glass on the table, turning its stem with her long
brown fingers.

"The lady must be hard to please."

"Maybe she is."

Her eyes rested on the ruby liquid in the glass. The lids were fringed
with black lashes that grew straightly downward, making a semicircle of
little, pointed dashes on each cheek. He could not decide whether she was
embarrassed or slyly amused.

"Or perhaps she's just wedded to her art."

"That cuts some ice, I guess."

"Love is known to improve art. Haven't you ever heard that?"

"I shouldn't wonder. I've heard an awful lot about love."

"Only heard, never felt? Never responded to any of the swains that have
been crowding round?"

"How do you know they've been crowding round?"

He leaned nearer, gently impressive:

"What I'm looking at tells me so."

She met his eyes charged with sentimental meaning, and burst into
irrepressible laughter.

"Oh, _you_--shut up! I ain't used to such hot air. I'll have to open the
windows and let in the cold."

It was not what he had expected and he felt rebuffed. Dropping back in
his chair, he shrugged his shoulders.

"What can I say? It's not fair to let me come here and then muzzle me."

"Oh, I ain't going as far as that. But you don't have to talk to me that
way. I'm the plain, sensible kind."

He shook his head, slowly, incredulously.

"No, I've got to contradict you. Lips can tell lies but eyes can't.
You're a good many other things but you're not sensible."

"What other things?"

"Charming, fascinating, piquant, with a heart like a bright,
glowing coal."

She threw back her head and let her laughter, rich and musical, float out
on the room.

"Oh, listen to him! Wouldn't it make a dog laugh!" Then, swaying on her
chair, she leaned toward him, grave but with her eyes twinkling. "Mr.
Man, you can't read me for a cent. Right here," she touched her heart
with a finger tip, "it's frozen hard. I keep it in cold storage."

"Hasn't it ever been taken out and thawed?"

"Never has and never will be."

She swayed away from him, keeping her glance on his. For a still second
a strange seriousness, having no place in the scene, held them. She was
conscious of perplexity in his face, he of something wistful and
questioning in hers. She spoke first.

"You're very curious about me, Mr. Boyé Mayer?"

She ought not to have said that and it was his fault that she did. She
was no mean adversary and that she had seen through his first tentatives
proved them clumsy and annoyed him. He smiled, a smile not altogether
pleasant, and rose.

"All men must be curious where you're concerned."

"Not as bad as you."

"Ah, well, I'm a child of nature. I don't hide my feelings. I'm curious
and show it. Do you know what makes me so?"

She shook her head, anticipating flatteries. But he did not break into
them as quickly as she had expected. Turning to where his hat lay he took
it up, looked at it for a moment and then, with his gray eyes shifting to
hers, said low, as if taking her into his confidence:

"I'm curious because you're interesting. I think you're the most
interesting thing I've seen since I came to San Francisco."

This was even more than she had hoped for. An unfamiliar bashfulness made
her look away from the gray eyes and stammer in rough deprecation:

"Oh, cut it out!"

"I never cut out the truth. But I'm going to cut out myself. It's time
for me to be moving on. Good-by."

His hand was extended and she put hers into it, feeling the light
pressure of his cool, dry fingers. She did not know what to say, wanted
to ask him to come again, but feared, in her new self-consciousness, it
wasn't the stylish thing to do.

"I'm real glad you called," was the nearest she dared.

He was at the door and turned, hopefully smiling.

"Are you?"

"Sure," she murmured.

"Then why don't you ask me to come again?"

"I thought that was up to you."

He again was unable to decide whether her coyness was an expression of
embarrassment or an accomplished artfulness, but he inclined to the
latter opinion.

"Right O! I'll come soon, in a few days. _Hasta mañana_, fair lady."

After the door had closed on him she stood sunk in thought, from which
she emerged with a deep sigh. A slow, gradual smile curved her lips; she
raised her head, looked about her, then moving to the mirror, halted in
front of it. The day was drawing toward twilight, pale light falling in
from the bay window and meeting the shadows in the back of the room. Her
figure seemed to lie on the glass as if floating on a pool of darkness.
The black skirt melted into it, but the crimson blouse and the warm
pallor of the face and arms emerged in liquid clearness, richly defined,
harmoniously glowing. She looked long, trying to see herself with his
eyes, trying to know herself anew as pretty and bewitching.

Mayer walked home wondering. He was completely intrigued by her. Her
performance in "The Zingara" had led him to expect a girl of much more
poise and finish, and yet with all her rawness she was far from naïve.
His own experience recognized hers; both had lived in the world's squalid
byways; he could have talked to her in their language and she would have
understood. But she was not of the women of such places, she had a clean,
clear quality like a flame. Daring beyond doubt, wild and elusive, but
untouched by what had touched the rest. He found it inexplicable, unless
one granted her unusual capacity, unsuspected depths and a rare and
seasoned astuteness. He had to come back to that and he was satisfied to
do so. It would add zest to the duel which had just begun.




CHAPTER X

MICHAELS, THE MINER


So distinguished a figure as Boyé Mayer could not live long unnoticed in
San Francisco. He had not been a month at the hotel before items about
him appeared in the press. Mrs. Wesson, society reporter of the
_Despatch_, after seeing him twice on Kearney Street, found out who he
was and rustled into the Argonaut office for a word with Ned Murphy. Mr.
Mayer was a wealthy gentleman from New York, but back of that Murphy
guessed he was foreign, anyway the Frenchwoman who did his laundry and
the Dutch tailor who pressed his clothes said he could talk their
languages like he was born in the countries. He wasn't friendly, sort of
distant; all he'd ever said to Murphy was that he was on the coast for
his health and wanted to live very quiet to get back his strength after
an illness.

It wasn't much but Mrs. Wesson made a paragraph out of it that neatly
rounded off her column.

Even without the paragraphs he would not have been unheeded. Among the
carelessly dressed men, bustling along the streets in jostling haste, he
loomed immaculately clad, detached, splendidly idle amidst their vulgar
activity. He had the air of unnoticing hauteur, unattainable by the
American and therefore much prized. His clean-shaven, high-nosed face was
held in a brooding abstraction, his well-shod foot seemed to press the
pavement with disdain. Eating a solitary dinner at Jack's or Marchand's,
he looked neither to the right nor the left. Beauty could stare and
whisper and he never give it the compliment of a glance. Ladies who
entertained began to inquire about him, asked their menkind to find out
who he was, and if he was all right make his acquaintance and "bring him
to the house."

He was not so solitary as he looked. Besides Pancha Lopez he had met
other people. The wife of the manager of the Argonaut Hotel had asked him
to a card party, found him "a delightful gentleman" and handed him on to
her friends. They too had found him "a delightful gentleman" and the
handing on had continued. He enjoyed it, slipping comfortably into the
new environment--it was a change after the sinister years beyond the
pale, and the horrible, outcast days. Also he did not confine himself to
the small sociabilities to which he was handed on. There were many paths
of profit and pleasure in the city by the Golden Gate and he explored any
that offered entertainment--those that led to tables green as grass under
the blaze of electric lights, those that led to the poker game behind
Soledad Lanza's pink-fronted restaurant, those that led up alleys to
dark, secretive doors, and that which led to Pancha's ugly sitting room.

He sought this one often and yet for all his persuasive cunning he found
out nothing, got no further, surprised no admissions. He was drawn back
there teased and wondering and went away again, piqued and baffled.

One evening, a month after her first meeting with him, Pancha, going home
on the car, thought about her father. She felt guilty, for of late she
had rather forgotten him and this was something new and blameworthy. Now
she remembered how long it was since she had seen him and that his last
letter had come over a month ago. It was a short scrawl from Downieville
and had told her that the sale of his prospect hole--he had hoped to
sell it sometime early in September--had fallen through. He had seemed
down-hearted.

Despite the divergent lines of their lives a great tie of affection
united them. They met only at long intervals--when he came into town for
a night--and all correspondence between them was on his side as she never
knew where he was. Even had he not lavished a rough tenderness upon her,
the memory of pangs mutually suffered, of hardships mutually endured,
would have bound her to him. He was the only person who had passed,
closely allied, an intimate figure, through the full extent of her life.
Though he was so much to her she never spoke of him, except to Charlie
Crowder, her one friend, of whose discretion she was sure. This reticence
was partly due to tenderness--the past and his place in it had their
sacredness--and partly to the miner's own wish. As her star had risen it
was he who had suggested the wisdom of "keeping him out." He thought it
bad business; an opera singer's father--especially a father with a pick
and a pan--had no advertising value and might be detrimental. When he put
it that way she saw the sense of it--Pancha was always quick to see
things from a business angle--and fell in with his wish. She was not
unwilling to. It wasn't that she was ashamed of him, she cared too little
for the world to be ashamed of anything, but she did not want him made a
joke of in the wings or written up satirically in the theatrical column.
When small road managers who had known her at the start came into town
and asked where "Pancha's Pa" was, nobody knew anything about such a
person, and they guessed "the old guy must have died."

Since she had lived at the Vallejo Hotel he had been there five times,
always after dark. She had told Cushing, the night clerk, that Mr.
Michaels was a relation of hers from the country and if he came when she
was out to let him into her rooms.

As she drew up at the desk and asked for her key--it hung on a rack
studded with little hooks--Cushing, drowsing with his feet on a chair,
rose wearily, growling through a yawn:

"Mr. Michaels has came. He's been here about an hour. I done what you
said and let him in."

She smothered an expression of joy, snatched the key and ran upstairs.
Lovely--just as she was thinking of him! She let herself in anticipating
a glad welcome and saw that he was lying on the sofa asleep.

The only light in the room was from the extension lamp on the table and
by its shaded glow she stood looking at him. He was sleeping heavily,
still wrapped in the old overcoat she knew so well, his coarse hands,
with blackened finger nails, clasped on his breast. His face, relaxed in
rest, looked worn, the forehead seamed with its one deep line, the eyes
sunk below the grizzled brows. It came upon her with a shock that he
seemed old and tired, and it hurt her. In a childish desire to bring him
back to himself, have him assume his familiar aspect and stop her pain,
she shook him by the shoulder, crying:

"Pa, Pa, wake up."

He woke with a violent start, his feet swung to the floor, his body
hunched as if to spring, his glance wildly alive. Then it fell on her and
the fierce alertness died out; his face softened into a smile, almost
sheepish, and he rubbed his hand over his eyes.

"Lord, I was asleep," he muttered.

She kissed him, pulled him up, and with an arm round his back,
steered him to an armchair, asking questions. His hand on her waist
patted softly.

"Well, you ain't fattened up any," he said with a quizzical grin and
side glance.

That made him look more like himself, but Pancha noticed that his
movements were stiff.

"What's the matter?" she said sharply. "You ain't got the rheumatism
again, have you?"

"Nup," he sank slowly into the chair. "But sometimes when I first move
I sort 'er kink at the knees. Gets me in the morning, but I limber up
all right."

She stood beside him, uneasily frowning.

"What are you goin' to do this winter when the rains begin? You can't run
risks of being sick, and me not able to get to you."

"Sick--hell!" He shot a humorous look at her. "I ain't sick in God's own
country--it's only down here. Why y'ain't all as stiff as stone images in
this sea-damp beats me."

"Oh, it's the damp," she said, relieved.

"Course it's the damp. I wouldn't expect a rope dancer to live here and
stay spry."

That was like Pa; her anxiety evaporated and she began to smile.

"Well, there's one person who does--yours truly. If you don't believe it,
come to the Albion and see."

"There ain't another like you, hon. There's not your match from the
Rockies to the Pacific."

"Oh, old blarney!" she cried, now joyous, and, giving him a pat on the
shoulder, moved about collecting supper. "Sit tight there while I get you
a bite. I've some olives that'll make you think you're back among the
greasers."

The supper came from divers places--the window sill, the top bureau
drawer, the closet shelf. Beer and sardines were its chief features, with
black olives soaked in oil and garlic, cheese straws taken from a corset
box, and ripe figs oozing through their paper bag.

They ate hungrily without ceremony, wiping their fingers on the towel she
had spread for a cloth. As they munched they swapped their news--his
failure at selling the ledge, her success in "The Zingara." He listened
to that with avid attention.

"Can you stay and see me tomorrow night?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"'Fraid not. I got a date with a feller in Dutch Flat for tomorrow
afternoon."

"About the prospect?"

"Yep--it's a chance and I got to jump at it."

"Why did it fall through before?"

He shoveled in a cracker spread with sardines before he answered.

"Oh, same old story--thought it didn't show up as big as they'd expected.
You can't count on it, no more'n you can on the weather."

She smothered a sigh. The "prospect" and the "ledge" had been part of
their life, lifting them to high hopes, dropping them to continual
disappointment. She would have counseled him to give it all up, but that
he now and then had had luck, especially in the last five years. She went
back to herself.

"'The Zingara' has been a great thing for me. Everybody says so. If the
next piece goes as big I'm going to strike for a raise. Wait till I show
you," she jumped up, rubbing her oily fingers on the towel, "and you'll
see why little Panchita's had to get an extra-sized hat."

She took from a side table a book--the actress's scrap album--and came
back flirting its pages. At one she pressed it open and held it toward
him, triumphantly pointing to a clipping. "There, from the _Sacramento
Courier_."

He gave a glance at the clipping and said:

"Oh, yes, _that_. Grand, ain't it?"

She was surprised.

"You've seen it. Why didn't you send it to me?"

"Who said I'd seen it?" He took the book from her, staring across it,
suddenly combative. "Don't you run along so fast. Ain't you known if I
had I'd have mailed it to you?"

"But how did you know about it?" she said, her surprise growing, for she
saw he was moved.

"You're gettin' too darned quick." He pushed the book in among the dishes
roughly, his irritation obvious.

"Ain't it possible I might have heard it? Might have met a feller that
come up from Marysville who'd seen It and told me?"

"Yes, of course it is. You needn't get mad about it."

"Mad--who said I was mad?" He bent over the book, muttering like a storm
in retreat. "I guess I ain't missed so many that when one does get by me
you should throw it in my teeth."

She smoothed the top of his head with a placating hand and went back to
her seat. Nibbling a ripe olive she watched him as he read. Her eyes
were anxiously questioning. This too--anger at so small a thing--was
unlike him.

When he had finished his annoyance was over; pride beamed from his face
as if a light was lit behind it.

"I guess there ain't many of 'em get a write-up like that." He put the
book aside and began a second attack on the supper. "Crowder's some
friend. His little finger's worth more'n the whole kit and crew you've
had danglin' round you since you started."

"You're right." She stretched her hand for a fig, spilling, bruised and
bursting, from the torn bag. "There's a new one dangling."

With her father Pancha was always truthful. To the rest of the world she
lied whenever she thought it necessary, never carelessly or prodigally,
for to be fearless was part of her proud self-sufficiency. But as she had
learned to fight, to battle her way up, to climb over her enemy, to wrest
her chance from opposing forces, she had learned to lie when the occasion
demanded. She was only entirely frank and entirely truthful with the one
person whom she loved.

He put down his glass and looked at her, in sudden, fixed attention.

"What's that?"

"I've got a real, genuine, all-wool-yard-wide beau."

She leaned her elbows on the table, holding the fig to her mouth, her
thin fingers manipulating the skin as she sucked the pulp. Her eyes were
full of laughter.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I'm telling you. You needn't look like I'd said he was a
defaulting bank cashier, nor so surprised either. It ain't flattering to
your only child."

Her father did not respond to her gayety.

"Look-a-here, Panchita," he began, but she stopped him, flapping a
long hand.

"Cut it out, Pop. I know all that. You needn't come any stern parent
business over me. _I'm_ on. _I_ know my way about. I ain't going to run
my head into any noose, or tie any millstone round my neck. Don't you
think by this time you can trust me?"

Her words seemed to reassure him. The bovine intensity of his gaze
softened.

"You've had a heap of beaux," he said moodily.

"And kept every last one of 'em in their place, except for those I kicked
out. And they got to their place; my kick landed them there."

"Who is he?"

Pancha returned to her fig, looking over its wilted skin for
clinging tidbits.

"Named Mayer, a foreigner--at least he's born here, but he looks foreign
and acts foreign; hands out the kind of talk you read in books. Awful
high class."

"Treats you respectful?"

She gave him a withering glance.

"_Respectful!_ Treats me like I'd faint if he spoke rough or break if he
touched me. I ain't ever seen anything so choice. You said I was
thin--it's keeping up such a dignified style that's worn me down."

This description was so unlike the bandit's idea of love-making that he
became incredulous.

"How do you know he's a beau? Looks like to me he was just marking time."

She smiled, the secret smile of a woman who has seen the familiar signs.
She had taken another fig and delicately breaking it open, eyed its
crimson heart.

"He's jealous."

"Who of?"

"Nobody, anybody, everybody." She began to laugh, and putting her lips to
the fruit, sucked, and then drew them away stained with its ruby juice.
"He's always trying to draw me, find out if there isn't somebody I like.
Pop, you'd laugh if you could hear him sniffing round the subject like a
cat round the cream."

"What do you tell him?"

"_Me?_" She gave him a scornful cast of her eye. Her face was flushed,
and with her crimsoned mouth and shining eyes she was for the moment
beautiful. "I got my pride. I told him the truth at first, and when he
wouldn't believe me--'Oh, no, there _must be_ someone'--I says to myself,
'All right, deary, have it your own way,' and I jolly him along now,"
she laughed with joyous memory. "I got him good and guessing, Pop."

The old man looked dissatisfied.

"I ain't much stuck on this, Panchita. What good are you goin' to get
out of it?"

"Fun!" she cried, throwing the fig skin on the table. "Don't I deserve
some after six years? If he wants to act like a fool that's his affair,
and believe me, he's able to take care of himself. And so am I. No one
knows that better than you do, deary."

He left soon after that. In his nomad life, with its long gaps of
separation from her, it was easy for him to keep his movements concealed
and caution had become a habit. So he had not told her that on his last
visit to the city he had taken a room, instead of going to one of the
men's hotels that dotted the Mission. It was in a battered, dingy house
that crouched in shame-faced decay behind the shrubs and palms of a once
jaunty garden. Mrs. Meeker, the landlady, was a respectable woman who had
seen so complete an extinction of fortune that she asked nothing of her
few lodgers but the rent in advance and a decent standard of sobriety. To
the bandit it offered a seclusion so grateful that he had resolved to
keep it, a hiding-place to which he could steal when the longing for his
child would not be denied.

The house was not far from the Vallejo Hotel, on a cross street off one
of the main avenues of traffic. As he rounded the corner he saw the black
bushiness of its garden and then, barring the night sky, the skeleton of
a new building. The sight gave him a disagreeable shock; anything that
let more life and light into that secluded backwater was a menace. He
approached, anxiously scanning it. It took the place of old rookeries,
demolished in his absence, one side rising gaunt and high against Mrs.
Meeker's. He leaned from the front steps and looked over the fence; the
separation between the two walls was not more than two or three feet.

His room was on the top floor in the back, and gaining it, he jerked up
the shade and looked out. Formerly a row of dreary yards extended to the
houses in the rear. Now the frame of the new building filled them in,
projecting in sketchy outline to the end of the lots. Disturbed he
studied it--four stories, a hotel, apartments, or offices. Whatever it
was it would be bad for him, bringing men so close to his lair.

He stood for some time gazing out, saw a late, lopsided moon swim into
the sky and by its light the yard below develop a beauty of glistening
leaves and fretted shadows. The windows of the houses beyond the fence
shone bright, glazed with a pallid luster. Even Mrs. Meeker's stable,
wherein she kept her horse and cart, the one relic saved from better
days, stood out darkly picturesque amid the frosted silver of vines. He
saw nothing of all this, only the black skeleton which would soon be
astir with the life he shunned.

He drew down the shade and dropped heavily into a chair, his feet
sprawled, his chin sunk on his breast. The single gas jet emitted a
torn yellow flame that issued from the burner with a stuttering,
ripping sound. The light gilded the bosses of his face, wax-smooth
above the shadowed hollows, and it looked even older than it had in
sleep. His spirit drooped in a somber exhaustion--he was so tired of it
all, of the stealth, the watchfulness, the endless vigilance, the lack
of rest. One more coup, one lucky haul, and he was done. Then there
would be the ranch, peace, security, an honest ending, and Pancha,
believing, never knowing.




CHAPTER XI

THE SOLID GOLD NUGGET


The autumn was drawing to an end and the winter season settling into its
gait. Everybody was back in town, at least Mrs. Wesson said so in her
column, where she also prophesied a program of festivities for the coming
six months. This was reassuring as Mrs. Wesson was supposed to know, and
anyway there were signs of it already--a first tentative outbreak of
parties, little dinners cropping up here and there. People who did things
were trailing back from Europe, bringing new clothes and ideas with which
to abash the stay-at-homes. Big houses were opening and little houses
that had been open all along were trying to pretend they had been shut.
Furs were being hung on clothes lines and raincoats brought out of
closets. Violets would soon be blooming around the roots of the live oaks
and the Marin County hills be green. In short the San Francisco winter
was at hand.

The Alston house had been cleaned and set in order from the cellar to the
roof and in its dustless, shining spaciousness Lorry sat down and faced
her duties. The time had come for her to act. Chrystie must take her
place among her fellows, be set forth, garnished and launched as befitted
the daughter of George Alston. It was an undertaking before which Lorry's
spirit quailed, but it was part of the obligation she had assumed. Though
she had accepted the idea, the translation from contemplation to action
was slow. In fact she might have stayed contemplating had not a
conversation one night with Chrystie nerved her to a desperate courage.

The girls occupied two adjoining rooms on the side of the house which
overlooked the garden. Across the hall was their parents' room, exactly
the same as it had been when Minnie Alston died there. Behind it were
others, large, high-ceilinged, with vast beds and heavy curtains. These
had been tenanted at long intervals, once by an uncle from the East,
since deceased, and lately by the Barlow girls, Chrystie's friends from
San Mateo. That had been quite an occasion. Chrystie talked of it as she
did of going to the opera or on board the English man-of-war.

Lorry was sitting in front of the glass brushing her hair, when
Chrystie, supposedly retired, came in fully dressed. She dropped onto
the side of the bed, watching her sister, with her head tilted, her eye
dreamily ruminant.

"What's the matter, dear?" said Lorry. "Why aren't you in bed?"

Chrystie yawned.

"I can't possibly imagine except that I don't want to be there," came
through the yawn.

"Aren't you sleepy?"

"In a sort of way." She yawned again and stretched with a wide spread
of arms. "I seem to be sleepy on the outside but it doesn't go down
into my soul."

Lorry, drawing the comb through her long hair which fell in a shining
sweep from her forehead to the chair seat, wanted this explained. But her
sister vaguely shook her head and stared at the carpet, then, after a
pause, murmured:

"I wish something would happen."

"What kind of thing?"

"Oh, just something--any old thing would be a change."

Lorry stopped combing.

"Do you mean that you're dull?" she asked. The worried gravity of her
face did not fit the subject.

"That must be it." Chrystie raised her eyes and looked at the cornice,
her red lips parted, her glance becoming animated. "Yes, of course,
that's it--I'm dull. Why didn't I see it myself? You've put it before me
in letters of fire--I'm dreadfully dull."

"What would you like to do?"

"Have some good times, lots of them. There aren't enough of them this
way. We can't go to the theater too often or we'd get used to it, and I
can't get the Barlows to come up here every week, they have such crowds
of engagements."

She sighed at the memory of the Barlows' superior advantages and the sigh
sounded like a groan of reproach in Lorry's ears. Innocently,
unconsciously, unaccusingly, Chrystie was rubbing in the failure of her
stewardship. She combed at the ends of her hair, her eyes blind to its
burnished brightness.

"Would you like to have a party here?" she said in a solemn voice.

Chrystie's glance was diverted from the cornice, wide open and
astonished.

"A party here, in _this_ house?"

"Yes, it's big enough. There's plenty of room and we can afford it."

"But, Lorry"--the proposition was so startling that she could hardly
believe it--"a _real_ party?"

"Any kind of a party you want. We might have several. We could begin with
a dinner; Fong can cook anything."

Chrystie, the idea accepted and held in dazzled contemplation, suddenly
saw a flaw.

"But where would we get any men?"

"We know some and we could find some more."

"You talk as if you could find them scattered about on the ground the way
they found nuggets in '49. Let's count our nuggets." She held up the
spread fingers of a large white hand, bending one down with each name.
"There's Charlie Crowder if he can get off, and his friend Robinson in
the express company, and Roy Barlow, whom I know so well I could recite
him in my sleep, and Mrs. Kirkham's grandnephew who looks like a
child--and--and--good gracious, Lorry, is that _all_ our nuggets?"

"We could have some of those young men whose mothers knew ours."

"You said you didn't like them."

"I know I did, but if you're going to give parties you have to have
people you don't like to fill up."

"Um," Chrystie pondered, "I suppose you must. Oh, there's Marquis de
Lafayette."

"Yes," said Lorry, "I thought of him."

Chrystie's eyes, bright with question, rested on her sister.

"You can't exactly call him a nugget."

"Why not?"

"Because he doesn't shine, darling."

This explanation appeared to strike its maker as a consummate witticism.
She fell back on the bed in spasms of laughter.

Lorry looked annoyed.

"He's nicer than any of the others, I think."

"Of course he is, but he's been buried too long in the soil; he needs
polishing." She rolled over on the bed in her laughter.

Lorry began to braid her hair, her face grave.

"I don't think things like that matter a bit, and I don't see at all what
you're laughing at."

"I'm laughing at Marquis de Lafayette. I can't help it--something about
his hands and his manners. They're so ponderously polite; maybe it's from
waiting on table in the students' boarding house."

"I never knew you were a snob before, Chrystie."

"I guess I am. Isn't it awful? Oh, dear, I've laughed so much I've got a
pain. It's perfectly true, I'm a snob. I like my nuggets all smooth and
shiny with no knobs or bits of earth clinging to them."

Lorry's hair was done and she rose and approached her sister.

"You've spoiled my bed. Get off it and go."

But Chrystie would not move. With her face red and the tears of her
laughter standing in her eyes she gazed at the serious one.

"Lorry, darling, you look so sweet in that wrapper with your hair
slicked back. You look like somebody I know. Who is it? Oh, of course,
the Blessed Damozel, leaning on the bar of Heaven, only it's the bar
of the bed."

"Don't be silly, Chrystie. Get up."

"Never till I have your solemn, eternal, sworn-to promise."

"What promise?"

"To give that party."

"You have it--I said I'd do it and I will."

"And get nuggets for it?"

"Yes."

"All right, I'll go."

She sat up, rosy, disheveled, her hair hanging in a tousled mop from its
loosened pins. Catching Lorry's hand, she squeezed it, looking up at her
like an affectionate, drowsy child.

"Dear little Blessed Damozel, I love you a lot even though you are
high-minded and think I'm a snob."

She had been in her room for some minutes, Lorry already in bed with a
light at her elbow and a book in her hand, when she reappeared in the
doorway. The pins were gone from her hair and it lay in a yellow tangle
on her shoulders, bare and milk-white. Looking at her sister with round,
shocked eyes, she said:

"It's just come to me how awful it is that two young, beautiful and
aristocratic ladies should have to hunt so hard for nuggets. It's tragic,
Lorry. It's _scandalous_," and she disappeared.

Lorry couldn't read after that. She put out the light and made plans
in the dark.

The next day she rose, grimly determined, and girded herself for action.
In the morning, giving Fong the orders, she told him she was going to
have a dinner, and in the afternoon went to see Mrs. Kirkham.

Mrs. Kirkham had once been a friend of Minnie Alston's and she was the
only one of that now diminishing group with whom Lorry felt at ease. Had
the others known of the visit and its cause they would have thrown up
their hands and said, "Just like that girl." Mrs. Kirkham was nobody now,
the last person to go to for help in social matters. In the old days in
Nevada her husband had been George Alston's paymaster, and she had held
her head high and worn diamonds.

But that was ages ago. Long before the date of this story the high head
had been lowered and the diamonds sold, all but those that encircled the
miniature of her only baby, dead before the Con-Virginia slump. She lived
in a little flat up toward the cemeteries, second floor, door to the
left, and please press the push button. In her small parlor the pictures
of the Bonanza Kings hung on the walls and she was wont, an old rheumatic
figure in shiny black with the miniature pinned at her withered throat,
to point to these and tell stories of the great Iliad of the Comstock.

She was very fond of Lorry and when she heard her predicament--a party to
be given and not enough men--patted her hand and nodded understandingly.
Times were changed--ah, if the girls had been in Virginia in the
seventies! And after a brisk canter through her memories (she always had
to have that) galloped back into the present and its needs. Lorry went
home reassured and soothed. You could always count on Mrs. Kirkham's
taking hold and helping you through.

The old lady was put on her mettle, flattered by the appeal, made to feel
she was still a living force. Also she would have done anything in the
world for Minnie's girls. She consulted with her niece, well married and
socially aspiring if not yet installed in the citadel. It was a happy
thought; the niece had the very thing, "a delightful gentleman," lately
arrived in the city. So it fell out that Boyé Mayer, under the
chaperonage of Mrs. Kirkham, was brought to call and asked to fill a seat
at the formidable dinner.

Formidable was hardly a strong enough word. It advanced on Lorry like a
darkling doom. Once she had set its machinery in motion it seemed to rush
forward with a vengeful momentum. Everybody accepted but Charlie Crowder,
who could not get off, and Mark Burrage, who wrote her a short, stiff
note saying he "was unable to attend." For a space that made her
oblivious to the larger, surrounding distress. It was a little private
and particular sting for herself that concentrated her thoughts upon the
hurt it left. After she read it her face had flushed, and she had dropped
it into her desk snapping the lid down hard. If he didn't want to come he
could stay away. Men didn't like her anyway; she knew it and she wasn't
going to make any mistakes. Her concern in life was Chrystie and it was
being pointed out to her that she wasn't supposed to have any other.

Finally the evening came and everything was ready. Fong's talents,
after years of disuse, rose in the passion of the artist and produced a
feast worthy of the past. A florist decorated the table and the lower
floor. Mother's jewels were taken out of the safety deposit box, and
Lorry and Chrystie, in French costumes with their hair dressed so that
they looked like strangers, gazed upon each other in the embowered
drawing-room realizing that they had brought it upon themselves and
must see it through.

The start was far from promising; none of them seemed able to live up to
it. Aunt Ellen kept following the strange waiters with suspicious eyes,
then looking down the glittering table at Lorry like a worried dog. And
Chrystie, who had been all blithe expectation up to the time she dressed,
was suddenly shattered by nervousness, making detached, breathless
remarks about the weather and then drinking copious draughts of water. As
for Lorry, she felt herself so small and shriveled that her new dress
hung on her in folds and her mouth was so dry she could hardly
articulate.

It was awful. The guests seemed to feel the blight and wither under it,
eating carefully as if fearing sounds of mastication might intrude on the
long, recurring silences. There was a time when Lorry thought she
couldn't bear it, had a distracted temptation to leap to her feet, say
she was faint and rush from the place. Then came the turn in the
tide--Mr. Mayer, the strange man Mrs. Kirkham had produced, did it. She
had noticed that he alone seemed free from the prevailing discomfort,
looked undisturbed and calm, glancing at the table, the guests, herself
and Chrystie. But it was not until the fish that he started to talk. It
was about the fish, but it branched away from the fish, radiated out from
it to other fish, to the waters where the other fish swam, to the
countries that gave on the waters, to the people who lived in the
countries.

He woke them all up, held them entranced. Lorry couldn't be sure
whether he really was so clever or seemed so by contrast with them, but
she thought it was the latter. It didn't matter; nothing mattered
except that he was making it go. And at first she had been loath to ask
him! She hadn't liked him, thought he was too suavely elaborate, a sort
of overdone imitation. Well, thank goodness she had, for he simply took
the dinner which was settling down to a slow, sure death and made it
come to life.

Presently they were all talking, to their partners, across the table,
even to Aunt Ellen. The exhilarating sound of voices rose to a hum, then
a concerted babble broken by laughter. It grew animated, it grew
sparkling, it grew brilliant. Chrystie, with parted lips and glistening
eyes, became as artlessly amusing as she was in the bosom of her family.
She was delightful, her frank enjoyment a charming spectacle. Lorry, in
that seat which so short a time before had seemed but one remove from the
electric chair, now reigned as from a throne, proudly surveying the
splendors of her table and the gladness of her guests.

When it was over, the last carriage wheels rumbling down the street, the
girls stood in the hall and looked at one another. Aunt Ellen, creaking
in her new silks, toiled up the stairs, an old, shaky hand on the
balustrade.

"Come up, girls," she quavered; "you must be dead tired."

"Well," breathed Lorry with questioning eyes on her sister, "how was it?"

Chrystie jumped at her and folded her in a rapturous embrace.

"Oh, it was maddening, blissful, rip-roarious! Oh, Lorry, it was the
grandest thing since the water came up to Montgomery street!"

"You _did_ enjoy it, didn't you?"

"Enjoy it! Why, I never had such a galumptious time in my life. They
all did. The Barlow girls are on their heads about it--they said so and
I saw it."

"I think everybody had a good time."

"Of course they did. But, oh, didn't you nearly die at the beginning? I
was sick. Honestly, Lorry, I felt something sinking in me down here,
and my mouth getting all sideways. If it hadn't been for that man I'd
have just slipped out of my seat under the table and died there at
their feet."

"He saved it," said Lorry solemnly, as one might mention a doctor who had
brought back from death a beloved relative.

The gas was out and they were mounting the stairs, arms entwined, warm
young flesh on warm young flesh.

"Isn't he a thoroughbred, isn't he a gem!" Chrystie chanted. "I'd like to
go to Mrs. Kirkham's tomorrow, climb up her front stairs on my knees and
knock my forehead on the sill of her parlor door."

"Did you really like him? I think he's clever and entertaining but I
wouldn't want him for a friend."

"I didn't think about him that way. I just sort of stood off and
admired. He's the most _magnetic_ thing!"

"Yes, I suppose he is, but--"

"There are no buts about it." Then in the voice of knowledge, "I'll tell
you what he is, I'll put it in terms you can understand--he's the perfect
specimen of the real, genuine, solid gold nugget."




CHAPTER XII

A KISS


After the dinner Mayer walked downtown. He had been a good deal
surprised, rather amused, and in the drawing-room afterward extremely
bored. His amusement was sardonic. He grinned at the thought of himself
in such company and wondered if it could have happened anywhere but
California. Those two girls, rich and young, were apparently free to ask
anybody into their house. It was curious, and he saw them similarly
placed in Europe; they would have been guarded like the royal treasure,
chiefly to keep such men as himself out.

The splendor of the entertainment had surprised him. He was becoming used
to the Californian's prodigal display of flowers, but such a dinner,
served to unappreciative youth, was something new. The whole affair had
been a combination of an intelligent luxury and a rank crudity--food fit
for kings set before boys and girls who had no more appreciation of its
excellence than babies would have had. And the silver on the table,
cumbrously magnificent, it was worth a small fortune.

Outside the humor of his own presence there, he had found the affair
tedious, especially that last hour in the drawing-room. It was the sort
of place that had always bored him even when he was young, governed by
narrow, feminine standards, breathing a ponderous respectability from
every curtain fold. Neither of the girls had been attractive. The elder,
the small, pale one, was a prim, stiff little thing. The other was
nothing but a gawky child; fine coloring--these Californians all had
it--but with no charm or mystery. They were like the fruit, all run to
size but without much flavor. He thought the elder girl had some
intelligence; one would have to be on one's guard with her. He made a
mental note of it, for he intended going there again--it was the best
meal he had eaten since he left New York.

The night was warm and soft, a moon rising over the housetops. He
breathed deep of the balmy air, inhaling it gratefully. After such a
constrained three hours he felt the need of relaxation, of easy
surroundings, of an expansion to his accustomed dimensions. Swinging down
the steep street between the dark gardens and flanking walls, he surveyed
the lights of the city's livelier center and thought of something to do
that would take the curse of the dinner off his spirit.

A half hour later Pancha, emerging from the alley that led to the
Albion's stage door, saw a tall, familiar shape approach from the
shadows. Her heart gave a jump, and as her hand was enfolded in a
strong, possessive grasp, she could not control the sudden quickening of
her breath.

"Oh, it's you! Gee, how you scared me," she said, to account for it.

He squeezed the hand, murmuring apologies, his vanity gratified, for he
knew no man at the stage door would ever scare Pancha.

As it was so fine a night he suggested that she walk back to the hotel
and let him escort her, to which, with a glance at the moon, and a sniff
of the mellow air, she agreed.

So they fared forth, two dark figures, choosing quieter streets than
those she usually trod, the tapping of her high heels falling with a
smart regularity on the stillness held between the silver-washed walls.

They were rather silent, conversation broken by periods when their
mingled footfalls beat clear on the large, enfolding mutter of the city
sinking to sleep. It was his fault; heretofore he had been the leader,
conducting her by a crafty discursiveness toward those confidences she so
resolutely withheld. But tonight he did not want to talk, trailing lazy
steps beside her, casting thoughtful glances upward at the vast,
illumined sky. It made her nervous; there was something of a deep,
disturbing intimacy about it; not a sweet and soothing intimacy, but
portentous and agitating. She tried to be herself, laid about for bright
things to say and found she could pump up no defiant buoyancy, her tongue
clogged, her spirit oppressed by a disintegrating inner distress. It did
not make matters any better when he said in a dreamy tone:

"Why are you so quiet?"

"I've worked hard tonight. I'm tired and you're walking so fast."

He was immediately contrite, slackening his step, which in truth was
very slow.

"Oh, Pancha, what a brute I am. Why didn't you tell me?" And he took her
hand and tried to draw it through his arm.

But she resisted, pulling away from him almost pettishly, shrinking from
his touch.

"No, no, let me alone. I like to walk by myself."

He drew back with a slight shrug, more amused than repulsed. Nevertheless
he was rather sorry he had suggested the walk, he had never known her to
be less entertaining.

"Always proud, always independent, always keeping her guard up." He cast
a questioning side glance at her face, grave and pale by his shoulder.
"You wild thing, can no one tame you?"

"Why do you say I'm wild?"

"Because you are. How long have I known you? Since early in September and
I don't get any nearer. You still keep me guessing."

"About what?"

"About _what_?" He leaned down and spied at her profile. "About
yourself."

"Oh, me!"

"Yes, you--what else? You're the most secretive little sphinx
outside Egypt."

She did not answer for a moment. She _had_ been secretive, but it was
about the humble surroundings of her youth, those ignominious beginnings
of hers. Of this she could not bring herself to tell, fearful that it
would lower her in his esteem. She saw him, hearing of the Buon Gusto
restaurant and the life along the desert, withdrawing from her in shocked
repugnance. About other things--the stage, the lovers--she had been
frank, almost confidential.

"I don't see why you say that," she protested; "I've told you any amount
of stuff."

"But not everything. You know that, Pancha."

He was now so keen, like a dog with its nose to the scent, that he forgot
her recent refusal and hooked his hand inside her arm. This time she did
not draw away and they walked on, close-linked, alone in the moonlit
street. Conscious of her reticences, ashamed of her lack of candor, and
yet afraid to make damaging revelations, she said defensively:

"I've told you as much as I want to tell."

He seized on that, in his eagerness pressing her arm against his side,
bending over her like a lover.

"Yes, but not all. And why not all? Why should you keep anything from
me?"

"But why _should_ I tell you?" she asked, her loitering step coming
to a stop.

As the situation stood the question was a poser. He did not want to be
her lover, had never intended it; his easy gallantry had meant nothing.
But now, seeing her averted face, the eyes down-drooped, he could think
of no reply that was not love-making. She stole a swift look at him,
recognized his hesitation, and felt a stab, for it was the love-making
answer she had expected. The mortified anger of the woman who has made a
bid for tenderness and seen herself mistaken surged up in her.

She jerked her arm violently out of his grasp and walked forward at a
swinging pace.

"What's the matter?" he said, chasing at her heels. "Are you angry?"

"I shouldn't wonder," she threw over her shoulder. "Being nagged at for
fun doesn't appeal to me."

"But what do you mean?--I'm all at sea."

She suddenly brought up short, and wheeling, faced him, her face
lowering, her breath quick:

"I'm the one to say that, for I don't get you, Boyé Mayer, I don't see
what you're up to. But sometimes I think you've just come snooping round
roe to find out something. You come and you go, always so curious, always
wanting to know, pussy-footing round with your questions and your
compliments. What's on your mind?"

Mayer found himself in an impasse. She knew him too well and she was too
angry to be diverted with the temporizing lightness of their early
acquaintance. There was only one thing to say to her, and--the cause of
her excitement plain to his informed mind--it was not difficult to say.

"Pancha," he pleaded, "you don't understand."

"You bet I don't and I want to. I'd like to have it explained--I'd like
to know what you hang round me for. Do you think I'm hiding something? Do
you think I'm a criminal?"

"I think you're the most charming girl in the world," he protested.

She gave a smothered sound of rage and started off, faster than ever,
down the street. This time he kept up with her, and rounding a corner the
two lamps at the foot of the Vallejo's steps loomed up close at hand.

"Stop," he said. "Wait." He had no idea the hotel was so near, and
surprised at the sight of it his voice became suddenly imperious and he
seized her arm with a dominating grip. She tried to jerk it away, but he
held it and drew her, stiff and averse, toward him.

"You foolish one," he whispered. "Why, don't you see? I hang around
because I can't help it. I come because I can't stay away--I want to know
about you because I'm jealous of every man that ever looked at you."

With the last word he threw his arm about her and snatched her close.
Against him she suddenly relaxed, melted into a thing of yielding
softness, while his lips touched a cheek like a burning rose petal.

The next moment she was gone. He had a glimpse of her on the Vallejo
steps in swallow-swift silhouette and then heard the bang of the door.

In her room Pancha moved about mechanically, doing the accustomed things.
She lighted the light, took off her hat and jacket, brought the milk from
the window sill. Then, with the bottle on the table beside her, she sat
down, her hands in her lap, her eyes on space. She was as motionless as a
statue, save for the breaths that lifted her chest. She sat that way for
a long time, her only movements a shifting of her blank gaze or a
respiration deeper than the others. She saw nothing of what her glance
rested on, heard none of the decreasing midnight sounds in the street or
the house about her. An intensity of feeling had lifted her to a plane
where the familiar and habitual had no more place than had premonitions
and forebodings.




CHAPTER XIII

FOOLS IN THEIR FOLLY


"The Zingara" had run its course and given place to "The Gray Lady,"
which had not pleased the public. The papers said the leading role did
not show Miss Lopez off to the greatest advantage and the audiences
thinned, for Miss Lopez had transformed the Albion from a house of light
opera to a temple enshrining a star. The management, grumbling over their
mistake, laid about for something that would give the star a chance to
exhibit those qualities which had deflected so many dollars from the
"Eastern attractions" to their own box office.

Charlie Crowder and Mark Burrage, walking together in the early night,
turned into the Albion to have a look at the house and see Pancha in the
last act. They stood in the back, surveying the rows of heads in a dark
level, against the glaring picture of the stage, upon which, picked out
by the spotlight, Pancha stood singing her final solo. Crowder's eye
dropped from the solitary central figure to the audience and noted gaps
in the lines, unusual in the Albion and predicting "The Gray Lady's"
speedy demise. As the curtain fell he told Mark he was "going behind" for
a word with his friend, she would need cheering up, and Mark, nodding,
said he'd move along, he had work to do at home.

The floor of heads broke as though upheaved by an earthquake, and the
house rose, rustling and murmurous, and began crowding into the aisles.
The young man, leaning against the rail behind the last row, watched it,
a dense, coagulated mass, animated by a single impulse and moving as a
unit. Crowding up the aisle it looked like a thick dark serpent,
uncoiling its slow length, writhing toward the exit, the faces turned
toward him a pattern of pale dots on its back. Among them at first
unnoticed by his vaguely roving glance were three he knew--the two Alston
girls and Aunt Ellen.

It was always hot and stuffy in the Albion and Aunt Ellen had been
uncomfortable and fussed about it, and Chrystie was disappointed that her
favorite had not been able to make the performance a success. As they
edged forward she explained to Lorry that it wasn't Pancha's fault, it
was the sort of thing she didn't do as well as other things and she
oughtn't to have been made to do it. Then, her eye ranging, she suddenly
stopped and gave Lorry a dig with her elbow.

"There's Marquis de Lafayette. Do you see him?"

Lorry had, which did not prevent her from saying in a languid voice,

"Where?"

"Over there by the railing. You know he _is_ good-looking, Lorry, when
he's all by himself that way, not trying to be worthy of a college
education."

"Um," said her sister. "It's fearfully hot in here."

"I don't see why we ever came," Aunt Ellen moaned.

They were near him now and he saw them. For a moment he stared, then gave
a nod and reddened to his forehead.

"Oh, he's blushing!" Chrystie tittered as she returned the bow. "How
perfectly sweet!"

The first sight of them had given Mark a shock as violent as if he had
met them in an exploration of the South Pole or the heart of a tropical
forest. It took him some minutes to recover, during which he stood
rooted, only his head moving as he watched them borne into the foyer,
there caught in merging side currents and carried toward the main
entrance. It was not till they were almost at the door, Chrystie's high
blonde crest glistening above lower and less splendid ones, that he came
to life. He did it suddenly, with a sharp reaction, and started in
impetuous pursuit. His first movement--a spirited rush--carried him into
a family, a compact phalanx moving solidly upon the exit. He ran into
someone, a child, stammered apologies, placated an irate mother, then
craning his neck for his quarry, saw the high blonde head in the distance
against the darkness of the street.

The check was more than physical. It caused a sudden uprush of his old
timidity and he stood irresolute, in everybody's way, spying at the
distant golden head. It seemed as if they had wanted to avoid him, they
had gone so quickly, just bowed and been carried on--if only Chrystie
would look back and smile. Standing on his toes, jostled and elbowed, he
caught a glimpse of them, all three, outside the door. They appeared
preoccupied, the two girls talking across Aunt Ellen, with no backward
glances for a young man struggling to reach them--anyone could have seen
they had forgotten his existence. With a set face he turned and made for
the side exit. They had no use for him; he would go home to the place
where he belonged.

The bitterness of this thought carried him through the side exit and
there left him. Whatever they felt and however they acted, it was his
duty to see them on the car. Boor! clod! goat! He could still catch them
if he went round to the front, and he started to do it, facing the
emerging throng, battling his way through. That was too slow; he backed
out, turned into the street and ran, charging through streams that had
broken from the main torrent and were trickling away in various
directions. Rounding the corner he saw he was not too late. There,
standing on the curb, were Aunt Ellen and Chrystie, conspicuous in their
ornamental clothes, looking in the opposite direction up the street's
animated vista. He followed their eyes and saw a sight that made him
halt--Lorry, her satin-slippered feet stepping delicately along the
grimy pavements, her pale skirts emerging from the rich sheath of her
cloak. Beside her, responding to a beckoning hand, a carriage rattled
down upon Chrystie and Aunt Ellen. They had a carriage and she had had
to go and find it!

With a heart seared by flaming self-scorn, Mark turned and slunk away. He
slid into the crowd's enveloping darkness as into a friendly shelter. He
wanted to hide from them, crawl off unseen like the worm he was. This was
the least violent term he applied to himself as he walked home, cursing
under his breath, wondering if in the length and breadth of the land
there lived a greater fool than he. There _was_ a mitigating
circumstance--he had never dreamed of their having a carriage. In his
experience carriages, like clergymen, were only associated with weddings
and funerals. He thought of it afterward in his room, but it didn't help
much--in fact it only accentuated the difference between them. Girls who
had carriages when they went to the Albion were not the kind for lawyers'
clerks to dream of.

Inside the carriage, Aunt Ellen insisted on an understanding with the
livery stable man:

"Running about in the mud in the middle of the night--it's ridiculous!
Lorry, are your slippers spoiled?"

"No, Aunt Ellen. There isn't any mud."

"There might just as well have been. Any time in the winter there's
liable to be mud. Will you see Crowley tomorrow and tell him we won't
have any more drivers who go away and hide in side streets?"

"Yes, I'll tell him, but he wasn't hiding, he was only a little way from
the entrance."

"Having no man in the family certainly _is_ inconvenient," came from
Chrystie, and then with sudden recollection: "What happened to Marquis de
Lafayette? Why didn't he come and get it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure." Lorry was looking out of the window.

"Well, I must say if we ask him to our parties the least he can do is to
find our hacks."

"I think so, too," said Aunt Ellen. "The young men of today seem to have
forgotten their manners."

"Forgotten them!" echoed Chrystie. "You can't forget what you never had."

"Oh, do keep quiet," came unexpectedly from Lorry. "The heat in that
place has given me a headache."

Then they were contrite, for Lorry almost never had anything, and their
attentions and inquiries had to be endured most of the way home.

Crowder, contrary to his expectations, found Pancha in high good spirits.
When a piece failed she was wont to display that exaggerated
discouragement peculiar to the artist. Tonight, sitting in front of her
mirror, she was as confident and smiling as she had been in the first
week of "The Zingara."

"I'm glad to see you're taking it so well," he said. "It's pretty hard
following on a big success."

"Oh, it's all in the day's work. You can't hit the bull's eye every time.
The management are going to dig down into their barrel next week, hunting
for another gypsy rôle. They want me again in my braids and my spangles.
They liked my red and orange--Spanish colors for the Spanish girl."

She flashed her gleaming smile at him and he thought how remarkably well
she was looking, getting handsomer every day. Her words recalled
something he had wanted to ask her and had forgotten.

"Talking of red and orange, how about that anonymous guy that sent you
the flowers? You remember, back in the autumn--a lot of roses with a
motto he got out of a Christmas cracker?"

She had her comb in her hand and dropped it, leaning down to scratch
round for it on the floor.

"Oh, _him_--he's just petered out."

"Did you find out who he was?"

Up to this Pancha had been nearly as truthful with Crowder as she was
with her father. But now a time had come when she felt she must lie. That
secret intimacy, growing daily dearer and more dangerous, could not be
confessed. Crowder had been mentor as well as friend and she feared not
only his curiosity but his disapproval. He would argue, plead, interfere.
She disliked what she had to say, and as she righted herself, comb in
hand, her face was flushed.

"Yes, a chap from the East. He just admired from afar and went his way."

"Oh, he's gone." Crowder was satisfied. "Seen your father lately?"

"No, but I had a letter to say he'd be down soon."

The color in her face deepened. She knew that her father would ask even
more searching questions than Crowder and she was prepared to lie to him.
Biting her lip at the thought, she looked down the long spray of lashes
defined on her cheeks. Crowder stared at her, impressed anew by that
suggestion of radiant enrichment in her appearance.

"I say, old girl," burst from him, "do you know you're looking
something grand."

She raised her lids and let her glance rest on him, soft and deep. It was
a strange look to come from Pancha's bold, defiant eyes.

"Am I?" she said gently. "I guess I'm happy, that's all."

"Well, it's powerful becoming, believe me. And why are you, especially
with 'The Gray Lady' a frost?"

She rose, the red kimono falling straight about her lithe, narrow shape,
then stretched, a slow spread of arms, languid and catlike. Pressing her
hands on her eyes she said from smiling lips:

"Oh, there's no particular reason. It just happens so. I'm getting to
feel sure of myself--that's what, I guess. Now run along, old son, I'm
sleepy. 'The Gray Lady' does it to me as well as the audience.
Good-night."

Crowder was not the only one who had noticed Pancha's improved looks and
high spirits. Behind the scenes the failure of "The Gray Lady" had
produced dejection and rasped tempers. She alone seemed to escape the
prevailing gloom. She came in at night smiling, left a trail of notes
behind her as she walked to her dressing room, and from there clear
scales and mellow bars rose spasmodically as she dressed. Usually holding
herself aloof, she was friendly, made jokes in the wings, chatted with
the chorus, and when she left the old doorkeeper was warmed by her gay
good-night.

Her confreres were puzzled; it was quite a new phase. They had not
liked Miss Lopez at first; she gave herself airs and had a bad temper.
Once she had slapped a chorus woman who had spoiled her exit; at a
rehearsal she had been so rude to the tenor the stage manager had had
to call her down and there had been a fight. Now they wondered and
whispered--under circumstances conducive to ill-humor she was as sweet
as honey dropping from the comb. They set it down to temperament;
everybody from the start had seen she had it, and anyway there wasn't
anything else to set it down to.

What they saw was only a gleam, a thin shining through of the glory
within. It irradiated, permeated, illumined her, escaping in those smiles
and words and snatches of song because she could not hold it in. As she
had told Crowder, she was happy, and she had never been before. She came
out of sleep to the warming sense of it. It stayed with her all day, fed
on a note, a telephone message, a gift of flowers, fed on nothing but her
own thoughts.

It was the happiness found in little of one who has been starved,
nourished by trifles, tiny seeds flowering into growths that touched the
sky. She did not see Mayer as often as formerly and when she did their
talk was on other things than love. In fact he was rather shy of the
subject, did not repeat his kiss, was more comrade than wooer. But he
sought her, he had told her why and that was enough. What he had said she
believed, not alone because it seemed the only reasonable explanation of
his actions, but because she wanted to believe it. He had come, a
nonchalant wayfarer, and grown to care, said at last the words she was
longing to hear, and, hearing, she felt them true and was satisfied.

And then she had drifted, content to rest in the complete comfort of her
belief. The moment was enough, and she stood on the summit of each one,
swaying in blissful balance. Vaguely she knew she was moving on a final
moment, on a momentous, ultimate decision, and she neither cared nor
questioned. Like a sleepwalker she advanced, inevitably drawn, seeing a
blurred dazzle at the path's end in which she would finally be absorbed.

Everything that had made her Pancha Lopez, familiar to herself, was gone.
She was somebody else, somebody filled with a brimming gladness, with no
room for any other feeling. Her old, hard self-sufficiency seemed a poor,
bleak thing, her high head was lowered and gloried in its abasement. All
the fierce, combative spirit of the past had vanished; even her work,
heretofore her life, was executed automatically and pushed aside, an
obstruction between herself and the sight and thought of Mayer. The laws
that had ruled her conduct, the pride that had upheld her, melted like
cobwebs before the sun. She lived to please a man she thought loved her
and that she loved to the point where honor had become an empty word and
self-respect transformed to self-surrender. Whatever he would ask of her
she was ready to give. The Indian's blood prompted her to the squaw's
impassioned submission, the outlaw's to a repudiation of the law and the
law's restraints.

Early in January her father came down and when he asked her about Mayer
she lied as she had to Crowder. She told him she still saw the man but
that his devotion had lapsed, giving evidence of a languishing interest.
When she saw her father's relief she had qualms, but her lover's voice on
the phone, asking her to dine with him that night, dispersed them. All
the lies in the world then didn't matter to Pancha.

So she drifted, not caring whither, only caring that she should see
Mayer, listen to him, dwell on his face, try to catch his wish before it
was spoken. Her outer envelope was the same, performed the same tasks,
lived in the same routine, but a new creature, a being of fire, dwelt
within it.




CHAPTER XIV

THE NIGHT RIDER


February had been a month of tremendous rains. Days of downpour were
succeeded by days of leaden skies and damp, brooding warmth, and then the
clouds opened again and the downpour was renewed. Along the Mother Lode
the rivers ran bank-high and the camps sat in lagoons, the sound of
running water rising from the old flumes and ditches. Down every gully
that cut the foothills came streams, loud-voiced and full of haste as
they rushed under the wooden bridges.

It was a night toward the end of the month, no rain falling now, but the
sky sagging low with a weight of cloud. An eye trained to such obscurity
could have made out the landscape in looming degrees of darkness, masses
rising against levels, the fields a shade lighter than the trees. These
were discernible as huddlings and blots and caverned blacknesses into
which the road dove and was lost. To the left the chaparral rose from the
trail's edge in dense solidity, exhaling rich earth scents and the
aromatic breath of pine and bay. The roadbed was torn to pieces, ruts
knee-high; the stones, washed loose of soil, ringing to the blow of a
moving hoof.

A rider, advancing slowly, had noticed this and with a jerk of his rein,
directed his horse to the oozy grass along the side. Here, noiseless,
man and beast passed, a moving blackness against stationary black,
leaves and branches brushing against them. Neither heeded this; both
were used to rough ways and night traveling and to each every foot of
the road was familiar.

Under a roof of matted branches they drew up; the horse, the reins loose,
stretched its neck, blowing softly from widened nostrils. The man took a
match box from his pocket, struck a light and looked at his watch--it was
close on ten. The flame, breaking out in a red spurt, gilded the limbs of
the overarching trees, the glistening leaves, the horse's glossy neck and
the man's face. It glowed beneath the brim of his hat like a portrait
executed on a background of velvet varnished by the match's gleam--it was
the face of Garland the outlaw.

His hand again on the rein sent its message and the horse padded
softly on through the arch of trees to the open road. Had it been
brighter Garland could have seen to the right rolling country, fields
sprinkled with oak domes, falling away to the valley, to the left the
chaparral's smothering thickness. Between them the road passed, a pale
skein across the backs of the foothills, connecting camps and little
towns. Farther on the Stanislaus River, rushing down from the Sierra,
would crook its current, to run, swift and turbulent, beyond the
screen of alders and willows.

The road ascended, and on a hillcrest he again halted and looked back,
listening. Unimpeded by trees, the thick air holding all sound close to
the earth, he could hear far-distant noises. The bark of a dog came
clear--that was from Alec Porter's ranch on the slopes toward the
valley. Facing ahead he caught, faint and thin, the roar of the Crystal
Star's stamp mill. Over to the right--the road would loop down toward it
at the next turning--was Columbus, gutted and dying slowly among its
abandoned diggings.

He avoided this turn, taking a branch trail that slanted through the
thicket, wet leaves slapping against him, the horse's hoofs sucking into
the spongy turf. It was still and dark, the air drenched with the odors
of mossed roots and pungent leaves. When he emerged, the lights of
Columbus shone below, a small sprinkling of yellow dots gathered about
the central brightness of the Magnolia Saloon. The night was so still he
could hear the voices of roysterers straggling home.

Presently the rushing weight of the Stanislaus River swept along the
nearby bank. He could hear the rustle of its current, the wash of its
waves sucking and nosing on the stones; feel the breath of its swollen
tide chilled by mountain snows. It was up to the alder bushes, nearly
flood high, cutting him off from a detour he had hoped to make--he would
have to ride through San Marco. He put a spur to his horse and took it
boldly, hoping the mud would dull the sound of his passage. The cabins
and shacks that fringed the town were dark but in the main street there
were lights, from the ground floor of the Mountain Hotel where he caught
a glimpse of shirt-sleeved men playing cards, from the Pioneer Saloon,
whence the jingling notes of a piano issued. There was less mud than he
had expected and the thud of his flying hoofs was flung from wall to wall
and called out a burst of barking dogs, and a startled face behind a
drawn curtain in a red-lit cabin window.

Then away into the darkness--round Chinese Crossing, under the eaves
of the spreading plant of the Northern Light, up a hill and down on
the other side through a tunnel of trees to the Stanislaus Ferry. As
he passed into their hollow he could hear the thunder of the Lizzie
J's stamps across the river, beating gigantic on the silence, shaking
the night.

The stream showed a flat space between bulwarked hills, one yellow
spot--the light in the ferryman's window--shining like an eye unwinking
and vigilant. Garland's hail was answered from within the shack, and the
ferryman came out, a dog at his heels, a lantern in his hand. There was a
short conference, and the lantern, throwing golden gleams on the ground,
swung toward the flat boat, the horse following, his steps, precise and
careful, ringing hollow on the wooden boards.

They slid out into the current, the boat vibrating to the buffets of
little waves, the dog running from side to side, barking excitedly. The
ferryman, the lantern lifted, took a look at his passenger.

"Mighty wet weather we're having," he said.

"Terrible. Don't ever remember it worse."

The light of the lantern fell on the horse's mud-caked legs.

"Looks as if you'd rid quite a ways."

"From this side of Jackson."

"That's some ride. Guess y'ain't met many folks."

"Not many. Staying indoors this weather, all that can."

"Belong round here?"

"No--back up toward the Feather."

They were in midstream, the scow advancing with a tremulous motion,
spray springing across its low edges and showering the men. The dog,
who had come to a standstill, his forepaws on the gunnel, his face
toward Garland, suddenly broke into a furious barking. Garland shifted
in his saddle.

"What's got your dog?" he said gruffly. "He ain't afraid, is he?"

"Afraid? Don't know the meanin' of the word. Don't mind him--it's his
way; lived so long with me he acts sort of notional. Some days he'll bark
like now at a passenger and then again he won't take no notice. Just
somethin' about you, can't tell what, but he scents somethin' that makes
him act unfriendly."

"What do you suppose it is?" growled the other.

The ferryman laughed.

"Oh, you can't ever tell about them animals--they got a thinkin' outfit
of their own. Goin' far?"

"To Angels."

"Well, hope you'll get there all right. Sort of black weather to be
traveling specially if you got money on you. Knapp and Garland's bound to
get busy soon."

It was the passenger's turn to laugh.

"I'm not the sort they're after. It's big business for them. Ever
seen 'em?"

"Search me. I guess mebbe I've taken 'em acrost, but how was I to know?"

The scow bumped against its landing and man and horse embarked. There was
an interchange of rough good-nights, interrupted by the dog's frenzied
barking. As the boat pulled out into the stream, the ferryman called back
above the noise of the water:

"Looks like he had somethin' on you. I ain't ever seen him act so ugly
before." Then to the dog, "Quit that, Tim, or I'll bust your jaw."

Garland mounted the slope. The sound of the river behind him was drowned
by the roar of the Lizzie J's mill. Its rampart-like wall towered above
him, cut by the orange squares of windows, the thunder of its stamps, a
giant's feet crushing out the gold, pounding tremendous on the nocturnal
solitude. As the horse snorted upward, digging its hoofs among the
loosened stones, he looked up at it. Millions had been made there;
millions were still making. Men in distant cities were being enriched by
the golden grains beaten free by those giant feet. Once he had thought
that he, too, might ravish the earth's treasure, become as they were by
honest labor.

An unexpected surge of depression suddenly rose upon him. He set it down
to the barking of the dog, for, after the manner of those who lead the
lonely lives of the outlawed, he was superstitious. He believed in signs
and portents, lucky streaks, the superior instinct of animals, and as he
rode he brooded uneasily. Did it simply mean menace, or had the brute
known him for what he was and tried to warn his master?

He muttered an oath and told himself, as he had done often of late, that
he was growing old. Time and disappointment were wearing on the nerve
that had once been unbreakable. In the past he had seen his path going
unimpeded to its goal; now he recognized the possibility of failure, saw
obstructions, crept cautious where he had formerly strode undismayed,
hesitated where he had once leaped. He jerked himself upright and
expelled his breath in an angry snort. This was no time for such musings.
At Sheeps Bar, ten miles farther on, he was to meet Knapp and plan for
the holdup of the stage that tomorrow night would carry treasure to the
Cimarroon Mine at North Fork.

It was after midnight when the few faint lights of Sheeps Bar came into
view. The place was small, a main street flanked by frame houses, a
wooden arcade jutting over the sagging sidewalk. Sleep held it; blank
windowpanes looked over the arcade's roof, the one bright spot the
oblong of light that shone from the transom over the door of the
Planters Hotel. Mindful of dogs he kept to the soft earth near the
sidewalk, shooting glances left and right. But Sheeps Bar was dead;
there was not a stir of life as he passed, not the click of a latch, not
a face at door or window.

Beyond the arcade the town broke into a scattering of detached houses.
The last of these, a one-story cabin staggering to its fall on the edge
of a stream, sent forth a pale ray from a wide, uncurtained window.
Across the pane, painted in blue, were the words "Hop Sing, Chinese
Restaurant," and within the light of a kerosene lamp showed a bare
whitewashed room set forth in tables and having at one end a small
counter and cash register. On the window ledge stood a platter of tomales
and a pile of oranges.

Garland drew up, listened, then dropped off his horse and led it toward
the hovel. Before he reached it a side door opened and a head was
thrust out. A whispered hail passed and the owner of the head
emerged--a Chinaman, shadow-thin and shadow-noiseless. He slipped
through the wet grass and with an "All 'ighty, boss," that might have
been a murmur of the stirred leaves, took the horse and disappeared
with it toward a rear shed.

Garland went to the cabin. The room which he entered opened into the
restaurant and was the Chinaman's den. Its only furniture was a bunk with
a coil of dirty blankets, a chair and table, on which stood an adding
machine, the balls running on wires. Near it was the ink well and bamboo
pen and small squares of paper covered with Chinese characters. One door
led into the restaurant and another into the kitchen. In this room, lit
by a wall lamp, its window giving on a tangled growth of shrubs, sat
Knapp sprawled before the stove.

Their greetings were brief, and drawing up to the table they began the
plans for the next night's work. Through the window the air came cool and
moist, fighting with the odors of cooking and the rank, stifling Chinese
smell. On the silence without rose the horses' soft whinnyings to one
another and then the Chinaman's returning passage through the grass and
the rasp of the closing door. He put a bottle and glasses before the men,
slipped speechless into the restaurant, and returned, an animated shadow,
with the lamp in his hand. This he set on the table in his own room, and
sitting before it, began moving the balls in the adding machine. Upon the
low voices in the kitchen, the dry click of the shifted balls broke in
sharp staccato, followed by pauses when, with a hand as delicate as a
woman's, he traced the Chinese characters on the paper.

It was he who heard first. His hand, raised to move a line of the balls,
hung suspended, his eyes riveted in an agate-bright stare on the wall
opposite. He half rose; his meager body stiffened as if the muscles had
suddenly become steel; his face turned in wild question to the room
beyond. He was up and had hissed a terrified, "Look out, boss, someone
come!" when a rending blow fell on the door.

For a breath there was stillness, then pandemonium--a sudden burst of
action following on a moment of paralysis, an explosion of sound and
movement. It all came together--the breaking in of the door, the
rat-like rush of the men, the crash of falling furniture, of shivered
glass, of dark, scrambling figures, and the blinding flash of a
revolver. The Chinaman's face, ape-like in its terror, showed above the
blankets of his bunk, Knapp lay on the ground caught by the falling
table, and in the window jagged edges of glass and a trail of blood on
the sill showed the way Garland had gone. In the doorway the sheriff
stood with his leveled revolver, while the voices and trampling of men
came from the shrubs outside.




CHAPTER XV

THE LAST DINNER


It was depressing weather, rain, rain, and then again rain. For two weeks
now, off and on, people had looked out through windows lashed with fine
spears or glazed with watery skins which endlessly slipped down the pane.
Muddy pools collected and spread across the street, the cars that drove
through them sending the water in fan-like spurts from their wheels. Down
the high, cobbled hills rivulets felt their way and grass sprouted
between the granite blocks. A gray wall shut in the city, which showed
dimly under the downpour, gardens blossoming, roof shining beyond roof,
wet wall dripping on wet wall.

From his parlor window in the Argonaut Hotel, Boyé Mayer looked down on
the street's swimming length, and then up at the sky's leaden pall. It
was not raining now but there was no knowing when it might begin again.
He yawned and stretched, then looked at his watch--half-past four. What
should he do for the rest of the afternoon?

Several times during the last month this problem of time to be passed
had presented itself. The rain had cut him off from stately promenades
on the sunny side of the street and the diversions of San Francisco had
grown stale from familiarity. The bloom of his adventure was tarnished;
he was becoming used to riches, and comfort had lost its first, fine,
careless rapture. It was not that he was actually bored, but he saw, as
things were going, he might eventually become so, especially if the
rain continued. So far, the green tables and Pancha had held _off_ this
undesired state, but like all attractive pastimes both had their
dangers. His luck at the green tables had been so bad that he had
resolved to give them up, and that made the menace of boredom loom
larger. Life in San Francisco in the height of the wet season, with
cards denied him and Pancha only to be visited occasionally, was not
what it had promised to be.

He had thought of leaving, going to the South, and then decided against
it. There were several reasons why it was better for him to stay. One was
the money in Sacramento. This had become an intruding matter of worry and
indecision. It was not only that the store was so greatly diminished--his
losses had made astonishing inroads in it--but he feared its discovery
and he hated his trips there. He always spent a night in the place, on a
stone-hard bed in a dirty, unaired room, and in his shabby clothes was
forced to patronize cheap eating houses where the fare sickened him. He
managed it very adroitly, carrying in his old suitcase the hat, coat,
shoes and tie he had bought in Sacramento, changing into them in the
men's washroom in the Sacramento depot, and emerging therefrom the Harry
Romaine who rented room 19 in the Whatcheer House.

Of course there was danger of detection, and faced by this and the memory
of his discomfort on the train down, he told himself he would certainly
move the money. But back in the Argonaut Hotel his resolution weakened.
Where would he move it to? He could bank it in San Francisco, but here
again there were perils, of a kind he dreaded even more than the
Sacramento trips. There was that question of references, and he feared
the eyes of men, honest men, business men. He kept away from them; they
were shrewd, bitterly hostile to such as he. So he invariably slipped
back into a state where he said he must do something, waited until he had
only a few dollars left, then, cursing and groaning, pulled the old
clothes out of his trunk, packed his battered suitcase and told Ned
Murphy he was going into the interior "on business."

But outside all these lesser boredoms and anxieties there was another
bigger than all the rest and growing every day: After the money was
gone, what?

It was a question that, in the past, he would have sheered away from as a
horse shies from an obstacle intruding on a pleasant road. But time had
taught him [Note: last word, 'far-righted' must be a typo] many
things--the picaroon was becoming far-sighted; the grasshopper had
learned of the ant. The spring of his youth was gone; the renewal of the
old struggle too horrible to contemplate. And he would have to
contemplate it or decide on something to forestall it. That was what he
had been thinking about for the past week, shut up in his hotel room, his
hands deep in his pockets, his eyes morosely fixed on space.

At the Alston dinner an idea had germinated in his mind. It was only a
seed at first, then it began to grow and had now assumed a definite
shape. At first he had toyed with it, viewed it from different angles as
something fantastic and irrelevant, but nevertheless having a piquancy of
its own. Then his ill-luck and that necessary facing of the situation
made him regard it more closely, compelled him to award it a serious
consideration. He did not like it; it had almost no point of appeal; it
was not the sort of thing, had chance been kinder, he would ever have
contemplated. But it was inescapable, the angel with the flaming sword
planted in his path.

Reluctant, with dragging feet, he had gone to call on the Alston girls.
There had been several visits before that in return for continued
hospitalities; but this was the first of what might be called a second
series, the first after the acceptance of his idea. It had driven him to
it, hounded him on like Orestes hounded by the furies. When he got there
he saw behind the hounding the hand of fate, for instead of finding both
sisters at home or both sisters out, he found Chrystie in and alone. She
had talked bashfully, a shy-eyed novice with blush-rose cheeks and
fingers feeling cold in the pressure of farewell. The hand of fate
pointed to her. If it had been the other sister the hand would have
pointed in vain. From the start he had felt the fundamental thing in
Lorry--character, brain, vision, whatever you like to call it--upon which
his flatteries and blandishments would have been fruitless, arrows
falling blunted against a glittering armor. But this child, this
blushing, perturbed, unformed creature, as soft and fiberless as a skein
of her own hair, was fruit for his plucking.

That was his idea.

He had brooded on it all the week, hearing the rain drumming on the roof
outside, smoking countless cigarettes, harassed, balky and beaten. He
thought of it now, his hands deep in his pockets, his chest hollowed, his
sullen eyes surveying the hill opposite, up which a cable car crawled
like a large wet beetle. He watched the car till it dipped over the
summit and there was nothing to see but the two shining rails, and the
glistening roofs and the shrouded distance. It was like his idea,
inexpressibly dreary, a forlorn, monotonous, gray shutting out what once
had been a bright, engaging prospect.

He looked again at his watch--not yet half past five--at least an hour to
pass before dinner. The green tables began to call, and he turned from
the window to the dusk of the room, tempted and restless. He must do
something or he would answer the call, and he searched his resources for
a diversion at once enlivening and inexpensive. The search brought up on
Pancha. She and her mysteries were always amusing; her love flattered
him; blues and boredom died in her presence. Dangerous she could be, but
dangerous he would not let her be--his was the master mind, cold,
self-governing, and self-sure. One more swing around the circle with
Pancha and then good-by. Soon he "would give his bridle rein a shake
beside the river shore." At that he laughed--"river shore" aptly
described San Francisco under present conditions--and laughing went to
the telephone and called her up. He caught her at rehearsal and made a
rendezvous for dinner in the banquet room at Solari's.

Solari's was a small Italian restaurant in the business quarter which had
gained fame by the patronage of the local illuminati known to press and
public as "Bohemians." They foregathered nightly there, the plate glass
window giving a view of them, conspicuously herded at a large central
table, to interested passersby. To the right of the window was a door,
giving on a narrow staircase which led up to the second floor and what
Solari called his "banquet room." Here on state occasions the Bohemians
entertained celebrities, secretly fretted by the absence of their
accustomed audience. They had decorated the walls with samples of their
art, and when Eastern visitors came to Solari's, they were always taken
up there, and expected to say that San Francisco reminded them of Paris.
Mayer liked the place and had dined there several times with Pancha,
always in the banquet room. There were newspaper men among the Bohemians
who would have found material in the simultaneous appearance of the
picturesque Mr. Mayer and the Albion's star.

He had ordered the dinner, had the fire lighted and the table spread when
she came. She had run up the stairs and was out of breath, bringing in a
whiff of the night's fresh dampness, and childishly glad to be there. She
made no attempt to hide it, laughing as she slid out of her coat and
tossed her hat on a chair. With her feet in their worn, high-heeled shoes
held out to the fire, her hands rosily transparent against the blaze, she
filled the room with a new magic and charm, sent waves of well-being
through it. They warmed and lifted Mayer from his worries, and he was
nearly as glad that he had asked her to come as she was to obey his
summons. In his relief that she was able to dissipate his gloom, he
forgot his caution and laughed with her, the laugh of the lover rejoicing
in the sight of his lady.

The dinner was good and they were merry over it. Under the shaded light
above the table he could see her color fluctuate and the quick droop of
her eyes as they met his, and these evidences of his power added to his
enjoyment. The inhibition he had put upon himself was for the time
lifted, and he spoke softly, caressingly, words that made the rose in her
cheeks burn deeper and her voice tremble in its low response. Always
keener in his chase of money than of women, his cold blood was warmed and
he permitted himself to grow tender, safe in the thought that this would
be their last dinner.

At seven she had to go, frankly reluctant, making no pretense to hide
her disinclination. She rose and went to where her coat lay over a
chair, but he was before her, and snatching it up held it spread for her
enveloping. With her arms outstretched she slid into it, then felt him
suddenly clasp her. Weakened, like a body from which the strength has
fled, she drooped against him, her head fallen back on his shoulder. He
leaned his cheek against hers, rubbing it softly, then bending lower
till he found her lips.

Out of his arms she steadied herself with a hand on the mantelpiece, the
room blurred, no breath left her for speech. For a moment the place was
noiseless save for the small, friendly sounds of the fire. Then she asked
the woman's eternal question,

"Do you love me?"

"What do you think?" he said, surprised to hear his voice shaken
and husky.

"Oh, Boyé," she cried and turned on him, clasping her hands against her
heart, a figure of tragic intensity, "is it true? Do you mean it?"

He nodded, silent because he was not sure of what to say.

"It's not a lie? It's not just to get me because I'm Pancha Lopez who's
never had a lover?"

"My dear girl!" he gave his foreign shrug. "Why all this unbelief?"

"Because it's natural, because I can't help it. I want to trust, I want
to believe--but I'm afraid, I'm afraid of being hurt." She raised her
clasped hands and covered her face with them. From behind their shield
her voice came muffled and broken, "I couldn't stand that. I've never
cared before, I never thought I would--anyway not like this. It's come
and got me--it's got me down to the depths of my heart."

"Why, Pancha," he said, exceedingly uneasy, sorry now he'd asked her,
sorry he'd come. "What's the sense of talking that way--don't be so
tragic. This isn't the stage of the Albion."

"No, it's not." She dropped her hands and faced him. "It's real
life--it's _my_ real life. It's the first I've ever had." And suddenly
she went to him, caught his arm, and pressing against it looked with
impassioned eyes into his.

"Do you love me--not just to flirt and pay compliments, but truly--to
want me more than any woman in the world? Tell me the truth."

Her eyes held his, against his arm he could feel the beating of her
heart. Just at that moment the truth was the last thing he could tell.

"Little fool," he said softly, "I love you more than you deserve."

Her breath came with a sob; she drooped her head and, resting her face
against his shoulder, was still.

Over her head he looked at the fire, with his free hand gently caressing
her arm. He did not want to say any more. What he wanted was to get away,
slide out of range of her eyes and her questions. It was his own fault
that the interview had developed in a manner undesired and unintended,
but that did not make him any the less anxious to end it. Presently she
lifted her head and drew back from him. Stealing a look at her, he saw
she was pale and that her eyes were wet. She put her fingers on them,
pressing on the lids, her lips set close, her breast shaken.

In dread of another emotional outburst he looked at his watch and said in
a brisk, matter-of-fact tone,

"Look here, young woman, this is awfully jolly, but I don't want to be
the means of making trouble for you at the Albion. Won't you be late?"

She started and came to life, throwing a bewildered glance about her
for her hat.

"Yes, I'd forgotten. I must hurry. It takes me an hour to make up."

Immensely relieved, he handed her the hat, saw her put it on with
indifferent pulls and pats, and followed her to the door. At the top of
the stairs he pushed by her with a laughing,

"Here, let me go first. It's my job to lead."

She drew aside, and as he passed her he caught her eyes, lighted with a
soul-deep tenderness, the woman's look of surrender. Then as he descended
a step below her, she leaned down and brushed her cheek along his
shoulder, a touch light as the passage of a bird's wing.

"It's my job to follow where you lead," she whispered.

They went down the narrow staircase crowded close together, arm against
arm, silent. In the doorway she turned to him.

"Don't come with me. I want to be alone. I want to understand what's
happened to me. You can think of me going through the streets and saying
over and over, 'I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy--' And you can think
it's because of you I'm saying it."

She was gone, a small, dark figure, flitting away against the glistening
splotches of light that broke on the street's wet vista.

Not knowing what else to do, Mayer walked home. He was angry with
everything--with Pancha, with himself, with life. He thought of her
without pity, savage toward her because he had to put her away from him.
Joy came to him with outstretched hands, and he had to turn his back on
it; it made him furious. He was exasperated with himself because so much
of his money was gone, and he had to do what he didn't want to do. The
money instead of making things easier had messed them into an enraging
tangle. Life always went against him--he saw the past as governed by a
malevolent fate whose business had been a continual creating of pitfalls
for his unwary feet.

One thing was certain, he must have done with Pancha. Fortunately for
him, it would not be hard. He would give his bridle rein a shake beside
the river shore, and let the fact that he had gone sink into her, not in
a break of brutal suddenness, but by slow, illuminating degrees. For if
he was to carry out his idea--and there was nothing else to be
done--there must be no entanglements with such as Pancha. He must be
foot-loose and free, no woman clinging to that shaken bridle rein with
passionate, restraining hands.

Cross and dispirited he entered the hotel and mounted to his room. He
was beginning to hate it, its hideous hotel furniture, the memory of
hours of ennui spent there. Against his doorsill the evening paper lay,
and picking it up he let himself in and lighted the gas. On the mantel
the small nickel clock seemed to start out at him, insolently
proclaiming the hour, half past seven. He groaned in desperation and
cast the paper on the table. It had been folded once over, and as it
struck the marble, fell open. Across the front page in glaring black
letters he read the words,

"Knapp, the bandit, caught at Sheeps Bar."




CHAPTER XVI

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY


That night Mayer could not sleep. He kept assuring himself there was
nothing to fear, yet he did fear. Dark possibilities rose on his
imagination--in his excitement at finding the treasure he might have
left something, some betraying mark or object. Was there any way in
which the bandits could have obtained a clew to his identity; could they
have guessed, or discovered by some underground channel of espionage,
that he was the man who had robbed them? Over and over he told himself
it was impossible, but he could not lift from his spirit a dread that
made him toss in restless torment. With the daylight, his nerves
steadied, and a perusal of the morning papers still further calmed him.
Only one man had been caught--Knapp. Garland had broken through the
window, and with the darkness and his knowledge of the country to aid
him, had made his escape. The sheriff's bullet had not done its work; no
man seriously wounded could have eluded the speed and vigilance of the
pursuit. A posse was now out beating the hills, but with the long
stretch of night in his favor he had slipped through their fingers and
was safe somewhere in the chaparral or the mountains beyond. If his
friends could not help him, a force more implacable than sheriff or
deputy would bring him to justice: hunger.

The paper minutely described Knapp--young, thirty he said, a giant in
strength, and apparently simple and dull-witted. The game up, he accepted
the situation stoically and was ready to tell all he knew. Then followed
a summary of his career, his meeting with Garland six years before and
their joint activities. Of his partner's life where it did not touch his
he had no information to give. They met up at intervals, planned their
raids, executed them and then separated. He knew of Garland by no other
name, had no knowledge of his habitats or of what friends he had among
the ranchers and townspeople. His description of the elder man was
meager; all he seemed sure of was that Garland had once been a miner,
that he wanted to quit "the road," and that he was middle-aged, somewhere
around forty-five or it might be even fifty. Hop Sing, the Chinaman, was
equally in the dark as to the man who, the papers decided, had been the
brains of the combination. The restaurant keeper had merely been a humble
instrument in his strong and unscrupulous hand.

So far there was no mention of the cache in the tules. The reporters,
spilled out in the damp discomfort of the county seat, were filling their
columns with anything they could scrape together, but it was still too
early for them to have scraped more than the obvious, surface facts.
Mayer would have to wait. As he sat at the table, picking at his
breakfast, his mind darkly disturbed, he wondered if he had not better
get out, and then called himself a fool. He was secure, absolutely
secure. The man of the two who had had some capacity had escaped, and if
he had had the capacity of Napoleon how could he possibly have anything
to say that would involve Boyé Mayer?

So he soothed himself and, braced by a cup of coffee and a cold bath,
began to feel at ease. But he decided to keep to his room till he knew
more. If anything should happen he could break away quickly and he felt
safer under cover. Now, more than ever, he feared the eyes of honest men.

He had reached this decision when he suddenly remembered Pancha. The
thought of her came with an impact, causing him to stiffen and give forth
a low ejaculation. His mind ran with lightning speed over what he had
been reading, then flashed back to her. Was this man, this hulking
country Hercules, her "best beau," or was it the other one, Garland, the
one who had the brains, and who was old? It was more likely Knapp. He
could have come to the city, seen her play, been inspired by a passion
that made him daring, been her choice till Mayer had come and conquered.

Her place in the affair, overlooked in the first shock of his own alarms,
rose before him, formidable and threatening. A desire to see her, deeper
than any he had yet experienced, seized him. Her guard would be down;
with all her sly skill she could not deceive him now. She would be
frightened, she was in danger, she would betray herself. Even if she had
long ceased to care for the man, she might have some fears for him, and
how much more fears for herself? As he realized the perils of her
position, a faint, slow smile curved his lips. It was not of derision but
of a cynical comprehension. He saw her scared to the soul, scared of
discovery as Knapp's girl, who was aware of his business, who kept tab on
his comings and goings. For all anyone knew some of that money of hers,
so thriftily hoarded, might be part of the bandit's unlawful gains.

"Whew!" he breathed out. "She must be frozen to the marrow!"

But he did not dare go to her till he was more certain of how he
himself stood.

The next day was Sunday, and on the _Despatch's_ front page appeared
Knapp's picture and his story of the rifled cache. Licking along his dry
lips with a leathern tongue, Mayer read it and then cast the paper on the
floor and sank back in his chair in a collapse of relief. Neither man
had had any suspicion of the identity of the robber; all they knew was
that their hiding place had been discovered and the treasure stolen.

He was safe, safer than he had ever felt before. As the tramp, only two
people had seen him near the marshes, a child and a boy in a ranch yard.
Even if either of them should remember and speak of him in relation to
the theft, was there a human being who would connect that tramp with Boyé
Mayer, gentleman of leisure, in California for his health? He raised his
eyes and encountered his reflection in the mirror. Gathering himself into
an upright posture, he studied it, aristocratic, cold, immeasurably
superior; then, closing his eyes, he called up the image of himself as he
had been when he crossed the tules. No one, unless gifted with second
sight, could have recognized the one in the other. Dropping back in his
chair, he raised his glance to the floriated cement molding on the
ceiling, from which the chandelier depended, feeling as if borne by a
peaceful current into a shining, sunlit sea.

There was a performance at the Albion on Sunday night, but no rehearsal,
and in the gray of the afternoon he went across town to see Pancha.

He found her in a litter of dressmaking--lengths of material, old
costumes, bits of stage jewelry, patterns, gold lace, were outspread on
chairs, hung from the table, lay in bright rich heaps on the floor. The
shabby room, glowing with the lights on lustrous fabrics, the gloss of
crumpled silks, the glints and sweeps and sparklings of color, looked as
if in the process of transformation at the touch of a magician's wand. In
the midst of it--the enchanted princess still waiting for the wand's
touch--sat Pancha, in a faded blouse and patched skirt, sewing. Part of
her transformation was accomplished when she saw Mayer. If her clothes
remained the same, the radiance of her face was as complete as if the
spell was lifted and she found herself again a princess encountering her
long-lost prince.

His first glance fell away startled from that radiant face. There was
nothing on it or behind it but joy. He pressed a hand soft and clinging,
encircled a body that trembled under his arm and in which he could feel
the thudding of a suddenly leaping heart. Her eyes, searching his, shone
with a deep, pervasive happiness. She was nothing but glad, quiveringly,
passionately glad, moving in his embrace toward a chair, babbling
breathless greetings; she had not expected him, she was surprised, she
was--and the words trailed off, her face hidden against his arm.

It was far from what he had expected and he was thankful for that moment
when she stopped looking at him and he could master his surprise. It
nearly flooded up again when he saw the paper, news sheet on top, in a
pile by the sofa where it had evidently been thrown as she lay reading.

Presently he was in the armchair and she was moving about clearing
things away in a futile, incapable manner, darting like a perturbed bird
for a piece of silk, then dropping it and making a dive for a coil of
chiffon, which she pressed half into a drawer and left hanging over the
edge in a misty trail. As she moved, she continued her broken
babblings--excuses for the room's disorder, costumes for the new piece
to be made, all the time flashing looks at him, watchful, humble,
adoring, ready to come at his summons of word or hand. Finally, the
materials thrown into hiding places, the dresses heaped on the sofa, she
came toward him--a lithe, feline stealing across the carpet--and slipped
down on the floor at his feet.

"Well," he said, "what's the news?"

"There isn't any, except that I'm glad to see you."

She curled her legs under her tailor-fashion, and looked up at him.

"Nothing's happened to disturb the even tenor of your way?"

"Only rehearsals for the new piece and they don't bother me now.
That's all that ever happens to me, except for a gentleman caller now
and again."

She caught his eye, and, her hands clasped round one knee, swayed gently,
laughing in pure joy. He did not join in, adjusting his thoughts to this
new puzzle. Leaning against the chair back, the afternoon light yellow on
his high, receding temples and the backward brush of his hair, his look
was that of a fond, rather absent-minded amusement such as one awards to
the antics of a playful child. To anyone watching him his lack of
response would have suggested a preoccupation in more pregnant matters.
Receiving no answer, she went on:

"Only one gentleman caller, one sole alone gentleman, named Mayer, who, I
think, likes to come here." She paused, but again there was no answer and
she finished, addressing the carpet, "Or maybe I just imagine it, and he
only comes dull Sunday afternoons when there's nowhere else to go."

"Oh, silly, unbelieving child!" came his voice, slightly distrait it is
true, but containing sufficient of the lover's chiding tenderness to fill
her with delight.

But this was not what had brought him. The interview started, it was his
business now or never to solve the enigma. He stirred in his chair and,
raising a languid hand, pointed to the paper.

"I see you've been reading the _Despatch_."

"Um-um--this morning."

"Very good story, that one on the front page, about the bandit chap."

"Knapp? Yes, bully. They've got him at last. It was exciting, wasn't it?
Like a novel. I don't often read the papers, but I did read that."

She gave no evidence, either of agitation, or of any especial interest.
Unclasping her hands from about her knee, she turned a gold bracelet that
hung loose on her wrist, watching the light slide on its surface. Her
face was gently unconcerned, serene, almost pensive. The man's eyes
explored it, searched, scanned it for a betraying sign.

"Did you notice his picture? A pretty hard-looking customer."

She nodded, absently looking at the bracelet.

"He sure was, but they're not all as bad as that. Once down at
Bakersfield I saw a bandit. They caught him near a place where I lived
and the sheriff brought him in there. He looked like a rough sort of
rancher, nothing dangerous about him."

The expression of pensiveness deepened, increased by a sudden, disturbing
thought. Would she tell him about Bakersfield and the horrible life there
with Maria Lopez?

The temptation to be frank with him, to have no secrets, to let him
know her as she was, assailed her. She resolved upon it, drew a deep
breath and said,

"I never told you that I once lived in Bakersfield."

"There are lots of things you never told me. They seem to think the other
fellow--what's his name--Garland--has really made his escape."

The confession died on her lips. She was glad of it; she would tell him
later, some other time, he was too engrossed in the bandits now.

"I guess that's right. He's got up in the hills where there are ranchers
that'll help him."

"Would any rancher dare to help him now--wouldn't they be afraid to?"

"Not his kind. Country people aren't as dull as you'd think. I've seen a
lot of them, when I was a kid and lived round in small places. They act
sort of dumb, but some of them are awful smart behind it."

"Probably get their share of the loot."

"Sure. That would be the natural thing to keep them quiet, wouldn't it?"

Mayer murmured an assent and drew himself to the edge of his chair.

"I'd hate to be one of them the way things stand now! The law, when it
gets busy, has a pretty long arm."

"I guess it has," she agreed, toying with the bracelet.

"Anyone who has had any sort of dealings, been a friend or a confederate
of either of those fellows, is in a desperately ugly position."

She nodded. He leaned still further forward, his elbows on his knees, his
glance riveted on her.

"Suppose either of them had a wife or a sweetheart--and it's probable
they have--_that's_ the person the authorities will be after."

"Yes," she dropped the bracelet and looked away from him, her expression
dreamy, "it would be. They'll start right in to hunt for them. If they
got them, what would they do to them?"

"Do?" He suddenly stretched an index finger at her, pointing into her
face. "If they find a woman or a girl who's had any acquaintance or
intimacy with either Knapp or Garland they'll land her in jail so quick
she won't have time to think. Jail, young woman, and after that the third
degree. And if she's stood in with them--well, it'll be jail for a home
till she's served her term."

She pondered for a moment, then said softly,

"It wouldn't matter if she loved him."

"Jail wouldn't matter?"

Her glance had been fastened in meditation on the shadows of the room.
Now it shifted to him, rapt and luminous. She raised herself to her knees
and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Nothing would matter if he was her man. It would be great to stand by
him and suffer for him. It would be happiness to go to jail for him, to
die for him. There'd be only one thing that she'd be thinking about--that
would make her glad to do it--to know that he loved her, Boyé."

Eye holding eye, she drew him closer till her black-fringed lids lowered
and her face, held up to his, offered itself--a symbol of a fuller gift.

Gathering her in his arms, he rose and drew her to her feet. Pressed
against him, shaken by the beating of the heart that leaped at his touch,
she again breathed the eternal question, "Do you love me"--words that
come from under-layers of doubt in the despairingly impassioned.

He reassured her as the unloving man does, lying to get away, soothing
with kisses, eager to break loose from arms that are unwelcome and yet
tempt. He played his part like a true lover and at the door was genuinely
stirred when he saw there were tears in her eyes. He had not guessed she
could be so tender, that her hard exterior hid such depths of sweetness.
His parting embrace might have deceived a more love-learned woman, and he
left her with a slight, unwonted sense of shame in his heart.

Away from her, where he could think, he pushed the shame aside as he was
ready to push her. The fire she had kindled in him died; the woman he
had clasped and kissed ceased to figure as a being to desire and became
an enigma to solve.

The fate of the bandits had touched no vulnerable spot in her. She had
been unmoved by it. Even did she adore Mayer so ardently and completely
that his presence was an anodyne for every other thought, she would have
shown, she _must_ have shown, some disturbance. He had known women who
lived so utterly in the moment that the past lost its reality, was as
dissevered from the present as though it had never existed. Was she one
of these? Could her relation--whatever it was--with either of the outlaws
have been so erased from her consciousness that she could talk of his
danger with a face as unconcerned as the one she had presented to Mayer's
vigilant eye?

It was impossible. There would have been a betrayal, a quiver of memory,
a flash of apprehension--And suddenly, gripped by conviction, he stopped
in the street and stood staring down its length.

Night was coming, the gray spotted with lamps. Each globe a sphere of
pinkish yellow, they stretched before him in a line that marched into a
distance of mingled lights and more accentuated shadows. He looked along
them as if they were bearing his thoughts back over the past, every globe
a station in the retrospect, stage by stage advancing him toward a final
point of certainty.

She didn't know!

It formed in a sentence, detached and exclamatory, in his mind, and he
stood staring at the lamps, people jostling him and some of them turning
to look back.

Now that he had guessed it everything became clear. It was like a piece
of machinery suddenly supplied with a lacking wheel which moved it to
instant action. He walked forward, seeing all the disconnected elements
take their places, seeing the whole, harmonious, intelligently related
and extremely simple. That was what had led him astray. He was not used
to simple solutions; intricate byways, complex turnings and doublings,
were what he was trained to. Working along the familiar lines, he had
overlooked what should have been easily discerned.

The man loved her, wanted to stand well with her and had deceived her as
to his occupation. And it was the older one--Knapp's picture had been in
the paper, she had seen it and it had meant nothing to her. So it was
Garland, the chap with the brains, on toward fifty--but these mountain
men with their outdoor life and unspent energies held their youth long.
His imagination, stirred to unwonted activity, pictured him, an outcast,
hunted and hiding in the mountain wilderness. As he had smiled at the
thought of Pancha's terrors, he smiled now, and again it was a curving of
the lips that had no humor behind it. It was the bitter smile of an
understanding that has no sympathy and yet has power to comprehend.

As for himself, he was out of it, the mystery was solved and he could go
his way in peace of mind. It was a fortunate ending, come just in time.
There was no need now for any more folly or philandering. They were cut
off short, romance snipped by Fate's shears, a full stop put at the last
word of the sentence. He had no fears of Pancha, she knew too much to
make trouble, and anyway there was nothing for her to make trouble about.
He had treated her with a consideration that was nothing short of
chivalrous. Even if there had been anyone belonging to her to take him to
task he could defend his conduct as that of a Sir Galahad--and there
wasn't anyone.

He felt brisk, light, mettlesome. Troubles that had threatened were
dispersed; the future lay fair before him. Relieved of all
encumbering obstacles, it extended in clear perspective toward his
idea. With keen, contemplative eye he viewed it at the end of the
vista, calculating his distance, gathering his powers to cover it in a
swift dash, sure of his success.




CHAPTER XVII

THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING


One afternoon, a week later, Chrystie Alston was crossing Union Square
Plaza. It was beautiful weather, the kind that comes to San Francisco
after long spells of rain. Across the bay the distances were deep-hued
and crystal-clear, the hills clean-edged against a turquoise sky. Green
slopes showed below the dense olive of eucalyptus woods and around the
shore were the white clusterings of little towns. Where the water filled
in the end of a street's vista it was like an insert of blue enameling,
and from the city's high places Mount Diavolo could be seen, a pointed
gem, surmounting in final sharpness the hill's carven skyline.

Chrystie felt the exhilaration of the air and the sun, and walked with a
bounding, long-limbed swing. She was a glad and prosperous figure, silk
skirts swept by scintillant lights eddying back from the curves of her
hips, glossy new furs lying soft on her shoulders, and on her bosom--a
spot of purple--a bunch of violets. Her eyes were as clear as the sky,
and her hair, pressed down by the edge of a French hat, hung in a misty
golden tangle to her brows. No one needed to be told she was rich and
carefree. Her expensive clothes revealed the former, her buoyant step and
happy expression, the latter condition.

She was halfway across the Plaza when her progress suffered a check.
There was a drop in her swift faring, a poised moment of indecision.
During the halt her face lost its blithe serenity, showed a faltering
uncertainty, then stiffened into resolution. Inside her muff her hands
gripped, inside her bodice her heart jumped. Both these evidences of
agitation were hidden and that gave her confidence. Assuming an air of
nonchalance she moved forward, her gait slackened, her eyes abstractedly
shifting from the sky to the shrubs.

Boyé Mayer, advancing up the path, saw she had seen him and drew near,
watchfully amused. Almost abreast of him she directed her glance from
the shrubs to his face. Surprise at the encounter was conveyed by a
slight lifting of her brows, pleasure and greeting by a smile and
inclination of the head. Then she would have passed on, but he came to a
stop in front of her.

"Oh, don't go by as if you didn't want to speak to me," he said, and
pressed a hand that slid warm out of the new muff.

Standing thus in the remorseless sunshine she was really very handsome,
her skin flawless, her lips as red and smooth as cherries. And yet in
spite of such fineness of finish there was no magic about her, no allure,
no subtlety. Achieving graceful greetings he inwardly deplored it, noting
as he spoke how shy she was and how she sought to hide it under a crude
sprightliness. There was a shyness full of charm, a graceful gaucherie
delightful to watch as the gambolings of young animals. But Chrystie was
too conscious of herself and of him to be anything but awkward and
constrained.

She was going shopping, but when he claimed a moment--just a moment, he
saw her so seldom--went to the bench he indicated and dropped down on it.
Here, a little breathless, sitting very upright, her burnished skirts
falling deep-folded to the ground, she tried to assume the worldly
lightness of tone befitting a lady of her looks in such an encounter.

"Do you often go this way, through the Plaza?" he asked after they had
disposed of the fine weather.

"Yes, quite often. When it's a nice day like this I always walk downtown,
and it's shorter going through here."

"It's odd I haven't met you before. This is my regular beat, across here
about three and then out toward the Park."

"That's a long walk," Chrystie said. "You must like exercise."

"I do, but I also like taking little rests on the way. That is, when I
meet a lady"--his eye swept her, respectfully admiring--"who looks like a
goddess dressed by Worth."

She moved in her flashing silks, making them rustle.

"Oh, Mr. Mayer, how silly," was the best she could offer in response.

"Silly! But why?" His shoulders went up with that foreignness Chrystie
thought so bewitching. "Why is it silly to say what's true?"

"But you know it's not--it's just--er--" She wanted to retort with the
witty brilliance that the occasion demanded, and what she said was, "It's
just hot air and you oughtn't to."

Then she felt her failure so acutely that she blushed, and to hide it
buried her chin in her fur and sniffed at the violets on her breast.

His voice came, close to her ear, very kind, as if he hadn't noticed
the blush,

"Well, then, I'll express it differently. I'll say you're just charming.
Will that do?"

"I don't think I am. It sounds like someone smaller. I'm too big to be
charming."

That made him laugh, a jolly ringing note.

"Whatever _you_ think you are, _I_ think you're the most delightful
person in San Francisco."

The silks rustled again. Chrystie lifted her eyes from the violets to the
bench opposite from which two Italian women were watching with deep
interest this coquetting of the lordlings.

"Now you're making fun of me," she said, like a wounded child.

"Oh, dear lady," it was he who was wounded, misunderstood, hurt, "how
unkind and how untrue. Could I make fun of anyone I admired, I respected,
I--er--thought as much of as I do of you?"

She looked down at her muff. Just for a moment he thought her shyness was
quite winning.

"I don't know--I don't know you well enough. But you've been everywhere
and seen everything, and I must seem so--so--sort of stupid and like a
kid. I don't know what you think, but I know that's the way I feel when
I'm with you."

The Italian women were aware of a slight movement on the part of the
aristocratic gentleman which suggested an intention of laying his hand
upon that of the golden-haired lady. Then he evidently thought better of
it, and his hand dropped to the head of his cane. The golden-haired lady
had seen it, too, and affrighted slid her own into the shelter of her
muff. With down-drooped head she heard the cultured accents of the only
perfect nugget she had ever met murmur reproachfully.

"Now it's _you_ who are making fun of _me_. Why, _I'm_ the one who feels
stupid and tongue-tied. I'm the one who comes away from you abashed and
embarrassed. And why, do you suppose? Because I feel I've been with
someone who's so much finer than all the others. Not the pert, smart
girl of dinners and dances, but someone genuine and sincere and
sweet"--his glance touched the bunch of violets--"as sweet as those
violets you're wearing."

Chrystie experienced a feeling of astonishment, mixed with an uplifting
exaltation. Staring before her she struggled to adjust the familiar sense
of her shortcomings with this revelation of herself as a creature of
compelling charm. She was so thrilled she forgot her pose and murmured
incredulously,

"Really?"

"Very really. Why are you so modest, little Miss Alston?"

"I didn't know I was."

"Wonderfully so--amazingly so. But perhaps it's part of you. It is so
sometimes with a beautiful woman."

"Beautiful? Oh, no, Mr. Mayer."

"Oh, yes, Miss Alston."

Chrystie began to feel as if she was coming to life after a long period
of deadness. She had a consciousness of sudden growth, of expanding and
outflowering, of bursting into glowing bloom. A smile that she tried to
repress broke out on her lips, the repression causing it to be one-sided,
which gave it piquancy. She was invaded by a heady sense of exhilaration
and a new confidence, daring, almost reckless. It made it possible for
her to quell a rush of embarrassment and lead the conversation like a
woman of the world:

"You're mistaken about my being modest. Everybody who knows me well says
I'm spoiled."

"Who's spoiled you?"

"Lorry and Aunt Ellen and Fong."

She gave him a quick side glance, met his eyes, and they both laughed, a
light-hearted mingling of treble and bass.

The Italian women breathed deeply on their bench, aware that the
interchanged glances and chimed laughter had advanced the romance on its
happy way.

"Three people can't do any serious spoiling--there should be at least
four. Who's Fong?"

"Our Chinaman; he's been with us for centuries."

"Let me make the fourth. Put me on the list."

"I think you've put yourself there without being invited. Since we sat
down you've done nothing but pay me compliments."

"Never mind that. Here's a sensible suggestion: I'll judge myself if
you're spoiled and if I think you are I won't pay you one more. Isn't
that fair?"

"I think so."

"Very well. Of course I must know you better, have a talk with you before
I can be sure. How can we arrange that? Ah--I have it! Some bright
afternoon like this we might take a walk together."

"Yes, we could do that."

"We might go to the park--it's wonderful there on days like this."

She nodded and said slowly,

"And we could take Lorry."

"To be sure, if she'd care to come."

There was a slight pause and he saw by her profile there was doubt
in her mind.

"I don't know about her caring. Lorry doesn't like walking much."

"Then why ask her to do it?"

She stroked her muff, evidently discomfited.

"Well, you see, it's this way, I don't think Lorry'd like me to go with
you alone."

"But why?" He drew himself up from the bench's back, his tone surprised,
slightly offended. "Surely having invited me to her house, she could
have no objection to my going for a stroll with you?"

"No, no--" Her discomfort was obvious now. "It isn't _you_. It's just
that father was very particular and Lorry always tries to do what he
would have liked."

"My dear young lady, your father's been dead a good many years. Things
have changed since then; the customs of his day are not the customs of
ours. Of course I wouldn't suggest that you go counter to your sister's
wishes, but"--he turned away from her, huffy, head high, a gentleman
flouted in his pride--"it's rather absurd from my point of view. Oh,
well, we'll say no more about it."

Chrystie was distracted. It was not only the humiliation of appearing
out of date and provincial; it was something much worse than that. She
saw Boyé Mayer retiring in majestic indignation and not coming back,
leaving her at this first real blossoming of their friendship because
Lorry had ideas that the rest of the world had abandoned with hoop
skirts and chignons.

"Why, why," she stammered, alarm pushing her to the recklessness of the
desperate, "couldn't we go and not tell her? It's--it's--just a prejudice
of Lorry's--no one else feels that way. The Barlow girls, who've been
very strictly brought up, go walking and even go to the theater
with"--she was going to say "their nuggets" and then changed with a gasp
to--"the men their mother asks to her parties."

So Chrystie, guileless and subjugated, assisted in the development of the
Idea. She made an engagement to meet Mr. Mayer four days later in the
Plaza and go with him to see the orchids in the park greenhouse. The Holy
Spirit orchid was in bloom and she had never seen it. A flower with such
a name as the Holy Spirit seemed to Chrystie in some way to shed an
element of propriety if not righteousness over the adventure.

It was when they were sauntering toward the end of the Plaza that a
woman, coming up a side street, saw them. She was about to cross when her
eye, ranging over the green lawns, brought up on them and she stopped,
one foot advanced, its heel knocking softly against the curbstone. As the
two tall figures moved her glance followed them, her head slowly turning.
She watched them cross the intersection of the streets, lights chasing
each other up and down the lady's waving skirt and gilding the web of
golden hair; she watched them pass by a show window, its glassy surface
holding their bright reflections; she watched their farewells at the door
of a large shop which finally absorbed the lady. Then she faced about,
and walked toward the Albion, where a rehearsal was awaiting her.

That afternoon a week had passed since Pancha had seen her lover.

During the first three days of it she experienced a still and perfect
peace. She did not want to see him; she had reached a point of complete
assurance and was glad to wait there, rest in the joy that had come to
her, dwell, awed, on its wonderfulness. In her short periods of leisure
she sat motionless, recalling lovely moments, living them over, sometimes
asking herself why he cared for her, then throwing the question
aside--that he did was all that concerned her now.

On the fourth day her serenity was disturbed very slightly, but she could
not banish a faint, intruding surprise that she had not heard from him.
She tried to smother it by a return to her old interests, but her work
had lost its power to engross and she went through it mechanically
without enthusiasm. By the fifth her mental state had changed. She would
not admit that she was uneasy, but in spite of her efforts a queer,
upsetting restlessness invaded her. Everything was all right, she knew
it, but she seemed to be dodging a shadow that fell thinly across the
brightness. That evening she played badly, missed a cue and had no snap.
She realized it, saw it in the faces of her fellows, and knew she must do
better or there would be complaints.

On the way home she argued it out with herself. She was thinking too much
of Mayer--worrying about nothing--and it was interfering with her work.
She oughtn't to be such a fool, but her place at the Albion was
important, and a word from him--a line or a phone message--would tone her
up, and she would go on even better than before. At an "all night" drug
store she bought a box of pink notepaper and a sachet, and before she
went to bed put the scented envelope in the box and covered them both
with a sofa pillow to draw out the perfume.

In the morning, after sniffing delicately at the paper, which exhaled a
powerful smell of musk, she sat at her table and wrote him a letter. She
made several drafts before she attained the tone, jocose and tender, that
would save her pride and draw from him the line that was to dissipate her
foolish fancies.

"DEAREST BOYÉ:

"No one has knocked at my door for nearly six days now. Not even sent me
a telephone message. But I'm not complaining as maybe the caller may have
a lot of things to keep him busy. But I would like a word just so I won't
forget you. I don't want to do that but you know these stage dames do
have sort of tricky memories. So it might be a good idea to give mine a
jolt. A post card will do it and a letter do it better, and I guess
yourself would do it best of all.

"Thine,

"PANCHITA."

The next morning his answer came and she forgot that she ever had been
uneasy. The world shone, the air was as intoxicating as wine, the sun a
benediction. She kissed the letter and pinned it in her blouse, where it
lay against her heart, from which it had lifted all care. The second
floor of the Vallejo rang to her singing, warbling runs and high, crystal
notes, gushes of melody, and tones clear as a bird's held exultingly.
People passing stopped to listen, looking up at the open windows. And yet
it was far from a love letter:

"DEAR PANCHA:

"What a brute I must seem. I've been out of town, that's all. I have to
go every now and then--business I'm meditating in the interior. I forgot
to tell you about it, but it will take up a good deal of my time from now
on. I won't be able to see you as often as I'd like, but as soon as I
have a spare moment there'll be a knock at your door, or someone waiting
in the alley to the stage entrance. Until then _au revoir, _or in your
own beautiful language, _hasta mañana,_

"B."

If she had seen Mayer and the blonde lady before the receipt of this
missive her alarms would have increased. But the letter with one violent
push had sent her to the top of the golden moment again. She was poised
there firmly; it would take more than the sight of Mayer in casual confab
with a woman to dislodge her. He knew many people, went to many places;
she was proud of his social progress. So undisturbed was she that as she
walked to the theatre she smiled to herself, a sly, soft smile. How
surprised the lady would be if she knew that the shabby girl unnoticed on
the curb was Boyé Mayer's choice--the Rosamund of his bower, the inmate
of his secret garden.




CHAPTER XVIII

OUTLAWED


The night and the chaparral had made Garland's escape possible. In those
first moments, breaking through the thicket with the shots and shouts of
his pursuers at his back, his mind had held nothing but a frantic fear. A
thing of gaping mouth and strained eyes, he had groped and rushed, torn
between branches, splashed through streams, a menaced animal possessed by
an animal's instinct for flight.

Then a bullet, tearing the leaves above his head, had pulled his
scattered faculties together. He dropped and lay, crawled forward in a
moist darkness, rose and made a slantwise dart across the hill's face,
crouching as a bullet struck into a nearby trunk. Pausing to listen, he
could hear the voices of his pursuers flung back and forth, sound against
sound, broken, clamorous, the baying of the pack. Against the ground,
trickle of water and stir of leaves soft around him, he lay for a second,
the breaths coming in rending gasps from his lungs.

By a series of doublings and loops, he gained the summit and here rose
and looked down. The voices were fainter, the trampling among the
branches was drifting toward the right. The lights of the town showed a
central cluster with a scattering of bright, disconnected particles as if
a fiery thing had fallen and burst, sending sparks in every direction.
Some of them moved, a train of dancing dots, lanterns carried on the
run--the town was roused for the man hunt.

He went on, down from the crest and then up; the voices died and he was
alone in the vast, enmuffling dark.

For the time safe, he allowed himself a rest, flat on his back under a
pine, breathing through open mouth. It was then that he was aware of a
wet warmth on his neck, and feeling of it with clumsy fingers remembered
the shot that had followed the breaking of the door. One inch to the left
and he would have been a dead man. As it was, it was only a surface tear
through the flesh and he sopped at it with his bandanna, muttering and
wiping his fingers on the moss.

Presently he moved on again, one with the woodland creatures in their
night prowls. He could hear them, cracklings of twigs under their furtive
feet, scurrying retreats before his heavier human tread. Once he stopped
at a cry, a shriek tearing open the silence as the lightning tears the
cope of the sky. He knew it well, had heard it often by his camp fire in
his old prospecting days--the yell of a California lion in the mountains
beyond. The night was drawing toward its last deep hours when he came to
a straight uprearing of rock, a ledge, broken and heaved upward in some
ancient earth-throe. He felt along its face, glazed by water films,
close-curtained by shrubs and ferns, found an opening and crawled in.

There he stayed for a week; saw the sun rise over the sea of pines, wheel
across the sky, drop behind the rock whence its last glow painted every
tree top with a golden varnish. Then came evening, long and still, a
great rush of color to the west, birds winging their way homeward,
shadows slanting blue over the slopes, brimming purple in the hollows.
Then night with its majestic silence and its large, serene stars. He lay
in the cave mouth looking at them, his thoughts ranging far. Sometimes
they went back to the past and he remembered the deep blue nights in
Arizona, the white glare of the days. He could see the walls of his ranch
house, with the peppers in red bunches, Juana in her calico wrapper and
Pancha playing in the shade. He rose, cursing, sopped his bandanna in the
water trickling from the rock and put it on his wound. It hurt and made
him feverish, a prey to such harassing memories.

With a piece of cord he found in his pocket he made a trap--a noose
suspended from a bent sapling--and caught a rabbit. This kept him in food
for two days, then setting it again he broke the cord, and driven by
hunger went forth, revolver in hand. He saw fresh deer tracks, and was
lucky enough to find his quarry, steal close and shoot it. His hunger
made him reckless and he lit a fire, roasting the meat on planted sticks.
But the birds came and wheeled about overhead and the specks of moving
birds in the sky can be seen from afar.

His forces restored by nourishment he grew restless. The loneliness of
the place oppressed him and he wanted to hear of Knapp. Knapp had been
caught and Knapp would talk and he burned to know what Knapp would say of
him. He was sure the man knew little; he had foreseen such a catastrophe
and been as secret as the grave, but Knapp might have picked up
something. Anyway he wanted to know just how he stood. Food, his greatest
need, supplied, his next was news, someone to tell him, or a newspaper.

The people who stood in with him were scattered far. Up beyond Angels the
Garcias were his friends, and over to the left, on the bend of the river
near Pine Flat, Old Man Haley, reputed cracked and a survivor of the
great days of the lode, had been his confederate from the start. But
Haley's shack was too near Pine Flat, and now with a reward probably
offered, he feared the Garcias--greasers, father and son, not to be
trusted. The wisest course was to lie low and keep to himself, anyway
till he knew more.

So he tracked across the country from landmark to landmark, a cave, an
abandoned tunnel, the shell of a ruined cabin. He left the foothills and
went back toward the mountain spurs where ridge rises beyond ridge, and
at the bottom of ravines rivers lie like yellow threads. Nature held him
aloof, an atom leaving no mark upon it, an intruder on its musing
self-engrossment. He moved, secure and solitary, seeing no living thing
but the game he shot and the hawk hanging poised in the blue. Sometimes
he sat for hours watching its winged shadow float over the tree tops.

Finally he knew he would have to return to the settlements, for his store
of cartridges was almost exhausted. He tried to hoard them, eking out his
deer meat with roots and berries till body and nerve began to weaken.
That decided him and he started back, eating only just enough to give him
strength to get there. He was nearly spent when he found himself once
more among the chaparral's low growth, looking down on the brown and
green fields.

There was a ranch below him whose acres stretched like a patterned cloth
along the hill's slant. The house, white-painted, stood in the midst of
cultivated land which he would have to cross to reach it. But driven by
hunger he stole down, his way marked by a swaying in the close-packed
foliage. He could see the smoke rising in a blue skein from its chimney
and at night its windows break out in bright squares. He drew close
enough to watch the men go off to their work and the women move,
sunbonneted, about the yard.

The second day, faint and desperate, he ventured; it was midmorning, the
men away in the fields till noon. There was not a sound when he reached
the house, skirted the rear, and walked round to the side where a balcony
ran the length of the building. Chairs stood here and evidences of
sewing, work baskets, spools and scissors, and a tumbled heap of
material. On the step lay a newspaper and he was stretching his hand for
it when he heard the voices of women.

Through an open door he saw them--two--standing in front of a mirror, one
with her back toward him, in a blouse of pink that she was pulling into a
waistband. The other watched her, pins in her mouth, a tape measure over
her arm. Both were absorbed, the one in her reflection in the glass, the
other in the pink blouse. He trod on the step with a heavy foot and
muttered a gruff "Say, lady."

The women flashed round and he saw them to be middle-aged and young--a
mother and daughter evidently. The elder with a quick, defensive movement
walked to the doorway and stood there, blocking it. He heard the younger
exclaim, "A tramp!" and then she came forward, squeezing in beside her
mother. Hostility and apprehension were on both their faces.

"What do you want here?" said the elder sharply.

"Somethin' to eat," he answered, trying to make his hoarse tones mild; "I
bin on the tramp for days."

"No, no, go off," she cried, waving him away.

"I'm starved," he pleaded. "Any bones or scraps'll do me."

They eyed him, still apprehensive, but evidently impressed by his
appearance.

"Honest to God it's true," he said, snatching at his advantage. "Can't
you see it by the looks of me?"

The girl, thrusting her hand through her mother's arm and drawing her
back, answered,

"All right. Go round to the kitchen."

With the words she banged the door and he heard the click of the lock,
then their scurrying steps, bangs of other doors and their receding
voices. In a twinkling he grabbed the paper, thrust it into his coat
pocket, and slouched round to the kitchen door.

"Stay out there," called the mother from within. "I'll give you food, but
I don't want no tramp tracking up my kitchen."

He could see them cutting bread and chunks of meat, flurried and he knew
frightened. Leaning against a chair was a rifle, placed where he could
see it. He could have smiled at it had he not been so bound and cramped
with fear. As they cut they interchanged low-toned remarks, and once the
elder looked at him frowningly over her shoulder.

"Why ain't you workin'? A big, husky man like you?" she asked.

"I'm calcalatin' to find work at Sonora, but I have to have the strength
to git there. I've had a bad spell of ague."

The girl raised her eyes to him and compassion softened them. As she went
back to her bread-cutting he heard her murmur,

"I guess that's straight. He sure has an awful peaked look."

It was she who gave him the food, rolled in a piece of newspaper.
Standing in the doorway, she held it out to him and said, smiling,

"There, it's a good lunch. I hope it'll brace you up so you can get
to Sonora all right. I believe you're tellin' the truth and I wish
you luck."

He grunted his thanks and made off, shambling across the yard and out
into the sun-flooded fields. He had to cross them to get out of range
behind a hill spur before he turned into the woods. As he walked, feeling
their eyes boring into his back, conscious of himself as hugely
conspicuous in the untenanted landscape, he opened the paper and ate
ravenously, tearing at the bread and meat.

He was far afield before he dared to rest and look at the paper. It was
part of the Sunday edition of the _Stockton Expositor_, and in it he read
of the approaching trial of Knapp. Both Danny Leonard and Jim Bailey had
identified him by his hands and his size as the man who had wounded the
messenger, and Knapp had admitted it. The paper predicted a life sentence
for him. Then it went on to Garland, who was still at large. Various
people were sure they had seen him. A saloon keeper on the outskirts of
Placerville was ready to swear that a mounted man, who had stopped at his
place one night for a drink, was the fugitive outlaw. If this evidence
was reliable Garland was moving toward his old stamping ground, the camps
along the Feather, where it was said he had friends.

His relief was intense, for it was evident Knapp had had little to say of
him, and his hunters were on the wrong trail. Food cravings appeased, his
anxieties temporarily at rest, he was easier than he had been since the
night at Sheeps Bar. Curled under a thicket of madrone he slept like a
log and woke in the morning, his energies primed, his brain alert,
thinking of Pancha.

There were two things that had to be done--get a letter to her and
replenish his store of cartridges. If too long a time passed without news
of him, she would grow anxious, might talk, might betray suspicious facts
or draw inferences herself. A word from him, dispatched from a camp along
the lode, would quiet her. So he must gird his loins for the perilous
venture of a break into the open under the eyes of men.

Up beyond Angels, slumbering amid its rotting placers and abandoned
ditches, lies the old camp of Farleys. In times past it was a stop on the
way to the Calaveras Big Trees, but after the railroad diverted the
traffic to the Mariposa Group, Farleys was left to pursue its tranquil
way undisturbed by stage or tourist. Still it remains, if stagnant,
self-respecting, has a hotel, a post office and a street of stores, along
which the human flotsam and jetsam of the mineral belt may drift without
exciting comment. A derelict could pass along its wooden sidewalk, drop a
letter in the post box, even buy a box of cartridges without attracting
notice. And even if he should be noticed, Farleys was sleepy and a good
way from anywhere. Warnings sent from there would not be acted upon too
quickly. A man could catch the eye of Farleys, wake its suspicions and
get away while it was talking things over and starting the machinery for
his arrest.

This was the place he decided on and forthwith moved toward. He had four
cartridges and if game was plentiful and his aim good he might make
Farleys and still have one or maybe two left.

But it took longer than he calculated, swollen rivers blocking his path,
luck going against him. Three of his cartridges were expended on a deer
before he brought it down and the rains came back, blinding and
torrential. Forced to make detours because of the unfordable streams he
lost his way and spent precious hours groping about in pine forests, dark
as twilight, their boughs bent to the onslaught of the storm. Crossing a
watercourse he fell and his matches were soaked, and that night, crouched
against a tree trunk, a creature less protected than the beasts who had
their shelters, he sucked the raw meat.

The next day his misfortunes reached a climax when he used his last
bullet on a rabbit and missed it. He went on for twelve hours, and in the
darkness under a mass of dripping bracken began to think of Farleys less
as a place of peril than as a refuge, even though known for what he was.
But he pushed that thought away as other men push temptation and tried to
sleep under his saturated tent. In the morning he was on the trail with
the first light, staggering a little, squinting down the columned aisles
for open ground whence he could look out and get his bearings.

It was late in the afternoon, dusk at hand, when he saw the light of a
clearing. He hastened, staring ahead, stood for a stunned second, then
leaped behind a tree, muscles tight, the dull confusion of his brain
gone. Looming high through the gray of the twilight, balconied,
many-windowed, was a large white building. Outhouses sprawled at one
side, a weed-grown drive curved to its front steps, down the slant of its
roof the rain ran, spouting from broken gutters and lashing the shutters
that blinded its tiers of windows.

The first shock over, he stole cat-soft from trunk to trunk, studying it.
There were no lights, no smoke from the chimneys, no sign of habitation.
A loosened shutter on the ground floor banged furiously, calling out
echoes from the solitude. He circled the back of it, round by the
outbuildings, a lot of them, one like a stable--all silent. Then made his
way to the side with its deep, first-floor veranda and was creeping
toward the front when he ran into something--a circular construction
covered with a rough bark and topped by a balustrade.

One look at it and he gave a smothered exclamation and ran back among
the trees. The light was almost gone, but there was enough to show a
line of enormous shafts towering into a remote blackness. Like reddish
monoliths they reared themselves in a receding file, silence about
their feet, their crests far aloft moaning under the wind. In the
encroaching darkness they showed like the pillars of a temple reared by
some primordial race of giants, their foliage a roof that seemed to
touch the low sky. He knew where he was now--the Calaveras Big Trees.
The house was the old hotel, once a point of pilgrimage, long since
fallen from popularity and left to gradual decay. In summer a few
travelers found their way there, but at this season the spot was in as
complete a solitude as it had been when the first gringoes came and
stood in silent awe.

He broke his way in by the window with the loosened shutter and passed
through the dimness of long rooms, bare and chilly, his steps loud on the
uncarpeted floors. The place was damp and had the musty smell of a house
long unaired and unoccupied. The double doors into the dining room were
jammed and he had to wrench them open; in the pantry a windowpane was
broken and the rain had seeped in. Here, on a three-legged table, he
found a calendar and remembered hearing that the hotel had been opened
during the previous summer, but that, business being bad, the proprietor
had closed it after a few weeks.

In the kitchen he found signs of this period of habitation. On a shelf in
a cupboard, hidden by a debris of paper and empty boxes, he came upon two
cans evidently overlooked. He took them to the window, threw back the
shutter, and saw they contained tomatoes and cherries. This heartened him
to new efforts and he began a search through the dirty desolation of the
room. He was rewarded by finding a half-filled match box, a few sticks of
split wood and in the bottom of a coal bunker in the passage enough coal
to make at least one good fire.

Before he started it he closed the shutter tight, then, groping in the
dusk, filled the big range with paper and wood and set a match to it. It
flickered, caught, snapped cheerily, light flickering along the walls,
shining between the bars. He poured on the coal, opened all the draughts,
saw the iron grow slowly red and felt the grateful warmth. With his knife
he cut open the tomato can, heated its contents in a leaky saucepan, and,
taking it to the sink, spooned it up with a piece of wood. The cherries
were his dessert.

After that he peeled off his outer clothes and lay on the floor in front
of the range. It threw out a violent heat, but not too much for him; he
luxuriated, basked in it, delighting in the rosy patches that grew on the
stove's rusty surface, the bright droppings from its grate. Holding his
stiff feet out to it, he cooked himself, stretching and turning like a
cat. Finally, he lay quiet, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes
touching points that the red light played upon, and listened to the rain.
The building shook to its buffets; it swept like feeling fingers across
the windows, drummed on the low roofs of the outhouses, ran in a
spattering rush along the balcony. The sound of it soothed him like a
lullaby, and with the banging of the unfastened shutter loud in his ears
he slept the sleep of the just.

The next morning, with the daylight to help him, he extended his
search and found a few spoonfuls of tea in a glass preserve jar, a
handful of moldy potatoes in a gunny-sack and in a shed back of the
kitchen a pile of cut wood. He breakfasted royally, finishing the
remains of the cherries, built the fire up high and hot, and started
to explore the house.

It was as empty as a shell, room opening out of room, half lighted, bare
and dismal. There was nothing to be got out of it and he was back on his
way to the warmth of the kitchen when he thought of the broken-legged
table in the pantry. Propping this up against the window ledge, a drawer
fell from it, scattering sheets of paper and envelopes on the floor. He
stood staring at them, lying round his feet, fallen there as if from
heaven to supply his last and now greatest need. With an upturned box for
a seat, the stub of pencil he always carried sharpened to a pin point by
his knife, he steadied the table on the windowsill, and sat down to write
to Pancha. He wrote the word "Farleys" at the top of the sheet, as he
knew she would see the Farleys postmark, but the date he omitted:

"MY DEARY PANCHITA:

"_Farleys_

"Here's the old man writing to you from Farleys. Sort of small dead
place, but there's business moving round it, so I got washed up here for
a few days. I ain't had anything that's good yet, but there's a feller
that looks like he might nibble, and take it from me my hooks are out.
Anyways if he does I'll let you know. Plenty lot of rain, but I've been
comfortable right along. Got a good room here and swell grub. And don't
you worry about my roomatiz. All you want to know is I ain't got it. I
can't give you no address, as I'm moving on soon, Wednesday maybe. But
I'll drop you a line from somewheres as soon as I got anything to say.
You want to remember I'm all right and as happy as I ever am when I ain't
with my best girl. This leaves me in good health, which I hope it finds
you.

"YOUR BEST BEAU."

The rain lasted that day, but on the next the sun rose on a world washed
clean, woodland-scented, fresh and beautiful. The time had come for him
to dare. At nightfall he started, a young moon to guide him, followed a
road ankle high in ruts and mud, and at dawn crept into an alder thicket
for rest and sleep. It was nine, the day well started, when he walked
into Farleys.

The little town was up and about its business, windows open, housewives
sweeping front steps. The air was redolent of pine balsam, the sun
licking up the water in hollows on the sidewalks, the distances colored a
transparent blue. Outside the saloon the barkeeper was patting his dog,
women in sunbonnets with string bags on their arms were on their way to
the general store, men were bringing out chairs and placing them with
pondering calculation the right distance from the hitching bar.

He bought his stamp and posted his letter, the man inside the window
offering comments on the weather. Then he had to face the length of the
street; he had been there before and knew the hardware store was at its
other end. As he traversed it the heads of the men--already settled in
their chairs for the day--turned hopefully at the sound of his masculine
tread. It might be someone who would stand a drink, and even if it
wasn't, staring at a passerby was something to do. To run such a gauntlet
required all his fortitude, and as he walked under the battery of eyes
the sweat gathered on his face and his heart thumped in his throat.

The clerk at the hardware store was reading a paper. When he went for the
cartridges he left it on the counter and the fugitive saw the heading of
a column, "Garland still eludes justice." As he waited he read it,
turning from it to take his package and then back to it as the clerk made
change. They were hunting in the Feather country. A blacksmith beyond
Auburn swore he knew the outlaw and had seen him, mounted on a bay horse,
ride past his shop a week before at sunset. The clerk held out the
change, and Garland, reading, nodded toward the counter. He was afraid to
extend his hand, knowing that it shook, and presently, dropping the
paper, scooped up the money with a curved palm.

"Looks like Garland was goin' to give 'em the slip after all," said
the clerk.

"Um--looks that way, but I wouldn't bank on it. If he's lyin' low in one
of them camps up the Feather he's liable to be seen. There's folks there
that knows him it says here and you can't always trust your friends. Fine
weather we're havin' after the rain. So long."

When he came out into the street he was nerved for a last, desperate
venture. He went to the general store and bought a stock of provisions:
bread, sugar, bacon, coffee and tobacco. The salesman was inclined to be
friendly and asked him questions, and he explained himself as a
prospector in the hills, cut off by the recent rains. He got away from
there as quickly as he could, dropped down a side path and made for the
woods and "home."

That evening he went out and lay under the giant trees, and smoked his
first pipe for weeks. The sunset gleamed through the foliage in fiery
spots, here and there piercing it with a long ray of light which slanted
across the red trunks. From the forest recesses twilight spread in
stealthy advance, and looking up he could see bits of the sky,
scatterings of pink through the darkening green. It was intensely quiet,
not a stir of wind, not a bird note, or leaf rustle. The place was held
in that mysterious silence which broods over the Californian country and
suggests a hushed and ominous attention. It is as if nature were aware of
some impending event, imminent and portentous, and waited in tranced
expectancy. The outlaw felt it, and moved, disquieted, setting his
oppression down to loneliness.

One afternoon a week later, while standing at the kitchen window, he saw
a figure dart across an opening between the trees. It went so swiftly
that he was aware of it only as a dash of darkness, the passage of a
shadow, but It left a moving wake in the ferns and grasses. With his
heart high and smothering, he felt for his revolver and crept through the
rooms to the broken window on the veranda. If he was caught he would die
game, fight from this citadel till his last cartridge was gone. His eyes
to a crack in the shutter he looked out--no one was there. The vista of
the forest stretched back as free of human presence as in the days before
man had roamed its solemn corridors.

Then he saw it again; the tightness of his muscles relaxed, and the hand
holding the revolver dropped to his side. It was a child, a boy; there
were two of them. He watched them move, foot balanced before foot, wary
eyes on the house, emerge from behind a trunk and flee to the shelter of
the next one. They were little fellows, eight or perhaps ten, in overalls
and ragged hats, scared and yet adventurous, creeping cautiously nearer.

It was easy to guess what they were and what had brought them: ranch
children who had seen the smoke of his fire, and, knowing the hotel to be
empty, had come to discover who was there. The game was up--they might
have been round the place for hours, for days. He suddenly threw open the
shutters and roared at them, an unexpected and fearful challenge. A
moment of paralyzed terror was followed by a wild rush, the bracken
breaking under their flying feet. After they had passed from his sight he
could hear the swish and crashing of their frantic flight. Two boys, so
frightened, would not take long to reach home and gasp out their story.

He left on their heels, window and door flapping behind him, the fire red
in the range.

Two days later he found cover in a deserted tunnel back in the hills. Its
timbers sagged with the weight of the years, the yellow mound of its dump
was hidden under a mantle of green. Even its mouth, once a black hole in
the hillside verdure, was curtained by a veil of creepers. There was game
and there was water and there he stayed. At first he rested, then idle
and inert lay among the ferns on the top of the dump, staring at the
distance, squinting up at the sky, deadened with the weight of the
interminable, empty days.




CHAPTER XIX

HALF TRUTHS AND INFERENCES


Chrystie had developed a liking for long walks. As she was a person of a
lazy habit Lorry inquired about it and received the answer that walking
was the easiest way to keep down your weight. This was a satisfactory
explanation, for Chrystie was of the ebullient, early-spreading
Californian type, and an extending acquaintance among girls of her age
might readily awake a dormant vanity. So the walks passed unchallenged.

But, beside an unwonted attention to her looks, Lorry noticed that her
sister was changing. Quite suddenly she seemed to have emerged from
childhood, blossomed into a grown-up phase. She was losing her irrelevant
high spirits, bubbled much less frequently, sometimes sat in silence for
half an hour at a time. Then there were moments when her glance was fixed
and pondering, as if her thoughts ranged afar. The new interest in her
appearance extended from her figure to her clothes. She spent so much
money on them that Lorry spoke to her about it and was answered with
mutinous irritation. Why shouldn't she have pretty things like the other
girls? What was the sense of hoarding up their money like misers? Lorry
could do it if she liked; she was going to get some good out of hers.

Lorry saw the change as the result of a widening social experience--she
had tried to find amusement, the proper surroundings of her age and
station, for Chrystie and she had succeeded. Gayeties had grown out of
that first, agitating dinner till they now moved through quite a little
round of parties. Under this new excitement Chrystie was acquiring poise,
also fluctuations of spirit and temper. Lorry supposed it was
natural--you couldn't stay up late when you weren't used to it and be as
easy-going and good-humored as when you went to bed every night at ten.

Lorry might have seen deeper, but her attention was diverted. For the
first time in her life she was thinking a good deal about her own
affairs. What she felt was kept very secret, but even if it hadn't been
there was no one to notice, certainly not Chrystie, nor Aunt Ellen. The
only other person near enough to notice was Fong, and it wasn't Fong's
place to help--at least to help in an open way.

One morning in the kitchen, when he and "Miss Lolly" were making the menu
for a new dinner, he had said,

"Mist Bullage come this time?"

"Miss Lolly," with a faint access of color and an eye sliding from Fong's
to the back porch, had answered,

"No, I'm not asking Mr. Burrage to this one, Fong."

"Why not ask Mist Bullage?" Fong had persisted, slightly reproving.

"Because I've asked him several times and he hasn't come."

That was in the old Bonanza manner. One answered a Chinaman like Fong
truthfully and frankly as man to man.

"He come this time. You lite him nice letter."

"No, I don't want to, I've enough without him. It's all made up."

"I no see why--plenty big loom, plenty good dinner. Velly nice boy, good
boy, best boy ever come to my boss's house."

"Now, Fong, don't get side-tracked. I didn't come to talk to you about
the people, I came to talk about the food."

Fong looked at her, gently inquiring, "You no like Mist Bullage,
Miss Lolly?"

"Of course I like him. Won't you please attend to what I'm saying?"

"Then you ask him and I make awful swell dinner--same like I make for
your Pa when General Grant eat here."

When Fong had a fixed idea that way there was no use arguing with him;
one rose with a resigned air and left the kitchen. As Lorry passed
through the pantry door he called after her, amiable but determined,

"All samey Mist Bullage no come I won't make bird nest ice cleam with
pink eggs."

No one but Fong bothered about Mr. Burrage's absence. After the evening
at the Albion Chrystie set him down as "hopeless," and when he refused
two dinner invitations, said they ought to have asked him to wait on the
table and then he would have accepted. To this gibe Lorry made no answer,
but that night before the mirror in her own room, she addressed her
reflection with bitterness:

"Why should any man like me? I'm not pretty, I'm not clever, I'm as slow
as a snail." She saw tears rise in her eyes and finished ruthlessly, "I'm
such a fool that I cry about a man who's done everything but say straight
out, 'I don't care for you, you bore me, do leave me alone.'"

So Lorry, nursing her hidden wound, was forgetful of her stewardship.

It was a pity, for there were times when Chrystie, caught in a contrite
mood and questioned, would have told. Such times generally came when she
was preparing for one of her walks. At these moments her adventure had a
way of suddenly losing its glamour and appearing as a shabby and
underhand performance. Before she saw Mayer she often hesitated, a prey
to a chill distaste, sometimes even questioning her love for him. After
she saw him things were different. She came away filled with a bridling
vanity, feeling herself a siren, a queen of men. Helen of Troy, seeing
brave blood spilled for her possession, was not more satisfied of her
worth than Chrystie after an hour's talk with Boyé Mayer.

It was the certainty of Lorry's disapproval that made secrecy necessary.
He soon realized that Lorry was the governing force, the loved and feared
dictator. But he was a cunning wooer. He put no ban upon confession--if
Chrystie wanted to tell he was the last person to stop it. And having
placed the responsibility in her hands, he wove closer round the little
fly the parti-colored web of illusion. He made her feel the thrill of the
clandestine, the romance of stolen meetings, see herself not as a green,
affrighted girl, but a woman queening it over her own destiny, fit mate
for him in eagle flight above the hum-drum multitude.

But the moments when her conscience pricked still recurred. She was
particularly oppressed one afternoon as she sat in her room waiting for
the clock to strike three. At half past she was to meet Mayer in the
plaza, opposite the Greek Church. She had no time for a long walk that
day--an engagement for tea claimed her at five--so he had suggested the
plaza. No one they knew ever went there, and a visit to the Greek Church
would be interesting.

Her hat and furs lay ready on the bed and she sat in the long wicker
chair by the window, one hand supporting her chin, while her eyes rested
somberly on the fig tree in the garden. She was reluctant to go; she did
not know why, except that just then, waiting for the clock to strike, she
had had an eerie sort of fear of Mayer. She told herself it was because
he was so clever, so superior to any man she had ever known. But she
wished she could tell Lorry, say boldly, "Lorry, Mr. Mayer is in love
with me"--she wished she could dare.

At that moment Lorry appeared in the doorway between the two rooms.

"Hello," she said. "How serious you look."

"I'm thinking," said Chrystie, studying the fig tree.

"Are you going out?" The things on the bed had caught her eye.

"Um--presently."

"So soon? You're not asked to the Forsythe's till five and it's not
three yet."

"I _could_ be going somewhere else first."

"Oh--where?"

"Somewhere out of this house--that's the main thing. Since the furnace
was put in it's like a Turkish bath."

"You're going for a walk?" Lorry went to the bed and picked up the
hat. It was a new one with a French maker's name in the crown. "You
oughtn't to hack this hat about, Chrystie. I wouldn't wear it when I
went for a walk."

"Do you think it would be better to wear it in the house? Having bought
it I must wear it somewhere."

Lorry, laughing, put on the hat and looked at herself in the glass. There
was a moment's pause, then the chair creaked under a movement of
Chrystie's, and her voice came very quiet.

"Lorry, do you like Boyé Mayer?"

Lorry, studying the effect of the hat, did not answer with any special
interest. The Perfect Nugget had lost all novelty for her. He came to the
house now and then, was a help in their entertainments, and was always
considerate and polite--that was all.

"No, not much," she murmured.

"Why not?"

"It's hard to say exactly--just something." She placed her hand over a
rakish green paradise plume to see if its elimination would be an
improvement.

"But if you don't like a person you ought to have a reason."

"You don't always. It's just a feeling, an instinct like dogs have. I've
an instinct against Mr. Mayer--he's not the real thing."

Chrystie sat forward in the chair.

"That's exactly what I'd say he was, and everybody else says so, too."

"On the outside--yes, I didn't mean that. I meant deep down. I don't
think he's real straight through--it's all varnish and glitter. Of course
I don't mind his coming here the way he does; we don't see him often and
he's amusing and pleasant. But I wouldn't like him to be on a friendly
footing. In fact he never could be--I wouldn't let him."

It was the voice of authority. Chrystie felt its finality, and guided by
her own inner distress and the hopelessness of revolt, said sharply:

"And yet you wouldn't mind Mark Burrage being on a friendly footing."

"Mark Burrage!" There was something ludicrous in Lorry's face, full
of surprise under the overpowering hat. "What has Mark Burrage to
do with it?"

Chrystie climbed somewhat lumberingly out of the chair. Her movements
were dignified, her tone sarcastic.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Only if Mr. Mayer is so far below your standard
I'm wondering where Mr. Burrage comes in." She stretched a long arm and
snatched the hat. "Excuse me," she said with brusque politeness, setting
it on her own head and turning to the glass, "but I really must be going.
Only a salamander could live comfortably in this house."

Lorry was startled. Her sister's face, deeply flushed, showed an intense
irritation.

"I don't understand you. You can't make a comparison between those two
men. They're as different as black and white."

"They certainly are," said Chrystie, driving a long pin through the hat.
"Or chalk and cheese, or brass and gold, or whatever else stands for the
real thing and the imitation."

"What's the matter with you, Chrystie? Are you angry?"

"Me?" She gave a glance from under her lifted arm. "Why should I
be angry?"

"I don't know but--" An alarming thought seized Lorry, and she
moved nearer. It was preposterous, but after all girls took strange
fancies, and Chrystie was no longer a child. "You don't _care_ for
Boyé Mayer, do you?"

It was the propitious moment, but Chrystie was now as far from telling as
if she had taken an oath of silence. What Lorry had already said was
enough, and the tone in which she asked the question was the finishing
touch. If she thought her sister had fallen in love with Fong, she
couldn't have appeared more shocked and incredulous.

"Care for him?" said Chrystie, pulling out the bureau drawer and clawing
about in it for her gloves. "Well, I care for him in some ways, and then
I don't care for him in other ways."

"I don't mean that, I mean _really_ care."

"Do you mean, am I _in love_ with him?"

Her eye on Lorry was steady and questioning, also slightly scornful.
Lorry was abashed by it; she felt that she ought not to have asked, and
in confusion stammered, "Yes."

Chrystie moved to the bed and threw on her furs. Her ill-humor was gone,
though she was still a little scornful and rather grandly forbearing. Her
manner suggested that she could condone this in Lorry owing to her
relationship and the honesty of her intention.

"Dearest Lorry, you talk like an old maid in a musical comedy. In love
with him? How I wish I could be! At my age every self-respecting girl
ought to be in love--they always are in books. But try as I will, I
can't seem to manage it. I guess I've got a heart of stone or perhaps
it's been left out of me entirely. Good-by, the heartless wonder's going
for her walk."

She ended on a laugh, a little strident, and crossed the room, perfume
shaken from her brilliant clothes. Outside the door she broke into a song
that rose above her scudding flight down the stairs.

Lorry's momentary uneasiness died. Chrystie, as a woman of ruses and
deceptions, was a thing she could not at this stage accept.

They met in the plaza and saw the Greek Church and then sat on a bench
under a tree and talked. They were so secure in the little park's
isolation that they gave their surroundings no attention. That was why a
woman crossing it was able to draw near, stand for a watching moment,
skirt the back of their bench, and pass on unnoticed. She was the same
woman who had seen them at that earlier meeting in Union Square.

During that month the new operetta at the Albion had been put on and had
fallen flat. There was a good deal of speculation as to the cause of the
failure, and it was rumored that the management set it down to Miss
Lopez. She had slighted her work of late, been careless and indifferent.
Nobody knew what was the matter with her. She scorned the idea of ill
health, but she looked worn out and several times had given vent to
savage and unreasonable bursts of temper. She was too valuable a woman to
quarrel with, and when the head of the enterprise suggested a rest--a
week or two in the country--she rejected the idea with an angry
repudiation of illness or fatigue.

Crowder was there on the first night and went away disturbed. He had
never seen her give so poor a performance; all her fire was gone, she was
mechanical, almost listless. Her public was loyal though puzzled, and the
papers stood by her, but "What's happened to Pancha Lopez? How she _has_
gone off!" was a current phrase where men and women gathered. Behind the
scenes her mates whispered, some jealously observant, others more kindly,
concerned and wondering. Gossip of a love affair was bandied about, but
died for lack of confirmation. She had been seen with no one, the
methodical routine of her days remained unchanged.

For her the month had been the most wretched of her life. Never in the
hard past had she passed through anything as devastating. Those trials
she had known how to meet; this was all new, finding her without defense,
naked to unexpected attack. Belief and dread had alternated in her,
ravaged and laid her waste. After the manner of impassioned women she
would not see, clung to hope, had days, after a letter or a message from
Mayer, when she had almost ascended to the top of the golden moment
again. Then there was silence, a note of hers unanswered, and she fell,
sinking into darkling depths. Once or twice, waking in the night or
waiting for his knock, she had sudden flashes of clear sight. These left
her in a frozen stillness, staring with wide eyes, frightened of herself.

The process of enlightenment had been gradual. Mayer wanted no scenes, no
annoying explanations; there was to be no violent moment of severance. To
accomplish his withdrawal gracefully, he put himself to some trouble.
After that first letter he waylaid her at the stage door one night, and
walked part of the way home with her. He had been kind, friendly,
brotherly--a completely changed Mayer. She felt it and refused to
understand, walking at his side, trying to be the old, merry Pancha.

It was at this time that she received her father's letter from Farleys.
Weeks had passed since she had heard from him, and when she saw his
writing on the envelope she realized that she had almost forgotten him.
The thought left her cold, but when she read the homely phrases she was
moved. In a moment of extended vision she saw the parents' tragedy--the
love that lives for the child's happiness and is powerless to create
it. He would have died for her and she would have thrust him aside,
pushed him pleading from her path, to follow a man a few months before
a stranger.

After that she endured a week without a word from Mayer, and then,
unable to sleep or work, telephoned to his hotel. In answer to her
question the switchboard girl said Mr. Mayer had not been out of town at
all for the last two weeks. She asked to speak with him and heard his
voice, sharp and cold. He couldn't talk freely over the wire; he would
rather she didn't call him up; his out-of-town business had been
postponed, that was all.

"Why are you mad with me?" she breathed, trying to make her voice steady.

"I am not," came the answer. "Please don't be fanciful. And _don't_ call
me up here, I don't like it. I'll be around as soon as I can, but I've a
lot to do, as I've already told you several times. Good-by."

She had sent the call from a telephone booth, and carefully, with a slow
precision, she hung up the receiver. A feeling of despair, a stifling
anguish, seized her and she began to cry. Shut into the hot, small place,
she broke into rending sobs, her head bent, her hands gripped, rocking
back and forth. Small, choked sounds, whines and cries came from her, and
fearful of being heard, she pressed her hands against her mouth, looking
up, looking down, an animal distracted in its unfamiliar pain.

The following day he wrote to her, excused himself, said he had been
worried on business matters and sent her flowers. She buoyed herself up
and once more tried to believe, but her will had been weakened. From
lower layers of consciousness the truth was forcing its way to
recognition, yet she still ignored it. Realization of her state if she
admitted it made her afraid and her fight had the fierceness of a
struggle for life. It was only in the night--awake in the dumb dark--that
she could not escape it. Then, staring at the pale square of the window,
she heard her voice whispering:

"What will I do? What will become of me?"

In all her miserable imaginings and self-queries the thought that she had
been supplanted had no place. Mayer had often spoken to her of his social
diversions and no woman had ever figured in them. The paragraphs which
still appeared about him touched on no feminine influences. It was her
fault; she had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Had she not
always wondered that he should have cared for her? On close acquaintance
he had found her to be what she was--common, uneducated, impossible. At
first she had tried to hide it and then it had come out and he had been
repelled. It was not till the afternoon, aimlessly walking to ease her
pain, when she saw him again with the blonde-haired girl, that the
thought of another woman entered her mind.

That night Crowder, after watching the last act from the back of the
house, resolved to see her and find out what was wrong. He had been
talking to the manager in the foyer and the man's sulky discontent
alarmed him. If Pancha didn't buck up she'd lose her job.

She was at the dressing table in her red kimono when he came in. The
grease was nearly all off and with her front hair drawn back from
her forehead, her face had a curiously bare, haggard look. As he
entered she glanced up, not smiling, and saw the knowledge of her
failure in his eyes.

For a moment she looked at him, grave and sad, confessing it. The
expression caught at his heart, and he had nothing to say, turning away
from her to look for a chair.

She picked up the rag and went on wiping her face.

"Well," she said in a brisk voice, "I wasn't on the job tonight, was I?"

Reassured by her tone, he sat down and faced her.

"No, you weren't. It wasn't a good performance, Panchita. I've always
told you the truth and I've got to go on doing it."

"Go ahead, you're not telling me anything I don't know. I've got my
finger on the pulse of this house. I know every rise and fall of its
temperature. But I can't always be up in G, can I?"

"No, but you can't stay down at zero too long."

"It was as bad as that, was it?"

"Yes, it was bad."

She dropped her hand to the edge of the dressing table and looked at it.
Her face, with the hair strained back, the rouge gone, looked withered
and yellow. Crowder eyed it anxiously.

"Say, Panchita, you're sick."

"Sick? Forget it! I never was better in my life."

"Then why are you off your work--why do you act as if you didn't care?"

"Can't I have a part I hate? Can't I get weary of this old joint with its
smoke and its beer? God!" She began to pull the pins out of her hair and
fling them on the dresser. "I'm human--I've got my ups and downs--and you
keep forgetting it."

"That's just what I'm not forgetting."

"Stop talking about me--I'm sick of it," she cried, and snatching up the
comb began tearing it through her hair.

"It's nerves," said Crowder. "Everything shows it. The way you're combing
your hair does."

"If you don't let me alone I'll put you out--all of you nagging and
picking at me; a saint couldn't stand it!" Crowder rose, but she whirled
round on him, the comb held out in an arresting hand. "No, don't go yet.
I'll give you another chance. I want to ask you something. I saw a woman
the other day and I want to know who she is--at least I don't really want
to know, but she'll do as well as anything else to change the subject.
Tall with yellow sort of dolly hair and a dolly face. Dark purple dress
with black velvet edges, lynx furs and a curly brimmed hat with a green
paradise plume falling over one side."

Crowder's face wrinkled with a grin.

"Well, that's funny! You might have asked me forty others and I'd not
have known. But thanks to your vivid description I _can_ tell you--I
saw her yesterday afternoon in those very togs. It's the youngest
Alston girl."

"Who's she?"

"One of the two daughters of George Alston. They're orphans, live in a
big house on Pine Street. The one you saw was Chrystie. What do you want
to know about her?"

Pancha, gathering her hair in one hand, began to whisk it round into a
knot. Her head was down bent.

"I don't know--just curiosity. She's sort of stunning looking. Did you
ever meet her?"

Crowder smiled.

"I know them well--have for over a year. Awfully nice girls--the
best kind."

Pancha lifted her head, her face sharp with interest.

"What's she like?"

He considered, the smile softened to an amused indulgence.

"Oh, just a great big baby, good-natured and jolly. Everybody likes
her--you couldn't help it if you tried. She's so simple and sweet,
accepts the whole world as if it was her friend. Her money hasn't spoiled
her a bit."

"Money--she has money?"

"To burn, my dear. She's rich."

Pancha took up a hand glass and turning her back to him studied her
profile in the mirror. It did not occur to Crowder that he never before
had seen her do such a thing.

"Rich, is she?" she murmured. "How rich?"

"Something like four hundred thousand dollars; her father was one of the
Virginia City crowd. Chrystie's just come into her part of the roll.
Eighteen years old and an heiress--that's a good beginning."

"Um--must be a queer feeling. I guess the men are around the honey thick
as flies."

Crowder screwed up his eyes considering.

"No, they're not--not yet anyhow. Until this winter the girls lived so
retired--didn't know many people, kept to themselves. Now they've broken
out and I suppose it's only a matter of time before the flies gather, and
if you asked me I'd say they'd gather thickest round Chrystie. She hasn't
as much character or brains as Lorry, but she's prettier and jollier, and
after all that's what most men like."

"It certainly is, especially with four hundred thousand thrown in for
good measure."

The hand holding the glass dropped to her lap. She sat still for a
moment, then without turning told him to go; she was tired and wanted to
get home. It did not even strike him as odd that she never looked at him,
just flapped a hand over her shoulder and dismissed him with a short
"Good-night."

When he had gone she sat as he had left her, the mirror still in her lap.
The gas jet flamed in its wire cage, and so silent was the room that a
mouse crept out from behind the baseboard, spied about, then made a
scurrying dart across the floor. Her eye caught it, slid after it, and
she moved, putting the glass carefully on the dresser. The palms of her
hands were wet with perspiration and she rubbed them on the skirt of her
kimono and rose stiffly, resting for a moment against the back of her
chair. She had a sick feeling, a sensation as if her heart were
dissolving, as if the room looked unfamiliar and much larger than usual.
When she put on her clothes she did it slowly, her fingers fumbling
stupidly at buttons and hooks, her mouth a little open as if breathing
was difficult.




CHAPTER XX

MARK PAYS A CALL


Mark Burrage saw the winter pass and only went once to the Alstons and
then they were not at home. He had refused three invitations to the house
and after the ignominous event at the Albion received no more. When he
allowed himself to think of that humiliating evening he did not wonder.

But, outside of his work, he allowed himself very little thinking. All
winter he had concentrated on his job with ferocious energy. The older
men in the office had a noticing eye on him. "That fellow Burrage has got
the right stuff in him, he'll make good," they said among themselves. The
younger ones, sons of rich fathers who had squeezed them into places in
the big firm, regarded his efforts with indulgent surprise. They liked
him, called him "Old Mark," and were a little patronizing in their
friendliness: "He was just the sort who'd be a grind. Those ranch chaps
who had to get up at four in the morning and feed the 'horgs' were the
devil to work when they came down to the city. Even law was a cinch after
the 'horgs.'"

Sometimes at night--his endeavor relaxed for a pondering moment--he
studied the future. The outlook might have daunted a less resolute
spirit. A great gap yawned between the present and the time when he could
go to Lorry Alston and say, "Let me take care of you; I can do it now."
But he figured it out, bridged the gap, knew what one man had done
another man could do. He reckoned on leaving the office next year and
setting up for himself, and grim-visaged, mouth set to a straight line,
he calculated on the chances of the fight. Its difficulties braced him to
new zeal and in the strain and stress of the struggle his youthful
awkwardness wore away, giving place to a youthful sternness.

No one guessed his hopes and high aspiration, not even his friend
Crowder. When Crowder rallied him about this treatment of the Alstons he
had been short and offhand--didn't care for society, hadn't time to waste
going round being polite. He left upon Crowder the impression that the
Alston girls did not interest him any more than any other girls. "Old
Mark isn't a lady's man," was the way Crowder excused him to Chrystie. Of
course Chrystie laughed and said she had no illusions about that, but
whatever kind of a man he was he ought to take some notice of them, no
matter how dull and deadly they were. Crowder, realizing his own
responsibility--it was he who had taken Mark to the Alston house--was
kind but firm.

"It's up to you to go and see those girls. It's not the decent thing to
drop out without a reason. They've gone out of their way to be civil to
you, and you know, old chap, they're _ladies_"

Mark grunted, and frowning as at a disagreeable duty said he'd go.

It took him some weeks to get there. Twice he started, circled the house,
and tramped off over the hills. The third time he got as far as the front
gate, weakened and turned away. After long abstinence the thought of
meeting Lorry's eyes, touching her hand, created a condition of turmoil
that made him a coward; that, while he longed to enter, drew him back
like a sinner from the scene of his temptation. Then an evening came
when, his jaw set, his heart thumping like a steam piston, he put on his
best blue serge suit, his new gray overcoat, even a pair of mocha gloves,
and went forth with a face as hard as a stone.

Fong opened the door, saw who it was and broke into a joyful grin.

"Mist Bullage! Come in, Mist Bullage. No see you for heap long time,
Mist Bullage."

"I've been busy," said the visitor. "Hadn't much time to come around."

Fong helped him off with the gray overcoat.

"You work awful hard, Mist Bullage. Too hard, not good. You come here and
have good time. Lots of fun here now. You come."

He moved to hang the coat on the hatrack, and, as he adjusted it, turned
and shot a sharp look over his shoulder at the young man.

"All men who come now not like you, Mist Bullage."

There was something of mystery, an odd suggestion of withheld meaning, in
the old servant's manner that made Mark smile.

"How are they different--better or worse?"

Fong passed him, going to the drawing-room door. His hand on the knob, he
turned, his voice low, his slit eyes craftily knowing.

"Ally samey not so good. I take care Miss Lolly and Miss Clist--_I_ look
out. _You_ all 'ight, _you_ come." He threw open the door with a flourish
and called in loud, glad tones, "Miss Lolly, Miss Clist, one velly good
fliend come--Mist Bullage."

At the end of the long room Mark was aware of a small group whence issued
a murmur of talk. At his name the sound ceased, there was a rising of
graceful feminine forms which floated toward him, leaving a masculine
figure in silhouette against the lighted background of the dining room.
He was confused as he made his greetings, touched and dropped Lorry's
hand, tried to find an answer for Chrystie's challenging welcome. Then he
switched off to Aunt Ellen in her rocker, groping at knitting that was
sliding off her lap, and finally was introduced to the man who stood
waiting, his hands on the back of his chair.

At the first glance, while Lorry's voice murmured their names, Mark
disliked him. He would have done so even if he had not been a guest at
the Alstons, complacently at home there, even if he had not been in
evening dress, correct in every detail, even if the hands resting on the
chair back had not shown manicured nails that made his own look coarse
and stubby. The face and each feature, the high-bridged, haughty nose,
the eyes cold and indolent under their long lids, the thin, close line of
the mouth--separately and in combination--struck him as objectionable
and repellent. He bowed stiffly, not extending his hand, substituting for
the Westerner's "Pleased to meet you," a gruff "How d'ye do, Mr. Mayer."

Before the introduction, Mayer, watching Mark greeting the girls, knew he
had seen him before but could not remember where. The young man in his
neat, well fitting clothes, his country tan given place to the pallor of
study and late hours, was a very different person from the boy in shirt
sleeves and overalls of the ranch yard. But his voice increased Mayer's
vague sense of former encounter and with it came a faint feeling of
disquiet. Memory connected this fellow with something unpleasant. As Mark
turned to him it grew into uneasiness. Where before had he met those
eyes, dark blue, looking with an inquiring directness straight into his?

They sank into chairs, everyone except Aunt Ellen, seized by an inner
discomfort which showed itself in a chilled constraint. Mayer, combing
over his recollections, the teasing disquiet increasing with every
moment, was too disturbed for speech. The sight of Lorry had paralyzed
what little capacity for small talk Mark had. She looked changed, more
unapproachable than ever in a new exquisiteness. It was only a more
fashionable way of doing her hair and a becoming dress, but the young man
saw it as a growing splendor, removing her to still remoter distances.
She herself was so nervous that she kept looking helplessly at Chrystie,
hoping that that irrepressible being would burst into her old-time
sprightliness. But Chrystie had her own reasons for being oppressed. The
presence of Mayer, paying no more attention to her than he did to Aunt
Ellen, and the memory of him making love to her on park benches, gave her
a feeling of dishonesty that weighed like lead.

It looked as if it was going to be a repetition of one of those evenings
in the past before they had "known how to do things," when Fong caused a
diversion by appearing from the dining room bearing a tray.

To regale evening visitors with refreshments had been the fashion in
Fong's youth, so in his old age the habit still persisted. He entered
with his friendly grin and set the tray on a table beside Lorry. On it
stood decanters of red and white wine, glasses, a pyramid of fruit and a
cake covered with varicolored frosting.

Nobody wanted anything to eat, but they turned to the tray with the
eagerness of shipwrecked mariners to an oyster bed. Even Aunt Ellen
became animated, and looking at Mark over her glasses said:

"Have you been away, Mr. Burrage?"

No, Mr. Burrage had been in town, very busy, and, the hungriest of all
the mariners, he turned to the tray and helped Lorry pour out the wine.
The ladies would take none, so the filled glass was held out to Mayer.

"Claret!" he said, leaning forward to offer the glass.

As he did so he was aware of a slight, curious expression in the face
he had disliked. The eyelids twitched, the upper lip drew down tight
over the teeth, the nostrils widened. It was a sudden contraction and
then flexing of the muscles, an involuntary grimace, gone almost as
soon as it had come. With murmured thanks, Mayer stretched his hand and
took the wine.

It had all come back with the offered glass. A glance shot round the
little group showed him that no one had noticed; they were cutting and
handing about the cake. He refused a piece and found his stiffened lips
could smile, but he was afraid of his voice, and sipped slowly, forcing
the wine down the contracted passage of his throat. Then he stole a look
at Mark, clumsily steering a way between the chairs to Aunt Ellen who
wanted some grapes. The fellow hadn't guessed--hadn't the faintest
suspicion--it was incredible that he should have. It was all right
but--he raised his hand to his cravat, felt of it, then slipped a finger
inside his collar and drew it away from his neck.

Through a blurred whirl of thought he could hear Aunt Ellen's voice.

"I've wanted to see you for a long time, Mr. Burrage. You come from that
part of the country and I thought you'd know."

Then Mark's voice:

"Know what, Mrs. Tisdale?"

"About that Knapp man's story. Didn't you tell us your ranch was up near
the tules where those bandits buried the gold?"

Lorry explained.

"Aunt Ellen's been so excited about that story, she couldn't talk of
anything else."

"And why not?" said Aunt Ellen. "It's a very unusual performance. Two
sets of thieves, one stealing the money and burying it and another coming
along and finding it."

Chrystie, diverted from her private worries by this exciting subject,
bounced round toward Mark with something of her old explosiveness.

"Why, you were up there at the time--the first time I mean. Don't you
remember you told us that evening when you were here. And you said people
thought the bandits had a cache in the chaparral. Why didn't any of you
think of the tules?"

"Stupid, I guess," said Mark. "Not a soul thought of them. And it was an
A1 hiding-place. Besides the duck shooters, nobody ever goes there."

"But somebody _did_ go there," came from Aunt Ellen with a knowing nod.

They laughed at that, even Mr. Mayer, who appeared only languidly
interested, his eyes on the film of wine in the bottom of his glass.

"Who do you suppose it could have been?" asked Chrystie.

"A duck shooter, probably." This was Mr. Mayer's first contribution to
the subject.

Mark was exceedingly pleased to be able to correct this silent and
supercilious person.

"No, it couldn't have been. The duck season doesn't open till September
fifteen, and Knapp said when they went back in six days the cache was
empty." He turned to Chrystie. "I've often wondered if it could have been
a man I saw that afternoon."

As on that earlier visit his knowledge of the holdup had made him an
attractive center, so once again he saw the girls turn expectant eyes on
him, Aunt Ellen forget her grapes, and even the strange man's glance
shift from the wineglass and rest, attentive, on his face.

"It was a tramp. He stopped late that afternoon at my father's ranch
which gives on the road and asked for a drink of water. I gave it to
him and watched him go off in the direction of the trail that leads to
the tules. Of course it would have been an unusual thing for him to
have tried to get across them, but he might have done it and stumbled
on the cache."

"Could he have--isn't it all water?" Lorry asked.

"There's a good deal of solid land and here and there planks laid across
the deeper streams. There _is_ a sort of trail if you happen to know it
and a tramp might. It's part of his business to be familiar with the
short cuts and easiest ways round."

"What was he like?" said Chrystie.

"A miserable looking fellow--most of them are--all brown and dusty with a
straggly beard. There was one thing about him that I noticed, his voice.
It was like an educated man's--a sort of echo of better days."

Aunt Ellen found this very absorbing and she and Chrystie had questions
to ask. Fong's entrance for the tray prevented Lorry from joining in. As
the Chinaman leaned down to take it, she whispered to him to open a
window, the room was hot. Her eye, touching Mr. Mayer, had noticed that
he had drawn out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead which shone with
a thin beading of perspiration. No one heard the order, and Fong, after
opening the window, carried the tray into the dining room and left it on
the table. When Lorry turned to the others, Mark had proved to Aunt Ellen
that the gentleman tramp was a recognized variety of the species, and
Chrystie had taken up the thread.

"Did your people up there know anything about him? Did they think he
was the man?"

"None of them saw him. After Knapp's story came out I wrote up and asked
them but no one round there remembered him."

"Would you know him again if you saw him?"

"If I saw him in the same clothes I would, but"--he smiled into
Chrystie's eager face--"I'm not likely to do that. If it's he, he's got
twelve thousand dollars and I guess he's spent some of it on a shave and
a new suit."

Here Mr. Mayer, moving softly, turned to where the tray had stood. It was
gone, and, gracefully apologetic, he rose--he wanted to put down his
glass and get a drink of water. His exit from the group put a temporary
stop to the conversation, chairs were in the way, and Aunt Ellen let her
grapes fall on the floor. Mark, scrabbling for them, saw Lorry rise and
press an electric bell on the wall; she had remembered there was no water
on the tray. Mayer, moving to the dining room, did not see her, and
called back over his shoulder:

"Your American rooms are a little too warm for a person used to the cold
storage atmosphere of houses abroad."

He said it well, better than he thought he could, for he was stifled by a
sudden loud pounding of his heart. To hide his face and steady himself
with a draught of wine was what he wanted. A moment alone, a moment to
get a grip on his nerves, would be enough. With his back toward them he
leaned against the table and lifted a decanter in his shaking hand. As he
did so, Fong entered through a door just opposite.

"Water for Mr. Mayer, Fong," came Lorry's voice from the room beyond.

The voice and Fong's appearance, coming simultaneously, abrupt and
unexpected, made Mayer give a violent start. His hand jerked upward,
sending the wine in a scattering spray over the cloth. Fong made no
move for the water, but stood looking from the crimson stain to the
man's face.

"You sick, Mist Mayer?" he said.

The strained tension snapped. With an eye if steel-cold fury on the
servant the man broke into a low, almost whispered, cursing. The words
ran out of his mouth, fluent, rapid, in an unpremeditated rush. They were
as picturesque and malignantly savage as those with which he had cursed
the tules; and suddenly they stopped, checked by the Chinaman's
expression. It was neither angry or alarmed, but intently observant, the
eyes unblinking--an imperturbable, sphinx-like face against which the
flood of rage broke, leaving no mark.

Mayer took up the half-filled glass and drained it, the servant watching
him with the same quiet scrutiny. He longed to plant his fist in the
middle of that unrevealing mask, but instead tried to laugh, muttered an
explanation about feeling ill, and slid a five-dollar gold piece across
the table.

To his intense relief Fong picked it up, dropped it into the pocket of
his blouse, and without a word turned and left the room.

No one had noticed the little scene. When Mayer came back the group was
on its feet, Mark having made a move to go.

There were handshakes and good-nights, and Burrage and Lorry moved
forward up the long room. Aunt Ellen took the opportunity of slipping
through a side door that led to the hall, and Chrystie and her lover
faced each other among the empty chairs.

With his eye on the receding backs of the other couple, Mayer said,
hardly moving his lips:

"When can I see you again? Tomorrow at the Greek Church at four?"

She demurred as she constantly did. At each station in the clandestine
courtship he had the same struggle with the same faltering uncertainty.
But, after tonight, the time for humoring her moods was past. What he had
endured during the last hour showed in a haggard intensity of expression,
a subdued, fierce urgence of manner. Chrystie looked at him and looked
away, almost afraid of him. He was staring at her with an avid waiting as
if ready to drag the answer out of her lips. She fluttered like a bird
under the snake's hypnotic eye.

"I can't," she whispered; "I'm going out with Lorry."

"Then when?'

"Oh, Boyé, I don't know--I have so many things to do."

He had difficulty in pinning her down to a date, but finally succeeded
five days off. In his low-toned insistence he used a lover's language,
terms of endearment, tender phrases, but her timorous reluctance roused a
passion of rage in him. He would have liked to shake her; he would have
liked to swear at her as he had at Fong.




CHAPTER XXI

A WOMAN SCORNED


After the conversation with Crowder, Pancha was very quiet for several
days. She spoke only the necessary word, came and went with feline
softness, performed her duties with the precision of a mechanism. Her
stillness had a curious quality of detachment; she seemed held in a
spell, her eye, suddenly encountered, blank and vacant; even her voice
was toneless. She reacted to nothing that went on around her.

All her vitality had withdrawn to feed the inner flame. Under that dead
exterior fires blazed so high and hot that the shell containing them was
empty of all else. They had burned away pride and reason and conscience;
they were burning to explosive outbreak. The girl had no consciousness of
it; she only felt their torment and with the last remnant of her will
tried to hide her anguish. Then came a day when the shell cracked and the
fires burst through.

Unable to bear her own thoughts, weakened by two sleepless nights, she
telephoned to the Argonaut Hotel and said she wanted to speak to Mr.
Mayer. The switchboard girl answered that he was in and asked for her
name. On Pancha's refusal to give it, the girl had crisply replied that
Mr. Mayer had left orders no one was to speak with him unless he knew
the name. Pancha gave it and waited. Presently the answer came--"Very
sorry, Mr. Mayer doesn't seem to be there--thought he was in, but I
guess I was wrong."

This falsehood, contemptuously transparent, act of final dismissal, was
the blow that broke the shell and let the fire loose. Such shreds of
pride and self-respect as remained to the wretched girl were shriveled.
She put on her hat and coat, and tying a thick veil over her face, went
across town to the Argonaut Hotel.

It was the day after Mayer had met Mark at the Alstons'. He too had not
slept, had had a horrible, harassing night. All day he had sat in his
rooms going over the scene, recalling the young man's face, assuring
himself of its unconsciousness. But he was upset, jarred, his security
gone. Luxury had corroded his already wasted and overdrawn forces; the
habits of idleness weakened his power to resist. One fact stood out in
his mind--he must carry the courtship with Chrystie to its conclusion,
and arrange for their elopement. Sprawled in the armchair or pacing off
the space from the bedroom door to the window he planned it. One or two
more interviews with her would bring her to the point of consent, then
they would slip away to Nevada; he would marry her there and they would
go on to New York. It ought not to take more than a week, at the longest
ten days. If he had had any other woman to deal with--not this spiritless
fool of a girl--he could manage it in a much shorter time. All he had to
do was to make a last trip to Sacramento and get what was left of the
money and that could be done in a day.

A knock at the door made him start. Any sound would have made him start
in the state he was in, and a knock called up nightmare visions of
Burrage, police officers, Lorry Alston--there was no end to his alarms.
Then he reassured himself--a package or the room boy with towels--and
called out "Come in."

At the first glance he did not know who it was. Like a woman in a novel
a female, closely veiled, entered without greeting and closed the door.
When she raised the veil and he saw it was Pancha Lopez he was at once
relieved and exasperated. Her manner did not tend to remove his
irritation. Leaning against the table, her face very white, she looked
at him without speaking. Had not the sight of her just then been
extremely unwelcome, the melodrama of the whole thing--the veil, the
pallid face, the dramatic silence--would have amused him. As it was he
looked anything but amused, rising from the armchair, his brows drawn
together in an ugly frown.

"What on earth brings you here?" was his greeting.

"You," she answered.

Her voice, husky and breathless, matched the rest of the crazy
performance. He saw an impending scene, and under his anger had a
feeling of grievance. This was more than he deserved. He gave her an
ironical bow.

"That's very flattering, I'm sure, and I'm highly honored. But, my dear
Pancha, pardon me if I say I don't like it. It's not my custom to see
ladies up here."

"Don't talk like that to me, Boyé," she said, the huskiness of her tone
deepening. "Don't put on style and act like you didn't know me. We're
past that."

He shrugged.

"Answer for yourself, Pancha. Believe me, I'm not at all past conforming
to the usages of civilized people." He had moved back to the fireplace,
and leaning against the mantel waited for her to reply. As she did not do
so, he said, "Let me repeat, I don't like your coming here."

Her eyes, level and fixed, were disconcerting. To avoid them he turned to
the mantel and took up a cigarette and matches lying there.

"Then why don't you come to see me?" she said.

"Teh--Teh!" He put the cigarette between his teeth and struck the match
on the shelf. "Haven't I told you I'm busy?"

"Yes, you've _told_ me that."

"Well?"

"You've told me lies."

"Thank you." He was occupied lighting the cigarette.

"Why, when I telephoned an hour ago and gave my name, did you say you
were out?"

He affected an air of forbearance.

"Because I happened to be out."

"Boyé, that's another lie."

He threw the match into the fireplace and turned his eyes on her full of
a steely dislike.

"Look here, Pancha. You've bothered me a lot lately, calling me up,
nagging at me about things I couldn't help. I'm not the kind of man that
likes that; I'm not the kind that stands it. I've been a friend of yours
and hope to stay so, but--"

She cut him off, her voice trembling with passion.

"_Friend_--you a friend! _You_ who do nothing but put me off with
lies--who are trying to shake me, throw me away like an old shoe!"

Her restraint was gone. With her shoulders raised and her chin thrust
forward, the thing she had been, and still was--child of the lower
depths, bred in its ways--was revealed to him. It made him afraid of her,
seeing possibilities he had not grasped before. What he had thought to be
harmless and powerless might become one more menacing element in the
dangers that surrounded him. His natural caution put a check upon his
anger. He tried to speak with a soothing good humor.

"Now, my dear girl, don't talk like that. It's not true in the first
place, it's stupid in the second, and in the third it only tends to make
bad feeling between us that there's no cause for."

"Oh, yes, there's cause, lots of cause."

He found her steady eyes more discomfiting than ever, and looking at his
cigarette said:

"Panchita, you're not yourself. You're overworked and overwrought,
imagining things that don't exist. Instead of standing there slanging me
you ought to go home and take a rest."

She paid no attention to this suggestion, but suddenly, moving
nearer, said:

"What did you do it for, Boyé?"

"Do what?"

"Make love to me--make me think you loved me. Why did you come? Why did
you say what you did? Why did you kiss me? Why, when you saw the way I
felt, did you keep on? What good was it to you?"

To gain a moment's time, and to hide his face from her haggard gaze, he
turned and put the cigarette carefully on the stand of the matchsafe. He
found it difficult to keep the soothing note in his voice.

"Why--why--why? I don't see any need for these questions? What _did_ I
do? A kiss! What's that? And you talk as if I'd ceased to care for you.
Of course I haven't. I always will. I don't know anyone I think more of
than I do of you. That's why I want you to go. You don't look well, and
as I told you before, it's not the right thing for you to be here."

She was beside him and he laid his hand on her arm, gentle and
persuasive. She snatched the arm away, and with a small, feeble fist
struck him in the chest and gasped out an epithet of the people.

For a still moment they stood looking at one another. Both faces showed
that bitterest of antagonisms--the hate of one-time lovers. She saw it
in his and it increased her desperation, he in her's, and in the uprush
of his anger he forgot his fear. She spoke first, her voice low, her
breathing loud on the room's stillness.

"You could fool me once, but it's too late now. There's no coming over me
any more with soft talk."

"Then I'll not try it. Take it from me straight. I've come to the end of
my patience. I've had enough of you and your exactions."

"Oh, you needn't tell me _that_," she cried. "I know it, and I know why.
I know the secret of _your_ change of heart, Mr. Boyé Mayer."

She saw the alarm in his face, the sudden arrested attention.

"What are you talking about?" he said, too startled to feign
indifference.

"Oh, you thought no one was on," she cried, backing away from him, "but
_I_ was. I've been for the past month. Four hundred thousand dollars!
Think of it, Boyé! You're getting on in the world. Some difference
between that and an actress at the Albion."

If Pancha had still cherished a hope that she might have been mistaken,
the sight of Mayer's rage would have extinguished it. He made a step
toward her, hard-eyed, pale as she was.

"You're mad. That's what's the matter with you. I might have known it
when you came. Now go--I don't want any lunatics here."

She stood her ground and tried to laugh, a horrible sound.

"You don't even like me to know that. Won't even share a secret with
me--me, the friend that you care for so much."

"Go!" he thundered and pointed to the door.

"Not till I hear more, I'm curious. Is it just the money, or would you
like the lady even if she hadn't any?"

Exasperated beyond reason he made a pounce at her and caught her by the
arm. This time his grasp was too strong for her to shake off. His fingers
closed on the slender stem and closing shook it.

"Since you won't go, I'll have to help you," he breathed in his fury.

She squirmed in his grip, trying to pull his fingers away with her free
hand, and in this humiliating fashion felt herself drawn toward the door.
It was the last consummate insult, his superior strength triumphing. If
he had loosed her she would have gone, but anything he did she was bound
to resist, most of all his hand upon her. That, once the completest
comfort, was now the crowning ignominy.

As he pushed her, short sentences of savage hostility flashed between
them, sparks struck from a mutual hate. Hers betrayed the rude beginnings
she had tried to hide, his the falseness of his surface finish. It was as
if for the first time they had established a real understanding. At
grips, filled with fury, they attained a sudden intimacy, the hidden self
of each at last plain to the other.

The scene was interrupted in an unexpected and ridiculous manner--the
telephone rang. As the bell whirred he stopped irresolute, his fingers
tight on her arm. Then, as it rang again, he looked at her with a sort of
enraged helplessness, and made a movement to draw her to the phone. An
outsider would have laughed, but the two protagonists were beyond comedy,
and glared at one another in dumb defiance. Finally, the bell filling the
room with its clamor, there was nothing for it but to answer. With grim
lips and a murderous eye on his opponent, Mayer dropped her arm, and
going to the phone, took down the receiver. From the other end,
plaintive and apologetic, came Chrystie's voice.

Pancha retreated to the door, opened it and came to a halt on the sill.
Out of the corner of his eye he was aware of her watching him, a baleful
figure. He feared to employ the tenderness of tone necessary in his
conversations with Chrystie, and as he listened and made out that she
wanted to break her next engagement, he turned and fastened a gorgon's
glance on the woman in the doorway, jerking his head in a gesture of
dismissal.

She answered it with ominous quiet, "When I've finished. I've just one
more thing to say."

In desperation he turned to the mouthpiece and said as softly as he
dared:

"Wait a minute. The window's open and I can't hear. I must shut it," then
put the receiver against his chest and muttered:

"Do you want me to kill you?"

"Not yet--after I get square you can. I won't care then what you do. But
I've got to get square and I'm going to. There's Indian in me and that's
the blood that doesn't forget. And there's something else you don't
know--yes, there _was_ something I never told you. I've someone to fight
my fights and hit my enemies, and if I can't get you, they can. Watch
out and see."

She retreated, closing the door. Mayer had to resume his conversation
with the blood drumming in his ears, uplift Chrystie's flagging spirit,
and shift their engagement to another day. When it was over he fell on
the sofa, limp and exhausted. He lay there till dinner time, thinking
over what Pancha had said, and what she could do, assuring himself it was
only bluff, the impotent threatenings of a discarded woman. He felt
certain that the champion she had alluded to was her one-time admirer,
the bandit. This being the case, there was nothing to be feared from
him, in hiding in the wilderness. It would be many a day before he'd
venture forth. But the girl herself, full of venom, burning with the
sense of her wrongs, was a new factor in the perils of his position.
Stronger now than ever was this conviction that he must hurry his schemes
to their climax.




CHAPTER XXII

THEREBY HANGS A TALE


That same evening the audience at the Albion had a disappointment. At
half past eight the manager appeared before the curtain and said that
Miss Lopez was ill and could not appear. As they all knew, she had been
an unremitting worker, had given them of her best, and in her love of her
art and her public had worn herself out and suffered a nervous breakdown.
A week or two of rest would restore her, and meantime her place would be
taken by Miss Lottie Vere.

The audience, not knowing what was expected of them, applauded and then
looked at one another in aggrieved surprise. They felt rather peevish,
for they had come to regard Pancha Lopez as a permanent institution
devised for their amusement. They no more expected her to fail them than
the clock in the Ferry Tower to be wrong. Charlie Crowder heard it at the
_Despatch_ office next morning--Mrs. Wesson, who picked up local news
like a wireless, met him on the stairs and told him.

"I'm glad she's given in at last," said the good-natured society
reporter. "She's been running down hill for the past month, and if she'd
kept on much longer she'd have run to the place where you jump off."

That afternoon Crowder went round to see her. There was no use phoning,
the Vallejo was still in that archaic stage where the only telephone was
in the lower hall and guests were called to it by the clerk. Besides, you
never could tell about a girl like Pancha; she was half a savage, liable
to lie curled up in a corner and never think of a doctor.

He found her on the sofa in her sitting-room, a box of crackers and a
bottle of milk on the table, a ragged Navajo blanket over her feet. When
she saw who it was she sat up with a cry of welcome, her wrapper falling
loose from her brown neck. She looked very ill, her eyes dark-circled and
sunken in her wasted face.

He sat beside her on the sofa's edge--she was so thin there was plenty
of room--and taking her hand held it while he tried to hide the concern
that seized him. After the first sentence of greeting she fell back on
the crumpled pillow, and lay still, the little flicker of animation
dying out.

"Well, well, Panchita," he said, patting her hand, a kindly awkward
figure hunched up in his big overcoat; "this is something new for you."

She made an agreeing movement with her head, her glance resting where it
fell, too languid to move.

"I seem to be all in," she murmured.

"Just played out?"

"Looks that way."

"I didn't know till this morning--Mrs. Wesson told me. How did it
happen?"

"I don't know, I got all weak. It was last night."

"At the theater?"

"No, here, in my room. I kept feeling worse and worse, but I thought I
could pull through. And then I knew I couldn't and I got down to the
phone some way and told them. And then I came back here and--I don't
know--I sort of broke to pieces."

As she completed the sentence tears suddenly welled into her eyes and
began to run, unchecked, in shining drops down her cheeks. She drew her
hand from Crowder's and turning on her side placed it and its fellow
over her face and wept, a river of tears that came softly without sobs.
Crowder was overwhelmed. He had never thought his friend could be so
broken, never had imagined her weak as other women, bereft of her
gallant pride.

"Oh, Pancha," he said, unutterably distressed, "you poor girl! I'm so
sorry, I'm so awfully sorry." He crooned over her in his rough man's
tenderness, stroking her hair. "You've worked yourself to the bone. You
ought to have given in sooner, you've kept it up too long."

Her voice came smothered through the shielding hands:

"It's not that, Charlie, it's not that."

This surprised him exceedingly. That any other cause than overwork could
so reduce her had never occurred to him. Had she some ailment--some
hidden suffering--preying on her? He thought of the Indian's stoicism and
was filled with apprehension.

"Well, then, what is it?" he asked. "Are you ill?"

She moved her head in silent negation.

"But if it isn't work, it must be something. A girl as strong as you
doesn't collapse without a reason."

She dropped her hands and sat up. Her face was brought on a level
with his, the swollen eyes blinking through tears, the mouth twisted
and pitiful.

"It's pain, it's pain, Charlie," she quavered.

"Then you _are_ sick," he said, now thoroughly alarmed.

"No--it's not my body, it's my heart. It's here." She clasped her hands
over her heart, and suddenly closing her eyes rocked back and forth. "A
little while ago I was so happy. I never was like that before--every
minute of the day lovely. And then it was all changed, it all ended. I
couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. I kept saying 'it'll come all
right, nothing so awful could happen to anyone.' But it could--it did.
And it's that that's made me this way--to be so full of joy and then to
have it snatched away. It's too much, Charlie. Even I couldn't stand
it--I who once thought nothing could beat me."

Crowder had had a wide experience in exhibitions of human suffering, but
he had never seen anything quite like this. Tenderness was not what was
needed, and, his eyes stern on her working face, he said with quiet
authority:

"Pancha, I don't get what this means. Now, like a good girl, tell me.
I've got to know."

Then and there, without more urging, she told him.

She told her story truthfully as far as she went, but she did not go to
the end. All the preceding night, the interview with Mayer, had repeated
itself in her memory, bitten itself in in every brutal detail. Hate
trailed after it a longing to repay in kind and she saw herself impotent.
The threat of her father's championship, snatched at in blind rage, she
knew meant nothing, the boast of "getting square" was empty. Subtlety was
her only weapon and now in her confession to Crowder she employed it.
What she told of Mayer's conduct was true, but she did not tell what to
her was a mitigating circumstance--the counter-attraction of Chrystie.
The lure of money was to this child of poverty an excuse for her lover's
desertion. Even Crowder, her friend, might condone a transfer of
affection from Pancha Lopez to the daughter of George Alston. So the
young man, hearing the story ended, saw Mayer as Pancha intended him
to--a blackguard, breaking a girl's heart for pastime.

"The dog!" he muttered. "The cur! Why didn't you tell me? I'd have sized
him up for you."

"I believed him, I thought it was true. And I was afraid you'd
interfere--tell me it was all wrong."

The young man shifted his eyes from her face and stifled a comment. It
was no time now to reproach her. There was a moment's silence and then
she broke out into the query, put so often to herself, put to Mayer,
tormenting and inexplicable.

"Why did he do it--why did he begin it? It was he who came, sought me
out, gave me flowers. He'd come whenever I'd let him--and he was so
interested, couldn't hear enough about me. There wasn't any little thing
in my life he didn't want to know. Every man who'd ever come near me he'd
want me to tell him about, he'd just _hound_ me to tell him. What made
him do it? Was it all a fake from the beginning, and if it was did he do
it just for sport?"

Crowder had no answer for these plaints. He was deeply moved, shocked and
indignant, more than he let her see. "An ugly business, a d----d ugly
business," he growled, his honest face overcast with sympathy, his hand,
big and not over clean, lying on hers.

"Never mind, old girl," he said; "we'll pull you out, we'll get you on
your feet again. We've got to do that before we turn our attention to
him. I guess he's got a weak spot and I'll find it before I'm done. Who
is he, anyway--where does he come from--what's he doing here? He's too
d----d reserved to come out well in the wash. You keep still and leave
the rest to me. I'm not your old pal for nothing."

But his encouragement met with no response. Her heart unburdened, she
lapsed into apathy and dropped back on the pillow, her spurt of
energy over.

He lighted the light and tried to make her eat, but she pushed away the
glass of milk he offered and begged him to let her be. So there was
nothing for it but to make her as comfortable as he could, draw the table
to her side, straighten the Navajo blanket and get another pillow from
the bedroom. Tomorrow morning he would send in a doctor and on his way
out stop at the office and leave a message for the chambermaid to look in
on her during the evening. She answered his good-by with a nod and a
slight, twisted smile, the first he had seen on her face.

"Lord!" he thought as he closed the door, "she looks half dead. How I'd
like to get my hooks into that man!"

Downstairs he gave the clerk instructions and left a tip for the
chambermaid--a doctor would come in the morning and he would look in
himself in the course of the day. She was to want for nothing; if there
was any expense he'd be responsible. On the way up the street he bought
fruit, magazines and the evening papers and ordered them sent to her.

The next morning he found time to drop into the Argonaut Hotel for a chat
with Ned Murphy. The chat, touching lightly on the business of the place,
drifted without effort to Mr. Mayer, always to Ned Murphy, an engaging
topic. Crowder went away not much the wiser. Mayer, if a little offish,
was as satisfactory a guest as any hotel could ask for--paid his bill
weekly, always in gold, gave no trouble, and lived pretty quiet and
retired, only now and then going to the country on business. What the
business was Ned Murphy didn't know--he'd been off five times now,
leaving in the morning and coming back the next day. But he wasn't the
kind to talk--you couldn't get next him. It was evident that Ned Murphy
took a sort of proprietary pride in the stately unapproachableness of the
star lodger.

In the shank of the afternoon, Crowder, at work in the city room, was
called to the phone. The person speaking was Mark Burrage and his
communication was mysterious and urgent. The night before, in a curious
and unexpected manner, he had received some information of a deeply
interesting nature upon which he wanted to consult Crowder. Would Crowder
meet him at Philip's Rotisserie that evening at seven and arrange to come
to his room afterward for an hour? The matter was important, and Crowder
must hustle and fix it if it could be done. Crowder said it could, and,
shut off from further parley by an abrupt "So long," was left wondering.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE CHINESE CHAIN


What Mark had heard was, as he had said, interesting. It had been
imparted in an interview as startling as it was unexpected, which had
taken place in his room the evening before.

He was sitting by the table reading, the radiance of a green droplight
falling over the litter of papers and across his shoulder to the page of
his book. The room, at the back of the house, had been chosen as much for
its quiet as its low rent. A few of his own possessions relieved the
ugliness of its mean furnishings, and it had acquired from his occupancy
a lived-in, comfortable look. Two windows at the back framing the night
sky were open, and the soft April air flowed in upon an atmosphere,
smoke-thickened and heated with the lamplight.

Interruptions were unusual--a call to the telephone in the lower hall, a
rare visitor, Crowder or a college friend. This was why, when a knock
fell on the door, he looked up, surprised. It was an unusual knock, soft
and low, not like the landlady's irritated summons, or Crowder's brusque
rat-tat. In answer to his "Come in," the door swung slowly back and in
the aperture appeared Fong.

He wore the Chinaman's outdoor costume, the dark, loose upper garment
fastening tight round the base of the throat, the short, wide trousers,
and on his head a black felt hat. Under the brim of this his face wore an
expression of hesitating inquiry as if he were not sure of his reception.

"Why, hello!" said Mark, dropping his book in surprise; "it's Fong!"

The old man, his hand on the doorknob, spoke with apologetic gentleness.

"I want see you, Mist Bullage--you no mind if I come in? I want see you
and talk storlies with you."

"First-rate, come ahead in and take a seat."

Closing the door noiselessly Fong moved soft-footed to a chair beside the
table. Here, taking off his hat and putting it in his lap, he fixed a
look on Burrage that might have been the deep gaze of a sage or the
vacant one of a child. The green-shaded lamp sent a bright, downward gush
of light over his legs, its mellowed upper glow shining on his forehead,
high and bare to his crown. He had the curious, sexless appearance of
elderly Chinamen; might have been, with his tapering hands, flowing coat,
and hairless face, an old, monkey-like woman.

"Well," said Mark, stretching a hand for his pipe, thinking his visitor
had come to pay a friendly call, "I'm glad to see you, Fong, and I'm
ready to talk all the storlies you want. So fire away."

Fong considered, studying his hat, then said slowly:

"You velly good man, Mist Bullage, and you lawyer. You know what to
do--I dunno no one same likey you. Miss Lolly and Miss Clist two young
ladies--not their business. And Missy Ellen"--he paused for a second and
gave a faint sigh--"Missy Ellen velly fine old lady, but no sense. My
old boss's fliends most all dead, new lawyers take care of his money.
They say to me, 'Get out, old Chinaman!' But you don't say that. So I
come to you."

Mark's hand, extended to the tobacco jar at his elbow, fell to the chair
arm; the easy good humor of his expression changed to attention.

"Oh, you've come for advice. I'll be glad to help you any way I can.
Let's hear the trouble."

Again the Chinaman considered, fingering delicately at his hatbrim.

"My old boss awful good to me. He die and no more men in the house. I
take care my boss's children--I care all ways I can. Old Chinaman can't
do much but I watch out. And one man come that I no likey. I know you
good boy, I know all the lest good boys, but Mist Mayer bad man."

"Mayer!" exclaimed Mark. "The man I met there the other night?"

"Ally samey him."

"What do you mean by 'bad'?"

"I come tell you tonight."

"You know something definite against him?"

"Yes. I find out. I try long time--one, two months--and bimeby I get
him. Then he not come for a while and I say maybe he not come any more
and I keep my mouth shut. But when you there last time he come again and
I go tell what I know."

"You've found out something that makes you think he isn't a fit person to
have in the house ?"

"Yes--I go velly careful, no one know but Chinamen. Two Chinamen help
me--one Chinaman get another Chinaman and we catch on. I no tell Miss
Lolly, she too young; I come tell you."

Mark leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

"Say, Fong, I'm a little mixed up about this. Suppose you go to the
beginning and give me the whole thing. If you and this chain of China
boys have got something on Mayer I want to hear it. I'm not surprised
that you think him a 'bad man,' but I want to know why you do."

What Fong told cannot be given in his own words, recited in his pidgin
English, broken by cautions of secrecy and digressions as to the
impracticability of enlightening his young ladies. It was a story only to
be comprehended by one familiar with his peculiar phraseology, and
understanding the complex mental processes and intricate methods of his
race. Condensed and translated, it amounted to this:

From the first he had doubted and distrusted Mayer. In his dog-like
loyalty to his "old boss," his love for the children that he regarded as
his charge, he had personally studied and, through the subterranean lines
of information in Chinatown, inquired into the character and standing of
every man that entered the house. Sometimes when Mayer was there, he had
stood behind the dining-room door and listened to the conversation in the
parlor. The more he saw of the man the more his distrust grew. Asked why,
he could give no reason; he either had no power to put his intuition into
words, or--what is more probable--did not care to do so.

Two months before the present date a friend of his, member of the same
tong, was made cook in the Argonaut Hotel. This gave him the opportunity
to set in action one of those secret systems of espionage at which the
Oriental is proficient. The cook, confined to his kitchen, became a
communicating link between Fong and Jim, the room boy who attended to
Mayer's apartment. Jim, evidently paid for his services and described as
"an awful smart boy," was instructed to watch Mayer and note anything
which might throw light on his character and manner of life.

To an unsuspecting eye the result of Jim's investigations would have
seemed insignificant. That Mayer gambled and had lost heavily the three
men already knew from the gossip of Chinatown. The room boy's
information was confined to small points of personal habit and behavior.
Among Mayer's effects, concealed in the back of his closet, was a worn
and decrepit suitcase which he always carried when he went on his
business trips. These trips occurred at intervals of about six weeks, and
in his casual allusions to them to Ned Murphy and Jim himself he had
never mentioned their objective point.

It was his habit to breakfast in his room, the meal being brought up on a
tray by Jim and being paid for in cash each morning. For two and
sometimes three days before the trips, Mayer always signed a receipt for
the breakfast, but on his return he again paid in cash. Through a
bellboy, who had admitted Jim to a patronizing intimacy, the astute
Oriental had extended his field of observation. One of this boy's duties
was to carry the mail to the rooms of the guests. For some weeks after
his arrival Mayer had received almost no mail. After that letters had
come for him, but all had borne the local postmark. The boy never
remembered to have seen a letter for Mayer from New York, the city
entered on the register as his home. Through this boy Jim had also
gleaned the information that Mayer invariably paid his room rent in coin.
He had heard Ned Murphy comment on the fact.

From this scanty data Fong and his associates drew certain conclusions.
Mayer had no bank account, but he had plenty of money. Besides his way of
living, his losses at gambling proved it. His funds ran low before his
journeys out of town, suggesting that these journeys were visits to some
source of supply. Arrived thus far they decided to extend their spying.
The next time Mayer left the city Jim was paid to follow him. The room
boy waited for the familiar signs, and when one morning Mayer told him
to bring a check slip for his breakfast, went to the housekeeper and
asked for a leave of absence to visit a sick "cousin." The following day
Jim sat in the common coach, Mayer in the Pullman, of the Overland train.

Alighting at Sacramento the Chinaman followed his quarry into the
depot and saw him enter the washroom, presently to emerge dressed in
clothes he had never seen, though his study of Mayer's wardrobe had
been meticulously thorough. He noted every detail--unshined, brown,
low shoes, an overcoat faded across the shoulders, a Stetson hat with
a sweat-stained band, no collar and a flashy tie. He did not think
that anyone, unless on the watch as he was, would have recognized
Mayer thus garbed.

From there he had trailed the man to the Whatcheer House. Dodging about
outside the window he watched him register at the desk, then disappear in
the back of the office. A few minutes later Jim went in and asked the
clerk for a job. This functionary, sweeping him with a careless cast of
his eye, said they had no work for a Chinaman and went back to his
papers. During the moment of colloquy Jim had looked at the last entry in
the register open before him. Later he had written it down and Fong
handed the slip of paper to Mark. On it, in the clear round hand of the
Chinaman who goes to night school, was written "Harry Romaine,
Vancouver."

This brought Fong to the end of his discoveries. Having come upon a
matter so much more momentous than he had expected, he was baffled and
had brought his perplexities to a higher court. His Oriental subtlety had
done its part and he was now prepared to let the Occidental go on from
where he had left off. Mark inwardly thanked heaven that the old man had
come to him. It insured secrecy, meant a carrying of the investigation
to a climax and put him in a position where he could feel himself of use
to Lorry. If to the Chinaman George Alston's house was a place set apart
and sacred, it was to her undeclared lover a shrine to be kept free at
any cost from such an intruder as Mayer. It did not occur to him as
strange that Fong should have chosen him to carry on the good work. In
the astonished indignation that the story had aroused he saw nothing but
the fact that a soiled and sinister presence had entered the home of a
girl, young, ignorant and peculiarly unprotected. Neither he nor Fong
felt the almost comic unusualness of the situation--an infrequent guest
called upon by an old retainer to help run to earth another guest. As
they sat side by side at the table each saw only the fundamental
thing--from separate angles the interests of both converged to the same
central point.

At this stage Mark was unwilling to offer advice. They must know more
first, and to that end he told Fong to bring Jim to his room the
following night at eight. Meantime he would think it over and work out
some plan. The next day he sent the phone message to Crowder and that
night told him the story over dinner at Philip's Rôtisserie.

It threw Crowder into tense excitement; he became the journalist on the
scent of a sensation. He was so carried away by its possibilities that he
forgot Pancha's part in the unfolding drama. It was not till they were
walking to Mark's lodging that he remembered and stopped short,
exclaiming:

"By Ginger, I'd forgotten! Another county heard from; it's coming in from
all sides."

So Pancha's experience was added to the case against Mayer, and
breasting the hills, the young men talked it over, Crowder leaping
to quick conclusions, impulsive, imagination running riot, Mark more
judicial, confining himself to what facts they had, warning against
hasty judgments. The talk finally veered to the Alston's and Mark
had a question to ask that he had not liked to put to Fong. He moved
to it warily--did Mayer go to the Alston house often, was he a
constant visitor?

"Well, I don't know how constant, but I do know he goes. I've met him
there a few times."

"He hasn't been after either of them--his name hasn't been connected
with theirs?"

"Oh, no--nothing like that. He's just one of the bunch that drops in. I
was jollying Chrystie about him the other night and she seemed to dismiss
him in an offhand sort of fashion."

"He oughtn't to go at all. He oughtn't to be allowed inside their doors."

"Right, old son. But there's no good scaring them till we know more. He
can't do them any harm."

"Harm, no. But a blackguard like that calling on those girls--it's
sickening."

"Right again, and if we get anything on him it's up to us to keep them
out of the limelight. It won't be hard. He only went to their house now
and again as he went to lots of others. If this Chinese story pans out as
promising as it looks, then we can put Lorry wise and tell her to hang
out the 'not at home' sign when Mr. Mayer comes around. But we don't want
to do that till we've good and ample reason. Lorry's the kind that always
wants a reason--especially when it comes to turning down someone she
knows. No good upsetting the girl till we've got something positive to
tell her."

Mark agreed grudgingly and then they left the Alston sisters, to work out
the best method of discovering what took Boyé Mayer to Sacramento and
what he did there.

Jim proved to be a young, and as Fong had said, "awful smart boy."
Smuggled into the country in his childhood, he spoke excellent English,
interspersed with slang. He repeated his story with a Chinaman's
unimaginative exactness, not a detail changed, omitted or overemphasized.
The young men were impressed by him, intelligent, imperturbable and
self-reliant, a man admirably fitted to put in execution the move they
had decided on. This turned on his ability to insinuate himself into the
Whatcheer House and by direct observation find out the nature of the
business that required an alias and a disguise.

Jim said it could easily be done. By the payment of a small sum--five
dollars--he could induce the present room boy in the Whatcheer House to
feign illness, and be installed as a substitute. The custom among Chinese
servants when sick to fill the vacancy they leave with a friend or
"cousin" is familiar to all Californians. The housewife, finding a
strange boy in her kitchen and asking where he comes from, receives the
calm reply that the old boy is sick, and the present incumbent has been
called upon to take his place. Mayer's last visit to Sacramento had been
made three weeks previously. Arguing from past data this would place the
next one at two or three weeks from the present time. But, during the
last few days, Jim had noticed a change in the man. He had kept to his
room, been irritable and preoccupied, had asked for a railway guide and
been seen by Jim in close study of it. To wait till he made his next trip
meant running the risk of missing him. It would be wiser to go to
Sacramento and be on the spot, even if the time so spent ran to weeks.
The room boy could easily be fixed--another five dollars would do that.

So it was settled. The young men, pooling their resources, would pay
Jim's expenses, ten dollars for the room boy, and a bonus of fifty. If he
brought back important information this would be raised to a hundred.
When he came back he was to communicate with Fong, who in turn would
communicate with Mark, and a date for meeting be set. It was now Monday;
arrangements for his temporary absence from the Argonaut Hotel could be
made the next morning, and he would leave for Sacramento in the
afternoon.




CHAPTER XXIV

LOVERS AND LADIES


Mayer was putting his affairs in order, preparatory to flight. A final
interview with Chrystie would place him where he wanted to be, and that
would be followed by a visit to Sacramento and a withdrawal of what
remained of his money. He had a little over two thousand dollars left,
enough to get them to New York and keep them there for a month or so in a
good hotel. Before this would be expended he would have gained so
complete an ascendancy over her that the control of her fortune would be
in his hands. Payment of a gambling debt of three hundred and fifty
dollars--owed him now for some weeks--had been promised on the following
Monday. He would go to Sacramento on Saturday or Sunday, get this money
on his return and then all would be ready for his exit.

He went over it point by point, scanning it closely, viewing it in its
full extent, weighing, studying, determined that no detail should be
overlooked. Outwardly his serenity was unruffled; his veiled eye showed
its customary cool indifference, his manner its ironical suavity.
Inwardly he was taut as a racer, his toe to the line, waiting for the
starting signal. There were moments, pacing up and down his room, when he
felt chilled by freezing air currents, as if icebergs might have suddenly
floated down Montgomery Street and come to anchor opposite the hotel.

There were so many unexpected menaces--the man Burrage that he might run
against anywhere, Pancha, a jealous virago--nobody knew what a woman in
that state mightn't do--and Chrystie herself. In the high tension of his
nerves she was indescribably irritating, full of moods, preyed upon by
gnawings of conscience. He had already given her an outline of his plan,
tentatively suggested it--you had to suggest things tentatively to
Chrystie--drawn lightly a romantic picture of their flight on the
Overland to Reno.

They were to leave on Tuesday night, reaching Reno the next morning and
there alighting for the marriage. He had chosen the night train as the
least conspicuous. Chrystie could be shut up in a stateroom and he on
guard outside where he could keep his eye on the door--it was more like a
kidnaping than an elopement. At other times he might have laughed, but he
was far from laughing now. It wasn't someone else's distressing
predicament, it was his own.

When he had explained it he had met with one of those maddening
stupidities of hers that strained his forbearance to the breaking point.
How could she get away without Lorry knowing--Lorry always knew where she
went? She was miserable over it, sitting close against his shoulder on a
bench opposite the Greek Church.

"How about going for a few days to your friends, the Barlows, at San
Mateo?" he had said, his hand folded tight on hers.

"The Barlows!" she exclaimed. "The Barlows haven't asked me."

That was the sort of thing she was always saying and he had to answer
with patient softness.

"I know that, dear one, but why can't you tell Lorry that they have.
They're going to have a dance and a house party and they want you to
come on Tuesday and stay over till, say Thursday or Friday."

She cogitated, looking very troubled. He was becoming used to the
expression, it invariably followed his promptings to falsehood.

"I suppose I could," she murmured.

He pressed the hand tenderly.

"I don't want to urge you to do anything you don't like, but I don't see
what else there is for it. It's not really our fault that we have to run
away--it's Lorry's. You've said yourself that she'd make objections, not
to our way of doing things, but to me."

Chrystie nodded.

"She would. I'd have a fight to marry you anyway."

No one was in sight and he raised the gloved hand and pressed it to his
lips. Dropping it he purred:

"We don't want any fights. We don't want our joy marred by bickerings and
interference."

Chrystie agreed to that and then muttered in gloomy repudiation of
Lorry's prejudices:

"I don't see why she feels that way about you. Nobody else does."

"We won't bother about that. She doesn't have to love me. Perhaps later
I'll be able to prove to her that her brother-in-law isn't such a bad
chap after all." He shifted a little closer, flicking up with a
possessive finger a strand of golden hair that had fallen across her
cheek, and murmuring his instructions into the shell pink ear his hand
brushed. "You tell her you've had an invitation from the Barlows to come
down on Tuesday and stay till Friday. Say they're going to have a party.
That being the case you'll take a good-sized trunk. Give the order
yourself to the expressman and tell him to send it to the ferry and when
you get there check it to Reno. Then you leave the house in time to
catch the late afternoon train to San Mateo and as soon as you get out of
sight order your driver to take you to the ferry. You'd better cross at
once and do what waiting you'll have on the Oakland side."

"You'll be there?" she said, stirring uneasily.

"Yes, but I won't speak to you."

"Oh, dear"--it was almost a wail--"how I wish we could be married at home
like Christians!"

"My darling, my darling, don't make it any harder for me. You never
wanted anything in your life as much as I want to take your hand and call
you mine before the eyes of the whole world. But it's impossible--you
yourself were the first to say so. We don't want a family row, a scandal,
all in the papers. Love mustn't be dragged through that sort of
ignominy."

She thought so, too; she always agreed with him when he talked of love.
But he had to come down to earth and the Barlows, finding it necessary to
instruct her even in such small matters as how she was to get the letter
from them. She was simply to tell Lorry such a letter had come and she
had answered it, accepting the invitation. It was perfectly
simple--didn't she see?

She saw, her head drooped, telling Lorry about that letter which was
never to arrive and that answer which was never to be written, bringing
back the old, sick qualms. There had to be more inspiring talk of love
before she was brought up to the point where he dared to leave her, felt
his influence strong enough to last till the next meeting. He wondered
irascibly if all home-bred, nice young girls were such fools and realized
why he'd never liked them.

That same afternoon Lorry had a visitor. While Chrystie was walking home,
poised on the edge of the great exploit, at one moment seeing the tumult
left by her flight, at the next that flight, wing and wing, through the
golden future with her eagle mate, Lorry was sitting in the drawing-room
talking to Mark Burrage.

He had not told Crowder that he was going, had not decided to go till
the morning after he had seen Crowder and the two Chinamen. When they
had gone he had sat pondering, and that question which he had not liked
to ask Fong and which he had only tentatively put to his friend, rose,
insistent, demanding a more informed answer. Was this man--more than
objectionable, probably criminal--paying court to Lorry? It was a
horrible idea, that haunted him throughout the night. He recalled
Mayer's manner to her the evening of his visit, and hers to him. Not
that he thought she could have been attracted to the man; she was too
fine, her instincts too true. But on the other hand she was young, so
unlearned in the world's ways, so liable to be duped through her own
innocence. His thoughts swung like a pendulum from point of torment to
point of torment and in the morning he rose, determined on the visit. It
was to satisfy himself and if possible drop a hint of warning. He never
thought of Chrystie. She was a child and on that evening Mayer had
treated her as such, paying her only the scanty meed of attention that
politeness demanded.

When he started for the house he had entered on a new phase in his
relation to her. He was no longer the humble visitor, overawed by her
riches, but someone whose business it was to watch over and take care of
her. It bridged the gulf between them, swept away artificial
distinctions. He forgot himself, his awkwardness, how he impressed her.
These once important considerations ceased to exist and a man, concerned
about a woman, feeling his obligations to look after her, emerged from
the hobbledehoy that had once been Marquis de Lafayette Barrage.

She saw the change at the first glance. It was in his face, in his
manner, no longer diffident, assured, almost commanding. Their positions
were transformed, she less a fine lady, queening it amid the evidences of
her wealth, than a girl, lonely and uncared for, he the dominating,
masculine presence that her life had lacked. The woman in her, slowly
unfolding in secret potency, felt his ascendancy and bloomed into fuller
being. They were conscious of the constraint and shyness that had been
between them giving place to a gracious ease, of having suddenly
experienced a harmonious adjustment that had come about without effort or
intention.

Over the smooth, sweet sense of it they talked on indifferent matter,
items of local importance, small social doings, the Metropolitan Opera
Company which was to open its season on the following Monday night. It
was wonderful how interesting everything was, how they passed from
subject to subject. They had so much to say that the shadows were rising
in the distant end of the room before Mark came to the real matter of
moment. It was proof of the change in him that he did not grope and
blunder to it but brought it forward with one abrupt question.

"Who is Mr. Mayer that I met here the other night?"

"Well--he's just Mr. Mayer--a man from the East who's in California for
his health. That's all I know about him, except that he lived a long time
in Europe when he was a boy and a young man."

"How did you come to meet him?"

"Through Mrs. Kirkham, an old friend of Mother's. She brought him here
and then we asked him to dinner." She paused, but the young man, his eyes
on the ground, making no comment, she concluded with, "Did you think he
was interesting?"

He raised his glance to hers and said:

"No--I didn't like him."

Lorry leaned from her chair, her eyebrows lifted, her expression
mischievously confidential.

"Then we have one taste in common--neither do I."

She was surprised to see Mark flush, and his gaze widen to a piercing
fixity. She thought her plain speaking had offended him and hastened to
excuse it:

"I know that isn't a nice thing to say about a guest in your house, and I
don't say it to everybody--only to you. Are you shocked?"

"No, I'm relieved. But I couldn't think you would like him."

"Why? All the other girls do."

"You're not like the other girls. You're--" He stopped abruptly, again
dropped his eyes and said, "He's no good--he's a fake."

"There!" She was quite eager in her agreement. "That's just the
impression he gives me. I felt it the first time I saw him."

"Then why do you have him here?"

The note of reprimand was unconscious, but to the young girl it was plain
and her heart thrilled in response to its authority.

"We needed an extra man for our dinner--the dinner that you refused
to come to."

She laughed at him in roguish triumph, and it was indescribably charming.
He joined in, shame-faced, mumbling something about his work.

"So you see, Mr. Burrage," she said, "in a sort of way it was your
fault."

"It's not my fault that he keeps on coming."

"No, I guess that's mine. I ask him and he has to pay a call. He's
_very_ polite about that."

She laughed again, delighted at this second chance, but now he did not
join in. Instead he became gravely urgent, much more so than so slight a
matter demanded.

"But look here, Miss Alston, what's the sense of doing that? What's the
sense of having a person round you don't like?"

She gave a deprecating shrug.

"Oh, well, it's not as bad as all that. I have really nothing against
him; he's always entertaining and pleasant and makes things go off well.
It's just my own feeling; I have no reason. I can't discriminate against
him because of that."

Mark was silent. It was hateful to him to hear her blaming herself,
offering excuses for the truth of her instinct. But he had agreed with
Crowder not to tell her, and anyway he had satisfied himself as to her
sentiments--she was proof against Mayer's poisonous charm. At this stage
he could enlighten her no further; all that now remained for him to do
was to give her a hint of that guardianship to which he was pledged.

"It's a big responsibility for you, running a place like this, letting
the right people in and keeping the wrong ones out."

"It is, and I don't suppose I do it very well. It was all so new and I
was so green."

"Well, it's not a girl's job. You ought to have a watch dog. How would
I answer?"

She smiled.

"What would you do--bay on the front steps every time Mr. Mayer came?"

"That's right--show my teeth so he couldn't get at the bell. But, joking
apart, I'd like you to look upon me that way--I mean if you ever wanted
anyone to consult with. You're just two girls--you might need a man's
help--things come up."

The smile died from her lips. She was surprised, gratefully, sweetly
surprised.

"Oh, Mr. Burrage, that's very kind of you."

"No, it's not. The kindness would be on your side, the way it has been
right along. I'd think a lot of it if you'd let me feel that if you
wanted help or advice, or anything of that kind, you'd ask it of me."

Had she looked at him the impassioned earnestness of his face would have
increased her surprise. But she was looking at the tassel on the chair
arm, drawing its strands slowly through her fingers.

"Perhaps I will some day," she murmured.

"Honest--not hesitate to send for me if you ever think I could be of any
service to you? Will you promise?"

A woman more experienced, more quick in a perception of surface
indications, might have guessed a weightier matter than the young man's
words implied. Lorry took them as they were, feeling only the heart
behind them.

"Yes, I'll promise," she said.

"Then it's a pact between us. I'll know if you ever want me you'll call
on me. And I'll come; I'll come, no matter where I am."

The room was growing dim, dusk stealing out from its corners into the
space near the long windows where they sat. Their figures, solid and
dark in the larger solidity of the two armchairs, were motionless, and
in the pause following his words, neither stirred or spoke. It was a
silence without embarrassment or constraint, a moment of arrested
external cognizances. Each felt the other as close, suddenly glimpsed
intimate and real, a flash of finer vision that for an instant held them
in subtle communion. Then it passed and they were saying good-by,
moving together into the hall. Fong had not yet lighted the gas and it
was very dim there; Mark had to grope for his hat on the stand. He
touched her hand in farewell, hardly conscious of the physical contact,
heard his own mechanical words and her reply. Then the door opened, shut
and he was gone.

Lorry went upstairs to her own room. Her being was permeated with an
inner content, radiating like light from a center of peace. She closed
her eyes to better feel the comfort of it, to rest upon its infinite
assurance. She had no desire to know whence it rose, did not even ask
herself if he loved her. From a state of dull distress she had suddenly
come into a consciousness of perfect well-being, leaving behind her a
past where she had been troubled and lonely. Their paths, wandering and
uncertain, had met, converging on some higher level, where they stood
together in a deep, enfolding security.

She was still motionless in the gathering dusk when Chrystie entered the
room beyond, filling it with silken rustlings and the tapping of high
heels. Lorry did not know she was there till she came to the open door
and looked in.

"Oh, Lorry, is that you? What are you doing sitting like Patience in a
rocking chair?"

"I don't know--thinking, dreaming."

Chrystie withdrew with mutterings; could be heard moving about. Suddenly
she exclaimed, "It's a glorious afternoon," and then shut a drawer with a
bang. Presently two short, sharp rings sounded from the hall below and
following them her voice rose high and animated:

"That's the mail. I'll go and see if there's anything exciting."

Lorry heard her turbulent descent of the stairs and came back to a
realization of her environment. In a few minutes Chrystie was in her room
again, a little breathless from her race up the long flight.

"There're only two letters," she called. "One for you and one for me."

Lorry was not interested in letters and made no response, and after a
pause heard her sister's voice, raised in the same vivacious note:

"Mine's from Lilly Barlow. She wants me to come down on Tuesday and stay
over till Friday. They're having a dance."

"A dance--oh, that'll be lovely. When is it to be?"

"Tuesday night. I'm to go down on the evening train and they'll meet me
with the motor."

"I'm so glad--you always have a good time there."

Lorry appeared in the doorway. The room was nearly dark, the last blue
light slanting in through the uncurtained window. By its faint
illumination she saw Chrystie's face in the mirror, glum and unsmiling.
It was not the expression with which the youngest Miss Alston generally
greeted calls to festivals.

"What's the matter, Chrystie?" she said. "Don't you want to go?"

The girl wheeled round sharply.

"Of course I do. Why shouldn't I? Did you ever know me not want to go
to a dance?"

"Then you'd better write and accept at once. They're probably putting up
other people and they'll want to know if you're coming."

"I'll do it tonight. There's no such desperate hurry; I can phone down.
There's your letter on the bureau."

She threw herself on the bed, a long, formless shape in the shadowy
corner. She lay there without speaking as Lorry took her letter to the
window and read it. It was from Mrs. Kirkham; a friend had sent her a
box for the opera on Tuesday night and she invited both girls. It would
be a great occasion, everybody was going, Caruso was to sing. Lorry
looked up from it, quite dismayed; it was too bad that Chrystie would
miss it. But Chrystie from the darkness of the bed said she didn't care;
she'd rather dance than hear Caruso, or any other singing man--music
bored her anyhow. Lorry left her and went into her own room to write an
acceptance for herself and regrets for her sister.

At nine that night Mark was sitting by his table, his book on his knee,
his eyes on the smoke wreaths that lay across the air in light layers,
when his dreams were broken by a knock on his door. It was his landlady
with a telegram:

"Mother very sick. Pneumonia. Come at once. SADIE."

There was a train for Stockton in half an hour, and he could make the
distance between the town and the ranch by horse or stage. He made a race
for it and at the station, finding himself a few minutes ahead, took a
call for Crowder at the _Despatch_ office and caught him. In a few words
he told him what had happened, that he didn't know how long he might be
away and that if news came from Jim before his return to let him know.
Crowder promised.




CHAPTER XXV

WHAT JIM SAW


The next morning Crowder sent a letter to Fong advising him of Mark's
departure. Should Jim get back from Sacramento within the next few days
he was to communicate with Crowder at the _Despatch_ office. The young
man had no expectation of early news, but he was going to run no risks
with what promised to be a sensation. His journalist's instincts were
aroused, and he was resolved to keep for his own paper and his own
_kudos_ the most picturesque story that had ever come his way. He went
about his work, restless and impatient, seeing the story on the
_Despatch's_ front page and himself made the star reporter of the staff.

He had not long to wait. On Monday morning he was called from the city
room to the telephone. Through the transmitter came the soft and even
voice of Jim; he had returned from Sacramento the night before, and if it
was convenient for Mr. Crowder could see him that afternoon at two in
Portsmouth Square. Mr. Crowder would make it convenient, and Jim's
good-by hummed gently along the wire.

The small plaza--a bit of the multicolored East embedded in the new, drab
West--was a place where Orient and Occident touched hands. There Chinese
mothers sat on the benches watching their children playing at their feet,
and Chinese fathers carried babies, little bunched-up, fat things with
round faces and glistening onyx eyes. Sons of the Orient, bent on
business, passed along the paths, exchanging greetings in a sing-song of
nasal voices, cues braided with rose-colored silk swinging to their
knees. Above the vivid green of the grass and the dark flat branches of
cypress trees, the back of Chinatown rose, alien and exotic: railings
touched with gold and red, lanterns, round and crimson or oblong with
pale, skin-like coverings, on the window ledges blue and white bowls
upholding sheaves of lilies, the rich emblazonry of signs, the thick
gilded arabesques of a restaurant's screened balconies.

Crowder found his man standing by the pedestal on which the good ship
_Bonaventure_ spreads its shining sails before the winds of romance. A
quiet hail and they were strolling side by side to a bench sheltered by a
growth of laurel.

Mayer had appeared at the Whatcheer House the day before at noon. Jim,
crossing the back of the office, had seen him enter, and loitering heard
him tell the clerk that he would give up his room that afternoon as his
base had shifted to Oregon. Then he had gone upstairs, and Jim had
followed him and seen him go into No. 19, the last door at the end of the
hall on the left-hand side.

The hall was empty and very quiet. It was the lunch hour, a time at which
the place was deserted. Arming himself with a duster Jim had stolen down
the passage to No. 19. Standing by the door he could hear Mayer walking
about inside, and then a sound as if he was moving the furniture. With
the duster held ready for use Jim had looked through the keyhole and seen
Mayer with a chisel in his hand, the bed behind him drawn out from the
wall to the middle of the room.

Emboldened by the hall's silence, Jim had continued to watch. He saw
Mayer go to the corner where the bed had stood, lift the carpet and the
boards below it and take from beneath them two canvas sacks. From these
he shook a stream of gold coins--more than a thousand dollars, maybe two.
He let them lie there while he put back the sacks, replaced the boards
and carpet and pushed the bed into its corner. Then he gathered up the
money, rolling some of it in a piece of linen, which he packed in his
suitcase, and putting the rest in a money belt about his waist. After
that he took up his hat and Jim slipped away to a broom closet at the
upper end of the hall.

From here the Chinaman saw his quarry come out of the room and go down
the stairs. At the desk Mayer stopped, told the clerk he had vacated
No. 19, but would wait in the office for a while as his train was not
due to leave till the afternoon. From the stairhead Jim watched him
take a seat by the window, and, the suitcase at his feet, pick up a
paper and begin to read.

It was a rule of the Whatcheer House that a vacated room was subjected to
a "thorough cleaning." Translated this meant a run over the floor with a
carpet sweeper and a change of sheets. The door of No. 19 had been left
unlocked, and while Mayer sat in the office conning the paper, Jim with
the necessary rags and brooms was putting No. 19 in shape for the next
tenant. An inside bolt on the door made him secure against interruption,
and the bed drawn to the middle of the floor was part of the traditional
rite. Carpet and boards came up easily; his cache empty Mayer had not
troubled to renail them. In the space between the rafters and the
flooring Jim had found no more money, only a bunch of canvas sacks, and a
dirty newspaper. With the Chinaman's meticulous carefulness he had
brought these back to his employers; in proof of which he laid a small,
neatly tied package on Crowder's knee. For the rest his work was done.
He had paid the Whatcheer room boy and seen him reinstated, had followed
Mayer to the depot, viewed his transformation there, and ridden with him
on the night train back to San Francisco.

To Crowder's commending words he murmured a smiling deprecation. What
concerned him most was his "prize money," which was promised on Mark's
return. Then, nodding sagely to the young man's cautioning of secrecy, he
rose, and uninterested, imperturbably enigmatic and bland, passed out of
sight around the laurels.

Crowder, on the bench, slipped down to a comfortable angle and thought.
There was no doubt now--but what the devil did it mean? A concealed
hoard hidden under the floor of a men's lodging house--that could only
be stolen money. Where had he stolen it from? Was he some kind of
gentleman burglar, such as plays and novels had been built around? It
was a plausible explanation. He looked the part so well; lots of
swagger and side, and the whole thing a trifle overdone. _What_ a
story! Crowder licked his lips over it, seeing it splashed across the
front page. At that moment the parcel Jim had given him slipped off his
knee to the ground.

He had forgotten it, and a little shamefaced--for your true detective
studies the details before formulating his theory--picked it up and
opened it. Inside a newspaper, its outer sheets mud-stained and torn,
were six small bags of white canvas, marked with a stenciled "W. F. &
Co." Crowder sat erect and brushed back his pendent lock of hair. He knew
what the stenciled letters stood for as well as he knew his own initials.
Then he spread out the paper. It was the _Sacramento Courier_ of August
25. From the top of a column the heading of his own San Francisco letter
faced him, the bottom part torn away. But that did not interest him. It
was the date that held his eye--August 25--that was last summer--August
25, Wells Fargo--he muttered it over, staring at the paper, his glance
glassily fixed in the intensity of his mental endeavor.

Round date and name his memory circled, drawing toward a focus, curving
closer and closer, coming nearer in decreasing spirals, finally falling
on it. With the pounce a broken sentence fell from his lips: "The tules!
Knapp and Garland!"

For the first moment of startled realization he was so surprised that he
could not see how Mayer was implicated. Then his mind leaped the gap from
the holdup in August to that picturesque narrative still fresh in the
public mind--Knapp's story of the robbed cache. The recollection came
with an impact that held him breathless; incidents, details, dates,
marshaling themselves in a corroborating sequence. When he saw it clear,
unrolled before his mental vision in a series of events, neatly fitting,
accurately dovetailed, he sat up looking stupidly about him like a person
emerging from sleep.

He had work to do at the office, but on the way there stopped at the
Express Company for a word with Robinson, one of the clerks, whom he
knew. He wanted information of any losses by theft or accident sustained
by the company since the middle of the preceding August. Robinson
promised to look up the subject and let him know before the closing hour.
At six Crowder was summoned to one of the telephone booths in the city
room. Robinson had inquired: during the time specified Wells Fargo and
Company had suffered but one loss. This was on the twenty-sixth of
August, when Knapp and Garland had held up the Rocky Bar stage and taken
thousand dollars in coin consigned to the Greenhide Mine at Antelope.

It was Crowder's habit to dine at Philip's Rôtisserie at half past six.
They liked him at Philip's. Madame at her desk, fat and gray-haired, with
a bunch of pink roses at one elbow and a sleeping cat at the other,
always had time for a chat with "Monsieur Crowdare." Even Philip himself,
in his chef's cap and apron, would emerge from the kitchen and confer
with the favored guest. But tonight "Monsieur Crowdare" had no words for
anyone. He did no more than nod to Madame, and Gaston, the waiter,
afterward told her he had hardly looked at the menu--just said bring
anything, he didn't care what. Madame was quite worried over it, hoped
"_le cher garçon_" wasn't sick, and comforted herself by thinking he
might be in love.

Never before in his cheery existence had Crowder been so excited. Over
his unsavored dinner he studied the situation, planning his course. He
was resolved on one point--to keep the rights of discovery for the
_Despatch_. He could manage this, making it a condition when he laid his
knowledge before the Express Company people. That would be his next move,
and he ought to do it soon; Mayer's withdrawal of the money might
indicate an intention of disappearing. He would go to Wells Fargo and
tell them what he had found out, asking in return that the results of
their investigation should be given to him for first publication in the
_Despatch_.

It was a pity Mark wasn't there--he didn't like acting without Mark. But
matters were moving too quickly now to take any chances. There was no
telephone at the ranch, or he could have called up long-distance, and a
telegram, to be intelligible, would have to be too explicit. He would
write to Mark tomorrow, or perhaps the next day--after he had seen the
Express people.

To be secret as the grave was the charge Crowder laid upon himself, but
he longed to let loose some of the ferment that seethed within him, and
in his longing remembered the one person to whom he dared go--Pancha.
Hers were the legitimate ears to receive the racy tale. She was not only
to be trusted--a pal as reliable as a man--but it would cure her of her
infatuation, effectually crush out the passion that had devastated her.




CHAPTER XXVI

PANCHA WRITES A LETTER


Pancha had been much alone. Crowder had seen her several times, the
doctor had come, the chambermaid, one or two of her confreres from the
theater. But there had been long, dreary hours when she had lain
motionless, looking at the walls and thinking of her wrongs. She had
gone over and over the old ground, trodden the weary round like a
squirrel in a cage, asked herself the same questions and searched,
tormented, for their answers. As the days passed the weight of her
grievance grew, and her sick soul yearned to hit back at the man who had
so wantonly wounded her.

Gradually, from the turmoil an idea of retaliation was churned into
being. It did not reach the point of action till Monday evening. Then it
rose before her imperious, a vengeance, subtle and if not complete, at
least as satisfying as anything could be to her sore heart. It was that
expression of futile anger and poisoned musings, an anonymous letter. She
wrote it on the pink note paper which she had bought to write to Mayer
on. It ran as follows:

Dear Lady:

This letter is to warn you. It comes from a person friendly to you and
who wants to put you wise to something you ought to know. It's about Boyé
Mayer, him that goes to your house and is after your sister. Maybe you
don't know that, but _I_ do--it's truth what I'm telling you every word.
He's no good. Not the kind to go round with your kind. It's your sister's
money he wants. If she had none he'd not trouble to meet her in the
plaza opposite the Greek Church. Watch out for him--don't let her go with
him. Don't let her marry him or you'll curse the day. I know him well and
I know he's bad right through.

Wishing you well,

FROM A FRIEND.


She had written the letter to Lorry as the elder sister, whose name she
had seen in the papers and whom Crowder had described as the intelligent
one with brains and character. Her woman's instinct told her that her
charges might have no weight with the younger girl, under the spell of
those cajoleries and blandishments whose power she knew so well. With the
letter in her hand she crept out to the stairhead and called to the clerk
in the office below. Gushing had not come on duty yet, and it was the day
man who answered her summons. She asked him to post the letter that
night, and he promised to do so. The lives of the group of which this
story tells were drawing in to a point of fusion. In the centripetal
movement this insignificant incident had its importance. The man forgot
his promise, and it was not till the next day at lunch that he thought of
the letter, posting it on his way back to the hotel.

In her room again, Pancha dropped on the sofa, and lay still. The
exertion had taxed her strength and she felt sick and tremulous. But she
thought of what she had done with a grim relish, savored like a burning
morsel on her tongue, the bitter-sweet of revenge.

Here an hour later Crowder found her. She was glad to see him, and told
him she was better, but the doctor would not let her get up yet.

"And even if he would," she said, "I don't want to. I'm that weak,
Charlie, you can't think. It's as if the thing that made me alive was
gone, and I was just the same as dead."

Crowder thought he understood his friend Pancha even as he did his friend
Mark. That she could have complexities and reservations beyond his simple
ken had never occurred to him. What he saw on the surface was what she
was, and being so, the news he was bringing would be as a tonic to her
broken spirit.

"You'll not stay that way long, Panchita," he said. "You'll be on the job
soon now. And what I've come to tell you will help on the good work. I've
got a story for you that'll straighten out all the creases and bring you
up on your feet better than a steam derrick would."

"What is it?" She did not seem especially interested, her glance
listless, her hand lying languid where he had dropped it.

"It's about Mayer."

He was rewarded by seeing her shift her head on the pillow that she might
command him with a vivid, bird-bright eye.

"What about him?"

"Every thing, my dear. We've got him coming and going. We've got him dead
to rights. He's a rogue and a thief."

With her hands spread flat on either side of her she raised herself to a
sitting posture. Her face, framed in its bush of hair, had a look of
strained, almost wild, inquiry.

"Thief!" she exclaimed.

"Yes. It's a honeycooler of a story. Burst out all of a sudden like a
night blooming cereus. But before I say a word you've got to promise on
everything you hold sacred that you won't breathe a word of it."

"I promise."

"It's only for a little while. It'll be public property in a day or
two--Thursday or Friday maybe."

"I'm on. How is he a thief?"

Crowder told her. The story was clear in his head by this time, and he
told it well, with the journalist's sense of its drama. As he spoke she
drew up her knees and clasping her hands round them sat rigid, now and
then as she met his eyes, raised to hers to see if she had caught a
point, nodding and breathing a low, "I see--Go on."

When he had finished he looked at her with challenging triumph.

"Well--isn't it all I said it was?"

Already she showed the effect of it. There was color in her face, a dusky
red on the high cheek bones.

"Yes--more. I didn't think--" She stopped and swallowed, her
throat dry.

"Did you have the least idea, did he ever say a word to suggest he had
anything as juicy as that in the background?"

"No. I can't remember all in a minute. But he never said much about
himself; he was always asking about me." She paused, fixedly
staring; then her glance, razor-sharp, swerved to the young man.
"Will he go to jail?"

"You bet he will. I'm not sure on just what count, but they'll find one
that'll fit his case. He's as much a thief as either Knapp or Garland. He
knew it wasn't Captain Kidd's treasure; he saw the papers. He can't play
the baby act about being ignorant. The way he hid his loot proves that."

"Yes," she murmured. "He's a thief all right. He's bad every way."

"That's what I wanted you to see. That's why I told you. You can't go on
caring now."

"No." Her voice was very low. "It puts the lid on that."

"You can thank God on your bended knees he threw you down."

"Oh, yes," she rocked her head slightly from side to side with an air of
morose defiance, "I _can_."

"_Do_ you?" said the young man, leaning closer and looking into her face.

He was satisfied by what he saw. For a moment the old pride flamed up, a
spark in the black glance, a haughty straightening of the neck.

"A common thief like him for my lover? Say, you know me, Charlie. I'd
have killed myself, or maybe I'd have killed him."

Crowder had what he would have called "a hunch" that this might be true.
From his heart he exclaimed:

"Gee, I'm glad it's turned out the way it has!"

"So am I. Only I'm sorry for one thing. It's _you_ that have caught him,
not _me_."

Crowder laughed.

"You Indian!" he said. "You red, revengeful devil!"

"Oh, I'm _that_!" she answered, with biting emphasis. "When I get a blow
I want to give one. I don't turn the other cheek; I strike back--with a
knife if I have one handy."

"Well, don't you bother about knives now. The hitting's going to be done
for you. All you have to do is to sit still, like a perfect lady, and
say nothing."

"Um." She paused, mused an instant, and then said: "You're sure you can't
be mistaken?"

"Positive. Funny, isn't it? It was the paper that gave me the lead. Sort
of poetic justice his being landed by that--the paper that had the
article about you in it."

She looked at him, struck with a sudden idea:

"Perhaps it was that article that made him come to see me in the
beginning."

Crowder smiled.

"I guess he wasn't bothering about articles just then. He'd used it to
wrap the money in. It was all muddy and ragged, the lower half of the
letter gone--the piece about you--got torn out by accident I guess. As I
see it he happened to have the paper and when he got the sacks out of the
ground, put some of 'em in it. Then when he was in the Whatcheer House he
stuffed it in the hole under the floor. It was the handiest way to get
rid of it."

Soon after that Crowder left, feeling that he had done a good work. The
news had had the effect he had hoped it would. She was a different girl.
The last glimpse of her, sitting in that same attitude with her hands
clasped round her knees, showed her revitalized, alive once more, with
something of the old brown and red vividness in her face.

When he had gone she remembered her letter. It was of no use now. She
would have liked to recall it, but it was too late; the clock on the
table marked eleven. Through the fitful sleep of her uneasy night it came
back, invested by the magnifying power of dreams with a fantastic
malignity; in waking moments showing as a bit of spite, dwindled to
nothing before the forces gathering for Mayer's destruction.




CHAPTER XXVII

BAD NEWS


Old Man Haley's shack stood back from a branch road that wound down from
Antelope across the foothills to Pine Flat. Commercial travelers,
staging it from camp to camp, could see his roof over the trees, and
sometimes the driver would point to it with his whip and tell how the
old man--a survival of the early days--lived there alone cultivating his
vegetable patch. In the last four or five years people said he had gone
"nutty," had taken to wandering down the stream beds with his pickax and
pan, but he was a harmless old body and seemed able to get along. He
said he had a son somewhere who sent him money now and again, and he
always had enough to keep himself in groceries and tobacco, which he
bought at the general store in Pine Flat. Maybe you'd see him straying
along, sort o' kind and simple, with his pick over his shoulder, smilin'
up at the folks in the stage.

On that Sunday when Mayer had made his last trip to Sacramento Old Man
Haley had risen with the sun. While the rest of the world was slumbering
on its pillow he was out among his vegetables, hoe in hand.

It was one of those mornings that deck with a splendor of blue and gold
the foothill spring. The air was balmy, the sky a fleckless vault, where
bird shapes floated on aerial currents or sped in jubilant flight. From
the chaparral came the scents of sun-warmed foliage, the pungent odor of
bay, the aromatic breath of pine, and the sweet, frail perfume of the
chaparral flower. This flecked the hillside with its powdery blossom, a
white blur among the glittering enamel of madrona leaves.

Old Man Haley, an ancient figure in his rusty overalls, paused in his
labor to survey the sea of green from which he had wrested his garden.
His eye traveled slowly, for he loved it, and had grown to regard it as
his own. Leaning on his hoe he looked upward over its tufted density and
suddenly his glance lost its complacent vagueness and became sharp and
fixed. Through the close-packed vegetation a zigzag movement descended as
if a fissure of earth disturbance was stirring along the roots. After a
moment's scrutiny he turned and sent a look, singularly alert, over the
shack and the road beyond. Then, pursing his lips, he emitted a whistled
bar of bird notes.

The commotion in the chaparral stopped, and from it rose a wild figure.
It looked more ape than man, hairy, bearded to the cheekbones,
sunken-eyed and staggering. It started forward at a run, branches
crashing under its blundering feet, and as it came it sent up a hoarse
cry for food.

Some years before Old Man Haley had built a woodshed behind the cabin.
When he bought the planks he had told "the boys" in Pine Flat that he was
getting too old to forage for his wood in winter, and was going to cut it
in summer, and have it handy when the rains came. He had built the shed
well and lined it with tar paper. Adventurous youngsters, going past one
day, had peeped in and seen a blanket spread over the stacked logs as if
the old man might have been sleeping there; which, being reported, was
set down to his craziness.

Here Garland now hid, ate like a famished wolf, and slept. Then when
night came, and all wayfarers were safe indoors, stole to the shack,
and with only the red eye of the stove to light their conference,
exchanged the news with his confederate. Hunger had driven him back to
the settlements; four days before his last cartridge had been spent, and
he had lived since then on berries and roots. Old Man Haley, squatting
in the rocking-chair made from a barrel, whispered cheering
intelligence: they'd about given up the hunt, thought he had died in the
chaparral. Someone had seen birds circling round a spot off toward the
hills behind Angels.

The next day when Garland told his intention of moving on to San
Francisco, the old man was uneasy. He was the only associate of the
bandit who knew of the daughter there, and he urged patience and caution.
He was even averse to taking a letter to her when he went into Pine Flat
for supplies. The post office was the resort of loungers. If they saw Old
Man Haley coming in to mail a letter, they'd get curious; you couldn't
tell but what they might wrastle with him and grab the letter. In a day
or two maybe he could get into Mormons Landing, where he wasn't so well
known, and mail it there. To placate Garland he promised him a paper; the
man at the store would give him one.

When he came back in the rosy end of the evening he was exultant. A
woman, hearing him ask the storekeeper for a paper, had told him to stop
at her house and she would give him a roll of them. There they were, a
big bundle, and not local ones, but the _San Francisco Despatch _almost
to date. He left Garland in the woodshed, reading by the light that fell
in through the open door, and went to the shack to cook supper.

Presently a reek of blue smoke was issuing from the crook of pipe above
the roof, and wood was crackling in the stove. Old Man Haley, mindful of
his guest's dignities and claims upon himself, set about the
preparation of a goodly meal, part drawn from his own garden, part from
the packages he had carried back from Pine Flat. He was engrossed in it,
when, through the sizzling of frying grease, he heard the sound of
footsteps and the doorway was darkened by Garland's bulk. In his hand he
held a paper, and even the age-dimmed eyes of the old man could see the
pallid agitation of his face.

"My daughter!" he cried, shaking the paper at Haley. "She's sick in
Francisco--I seen it here! I got to go!"

There was no arguing with him, and Old Man Haley knew it. He helped to
the full extent of his capacity, set food before the man, and urged him
to eat, dissuaded him from a move till after nightfall, and provided him
with money taken from a hiding-place behind the stove.

Then together they worked out his route to the coast. The first stage
would be from there to the Dormer Ranch where he had friends. They'd
victual him and give him clothes, for even Garland, reckless with
anxiety, did not dare show himself in the open as he now was, a figure to
catch the attention of the most unsuspicious. He would have to keep to
the woods and the trails till he got to Dormer's, and it would be a long
hike--all that night and part of the next day. They would give him a
mount and he could strike across country and tap the railroad at some
point below Sacramento, making San Francisco that night.

The dark had settled, clearly deep, when he left. There were stars in the
sky, only a few, very large and far apart, and by their light he could
see the road between the black embankment of shrubs. It was extremely
still as he stole down from the shack, Old Man Haley watching from the
doorway. It continued very still as he struck into his stride, no sound
coming from the detailless darkness. Its quiet suggested that same tense
expectancy, that breathless waiting, he had noticed under the big trees.




CHAPTER XXVIII

CHRYSTIE SEES THE DAWN


No shadow of impending disaster fell across Mayer's path. On the Monday
morning he rose feeling more confident, lighter in heart, than he had
done since he met Burrage. It had been a relief to put an end to the
Sacramento business; Chrystie had been amenable to his suggestion; the
weather was fine; his affairs were moving smoothly to their climax. As he
dressed he expanded his chest with calisthenic exercises and even warbled
a little French song.

He was out by ten--an early hour for him--and he fared along the street
pleasantly aware of the exhilarating sunshine, the blueness of the bay,
the tang of salty freshness in the air. The hours till lunch were to be
spent in completing the arrangements for the flight. At the railway
office he bought the two passage tickets to Reno, his own section and
Chrystie's stateroom, and even the amount of money he had to disburse did
not diminish his sense of a prospering good fortune.

From there he went to the office of the man who owed him the gambling
debt and encountered a check. The gentleman had gone to the country on
Friday and would not be back till Wednesday morning at ten. A politely
positive clerk assured him no letter or message had been left for Mr.
Mayer, and a telegram received that morning had shown his employer to be
far afield on the Macleod River.

Mayer left the office with a set, yellowish face. The disappointment
would have irritated him at any time; now coming unexpected on his eased
assurance it enraged him. For an hour he paced the streets trying to
decide what to do. Of course he could go and leave the money, write a
letter to have it sent after him. But he doubted whether his creditor
would do it, and he needed every cent he could get. His plan of conquest
of Chrystie included a luxurious background, a wealth of costly detail.
He did not see himself winning her to complete subjugation without a
plentiful spending fund. He had told her they would go North from Reno
and travel eastward by the Canadian Pacific, stopping at points of
interest along the road. He imagined his courtship progressing in
grandiose suites of rooms wherein were served delicate meals, his
generous largesse to obsequious hirelings adding to her dazzled approval.
He had to have that money; he couldn't go without it; he had set it aside
to deck with fitting ceremonial the conquering bridal tour.

He stopped at a telegraph office and wrote her a note telling her to meet
him that afternoon at three in the old place opposite the Greek Church.
This he sent by messenger and then he pondered a rearrangement of his
plans. He would only have to shift their departure on a few hours--say
till Wednesday noon. He had heard at the railway office there was a slow
local for Reno at midday. They could take this, and though it was a day
train there would be little chance of their being noticed, as the
denizens of Chrystie's world and his own always traveled by the faster
Overland Flyer.

As he saw her approaching across the plaza his uneasy eye discerned from
afar the fact that she was perturbed. Her face was anxious, her long
swinging step even more rapid than usual. And, "Oh, Boyé!" she grasped
as they met and their hands clasped. "Has anything happened?"

It was not a propitious frame of mind, and he drew one of her hands
through his arm, pressing the fingers against his side as they walked
toward the familiar bench. There gently, very gently, he acquainted her
with the version of the situation he had rehearsed: a business
matter--she wouldn't understand--but something of a good deal of
importance had unfortunately been postponed from that afternoon till
Wednesday morning. It was extremely annoying--in fact, maddening, but he
didn't see how it was to be avoided. She looked horrified.

"Then what are we to do--put it off?"

"Yes, until Wednesday at noon. There's a slow train we can get. There's
no use waiting till evening."

She turned on him aghast.

"But the Barlows? What am I to do about them? I've told Lorry I was going
there on Tuesday."

"Darling girl, that's very simple. You've had a letter to say they don't
want you till Wednesday."

"But, Boyé," she sat erect, staring distressfully at him, "I've told
Lorry the party was on Tuesday night. That's what they've asked me for.
Now how can I say they don't want me?"

He bit his lip to keep down his anger. Why had he allowed her to do
_anything_--why hadn't he written it all down in words of one syllable?

"We'll have to think of some reason for a change in their plans. Why
couldn't they have postponed the party?"

"Even if they did they wouldn't postpone _me_. I go there often, they're
old friends, it doesn't matter when I come."

Her voice had a quavering note, new to him, and extremely alarming.

"Dearest, don't get worked up over it," he said tenderly.

"Worked up!" she exclaimed. "Wouldn't any girl be worked up? It's _awful_
for a person in my position to elope. It's all very well for you who just
go and come as you please, but for me--I believe if I was in prison I
could get out easier."

He caught her hand and pressed it between his own.

"Of course, it's hard for you. No one knows that better than I, and that
you should do it makes me love you more--if that's possible." He raised
the hand to his lips, kissed it softly and dropped it. "I know how you
can manage--it's as easy as possible. Say you have a headache, a
splitting headache, and can't take the railway trip, but rather than
disappoint them you'll go down the next day."

She drew her hand out of his, and said in a stubborn voice:

"No. I don't want to."

"Why? Now why, darling? What's wrong about that?"

"I won't tell any more lies to Lorry."

He looked at her, and saw her flushed, mutinous, tears standing in her
eyes.

"But, dearest--"

She cut him off, her voice suddenly breaking:

"I can't do it. I didn't know it was going to be so dreadful. But I can't
look at Lorry and tell her any more lies. I _wont_. It makes me sick.
It's asking too much, Boyé. There's something hateful about it."

Her underlip quivered, drew in like a child's. With a shaking hand she
began fumbling about her belt for her handkerchief.

"Sometimes I feel as if I was doing wrong," she faltered. "I love you,
I've told you so--but--but--Lorry's not like anybody else--anyway to me.
And to keep on telling her what isn't true makes me feel--like--like--a
_yellow dog!"_

The last words came on a breaking sob, and the handkerchief went up to
her face. Mayer was frightened. A quick glance round the plaza showed him
no one was in sight, and he threw him arm about her and drew the weeping
head down to his shoulder. Though the green paradise plume was in the way
and his fear of passersby acute, he was still sufficiently master of
himself to soothe with words of beguiling sweetness.

While he did it, his free hand holding the paradise plume out of his
face, his eye nervously ranging the prospect, his mind ran over ways to
meet the difficulty. By the time Chrystie had conquered her tears, and,
with a creaking of tight-drawn silks, was sitting upright again, he had
hit on a solution and was ready to broach it.

"Well, then, we'll rule out any more lies as you call them. You won't
have to say another word to Lorry. We can go on just as we'd planned."

"How?" she asked, in a stopped-up voice, dabbing at her eyes with the
handkerchief.

"You can leave on Tuesday afternoon at the same time and go to a hotel."

"A hotel!" She stopped dabbing, extremely surprised, as if he had
suggested going to something she had never heard of before.

"Yes, not one of the big ones; a quiet place where you're not liable to
run into anyone who may recognize you. I know of the very thing, not
long opened, in the Mission. You leave for the train as you intended, but
instead of going to the ferry, you go there. I'll take the rooms for you.
All you'll have to do will be to write your name in the book--say, Miss
Brown--and go up to your apartment. Order your dinner up there and your
breakfast the next morning. I'll have a cab sent round for you at
half-past eleven that'll take you straight to the ferry, and I'll send
your tickets and trunk check to your rooms before that. There'll be
nothing for you to do but cross on the boat and go into your stateroom on
the train."

This was all very smooth and clear. It was proof of Chrystie's
unpractical trend of thought that her comment was an uneasy,

"A hotel in the Mission?"

"Yes, a new place, very quiet and decent. I heard of it from some people
who are living there. I'll not come to see you, but I'll phone over in
the evening and find out how you're getting on. And the next morning I'll
be on the platform at Oakland, watching out for you."

"But you won't speak to me?"

"Not then. In the train we might meet--just accidentally run into one
another. And you'll say, 'Why, there's Mr. Mayer! How odd. How d'ye do,
Mr. Mayer.'" He bowed with a mincing imitation of Chrystie's best society
manner. "'I didn't expect to see _you_ here.'"

She laughed delightedly, nestling against his shoulder.

"Will that be all? Can I say any more?"

"Not much. It will be only a greeting as we pass each other: 'So glad to
see you, Miss Alston. Going up to Reno for a short stay. See you in town
soon again, I hope.' And then you to your stateroom and me in my section,
both of us looking out of the window as if we were bored."

They both laughed, lovers again. He was as relieved as she was. After all
it might turn out the better plan. He could keep his eye on her, watch
for signs of distress or mutiny and be ready with the comforting word. He
had to take some risk, and it was better to take that of being seen than
that of leaving her a prey to her own disintegrating musings. Chrystie
thought it was a great deal better than the other way. She saw herself in
the train, conscious of him, knowing he was there, and pretending not to
care. She felt uplifted on the wings of romance, heard the air around her
stirred by the beating of those rainbow pinions.

The thrill of it lasted until dinner, then began to die away. Her home
and the familiar surroundings pressed upon her attention like live things
insisting on recognition. The trivial talk round the table took on the
poignancy of matters already in the past. The night before Fong, on his
way back from Chinatown, had found a deserted kitten and brought it home
announcing his intention to adopt it and call it George Washington. Lorry
and Aunt Ellen made merry over it, but Chrystie couldn't. The kitten
would grow from youth to maturity, and she not be there to see. It took
its place in her mind as something belonging to a vanished phase, having
the cherished value of a memory.

Finally, Lorry noticed her silence, and wanted to know if anything was
the matter. She was pale and had hardly eaten a bite. Aunt Ellen
arraigned the Spring as a malign influence, and suggested quinine.
Chrystie snapped at her, and said she wouldn't take quinine if she was
dying. Thus warned away, Lorry and Aunt Ellen left her alone and made
Summer plans together. Lake Tahoe for July and August was taking shape in
Lorry's mind. July and August! Where would _she_ be? Boyé had said
something about Europe, and at the time it had seemed to her the _ultima
Thule_ of her dreams. Now it looked as far away as the moon and as
inhospitable.

The inner excitement of the next day carried her over qualms and
yearnings--the beating of the rainbow pinions was again in her ears.

In the morning she went to the bank and drew five hundred dollars. She
must have some money of her own, and when she reached New York she would
want clothes. It was unfortunate that while she was making holes in her
trunk to pack it, Lorry should have come in and seen more than half of it
stacked on the bureau. That necessitated more lies, and Chrystie told
them with desperation. It was to pay people, of course, milliners and
dressmakers--she owed a lot, and as she was passing the bank she'd drawn
it in a lump.

Lorry was disapproving--her sister's carelessness about money always
shocked her--and offered to take charge of it till Chrystie came back.
There had to be another crop of lies, and Chrystie's face was beaded with
perspiration, her voice shaking, as she bent over her trunk. She'd lock
it in her desk, it would be all right--and please go away and don't
bother--the expressman might be here any minute now.

She had a hope that Lorry would go out in the afternoon, and she could
get away unobserved, but the faithful sister persisted in staying to see
her off. That was dreadful. Bag in hand, a lace veil--to be lowered
later--pushed back across her hat, she had tried to get the good-by over
in the hall, but Lorry had followed her out to the steps. There in the
revealing daylight the elder sister's smiles had died away, and
scrutinizing the face under the jaunty hat, she had said sharply:

"Is anything the matter, Chrystie? You know, you look quite ill. Are you
sure you feel well?"

It brought up a crowding line of memories--Lorry concerned, vigilant,
always watching over her with that anxious tenderness. A surge of emotion
rose in the girl and she snatched her sister to her, kissed her with a
sudden passion, then ran.

"Good-by, good-by," she called out as she flew down the steps to the
waiting carriage.

Her eyes were blinded, and she was afraid to look back for fear Lorry
might see the tears. She waved a hand, then crouched in the corner of
the seat and spied out of the little rear window. She could see Lorry on
the top step watching the carriage, her face grave, her brows low-drawn
in a frown.

The thrill came back when she dismissed the cab at the door of the hotel.
As she walked up the entrance hall it was as if she was walking into the
first chapter of a novel--a novel of which she was the heroine. And as
Boyé had said, it was all very easy--she was expected, everything was
ready. A bellboy snatched her bag, and the elevator whisked her up to her
rooms, suite 38, third floor rear.

They seemed to her very uninviting; a parlor with crimson plush
furniture, smelling of varnish and opening into a bedroom. The blinds
were down, and when the boy had left she went to the window and threw it
up, letting light and air into the stuffy, unfriendly place. That was
better and she leaned out, breathing in the balmy freshness, catching a
whiff from gardens blooming bravely between the crowding walls.

She stayed there for some time, staring about, to the left where the bay
shone blue beyond the roofs, to the right where on the flanks of the
Mission hills she could see the city's distant outposts, white dottings
of houses, and here and there the gleam of a tin roof touched by the low
sun. The nearby prospect was not attractive--what one might expect in the
Mission. Only a narrow crevice separated the hotel wall from the next
house, whose yard stretched below her, crossed with clothes lines, the
plants and shrubs showing a pale green, elongated growth in their efforts
to reach the sunlight. Her down-drooped glance ranged over it with
disfavor, and she idly wondered what kind of people lived there. It had
once been a sort of detached villa; she could trace the remains of walks
and flower beds, and the shed in the back had a broken weather vane on
the roof--it must have been a stable.

She leaned out on her folded arms till the flare of sunset blazed on the
westward windows, then sank through a burning decline into grayness and
the night. The fiery windows grew blank and chains of lamps marked the
lines of the streets. Then she turned back to the room, dark behind her,
yawning like a cavern. She lighted the lights and sat in a stiff-backed
rocking-chair, the hard white radiance beating on her from a cluster of
electric bulbs close against the ceiling as if they had been shot up
there by an explosion. It was half-past six, but she did not feel at all
hungry. She felt--with a smothered exclamation she jumped up, ran to the
telephone and ordered her dinner.

At eight o'clock Mayer's voice on the phone brought back a slight, faint
echo of the thrill. What he said was matter-of-fact and colorless--he
had warned her that it would be--just if she was comfortable and
everything Was all right. She tried to answer it with debonair brevity;
show the right spirit, bold and undismayed, of the dauntless woman to the
companion of her daring.

Then came the slow undrawing of the night, the noises of the house dying
down, car bells and auto horns less frequent in the streets below. The
bedroom was at the back of the building, with windows that looked across
a paved court to the rear walls of houses. There were lights in many of
them, glimpses of bright interiors, people chatting in friendly groups.
The sight brought a stabbing memory of the drawing-room at home, and in
the dark she undressed and slipped into bed.

But sleep would not come--her mind would not obey her; slipped and slid
away from her direction like an animal racing for its goal. At home at
this hour the door between her room and Lorry's would be open and they
would be calling back and forth to one another as they made ready for
bed. They had done that as far back as she could remember, back to the
time when there had been a nurse in her room and Lorry had worn her hair
in braids. She lay still, almost breathless, her eyes fixed on the yellow
oblong of the transom, recalling Lorry in those days, in stiff white
skirts and a wide silk sash, very grave, a little woman even then. She
groaned and turned over in the bed, digging her head into the pillow and
closing her eyes.

After an hour or two she rose and put on her wrapper and slippers. The
turmoil within her was so intense that she could not keep still, and
prowled, a tall, swathed form, from one room to the other. It seemed then
that there never had been a thrill--nothing but this repulsion, this
repudiation, nothing but a desire to be back where she belonged. She
fought it, less for love of Mayer than for shame at her own backsliding.
She saw herself a coward, lacking the courage to take her life boldly,
renouncing the man who had her promise. That held her closer to her
resolve than any other consideration; her troth was plighted. Could she
now--the wedding ring almost on her finger--turn and run crying for home
like a child frightened of the dark?

But she didn't want to, she didn't want to! She seemed to see Mayer with
a new clearness; glimpsed, to her own dread, his compelling power. He was
her master, someone she feared, someone who could make her at one moment
feel proud and glad, and at another small and trivial and apologetic. A
majestic figure, a woman built on the grand plan, poor Chrystie paced
through the silent rooms, weeping like a lost baby.

When the dawn began to grow pale she went to the bedroom window and
pulled up the blinds. Like a place of dreams the city slowly grew into
solidity through the spectral light. It was as gray as her mood, all
color subdued, walls and roofs and chimneys an even monochrome, above
them in the sky an increasing, thin, white luster. The air stole in chill
as the prospect and from the street beyond rose the sound of a footfall,
enormously distinct, echoing prodigiously, as if it was the only footfall
left in the world and the sound of the others--refused individual
existence--had concentrated in that one to give it volume.

Chrystie drew up a chair and sat down. There with swollen eyes and leaden
heart she waited for the day.




CHAPTER XXIX

LORRY SEES THE DAWN


Chrystie's manner on her departure had disturbed Lorry. As she dressed
for the opera that night she pondered on it, and back from it to the
change she had noticed in the girl of late. She hadn't been like the old,
easy-going Chrystie; her indolent evenness of mood had given place to a
mercurial flightiness, her gay good-humor been broken by flashes of
temper and morose silences.

Rustling into her new white dress Lorry reproached herself. She should
have paid more attention to it. If Chrystie wasn't well or something was
troubling her she should have found out what it was. She had been
negligent, engrossed in her own affairs--thinking of a man, dreaming like
a lovesick girl. That admission made her blush, and seeing her face in
the mirror, the cheeks pink-tinted, the eyes darkly glowing, she could
not refrain from looking at it. She was not so bad, dressed up that way
with a diamond spray in her hair, and her shoulders white above the
crystal trimming of her bodice. And so--just for a moment--she again
forgot Chrystie, wondering, as she eyed the comely reflection, if Mark
would be at the opera.

But when she was finished and had called in Aunt Ellen to look her over,
the discomforting sense of duties shirked came back. As she slowly turned
under Aunt Ellen's inspecting gaze and drooped her shoulders for the blue
velvet cloak that the old lady held out, her thoughts were full of
self-accusal. On the stairway they took the form of a solemn vow to
pledge herself anew to the accustomed watchful care. In the cab they
crystallized into a definite resolution: as soon as Chrystie came back
from the Barlows' she would have an old-time, intimate talk with her and
find out if anything really was the matter with the child.

At the opera it was so exciting and so wonderful that everything else was
wiped out of her mind. In the front of the box she sat--its sole
ornament--against a background of Mrs. Kirkham's contemporaries, withered
and sere in contrast with her lily-pure freshness. In the entr'actes the
hostess recalled the opera house in its heyday when the Bonanza Kings
occupied their boxes with the Bonanza Queens beside them, when everyone
was rich, and all the women wore diamonds. The old ladies cackled over
their memories, their heads together, forgetful of "Minnie's girl," who
swept the house with her lorgnon searching for a familiar face.

Mrs. Kirkham was going to make a night of it, and afterward took her
party to Zinkand's for supper. Here, too, it was very exciting, too much
claiming one's attention for private worries to intrude. The opera crowd
came thronging in, women in beautiful clothes, men one's father had
known, youths who had come to one's house. Some of the ladies who had
been Minnie Alston's friends stopped to have a word with Lorry and then
swept on making murmurous comment to their escorts--the Alston girls were
coming out of their shells, beginning at last to take their places; it
was a pity they went about with fossils of the Stone Age like Mrs.
Kirkham, but they had a queer, old-fashioned streak in them--ah, there's
a vacant table!

It was past midnight when Mrs. Kirkham dropped Lorry at her door and
rolled off with the rest of her cargo. The joy of the evening was still
with the girl as she entered the hall. She stood there for a moment,
pulling off her gloves and looking about with the prudent eye of a
proprietor. In its roving her glance fell on a letter in the card tray.
It was addressed to her and had evidently come after she had left.
Standing under the single gas jet that was all Fong's thrifty spirit
would permit, she opened it.

Anonymous and written in an unknown hand it struck upon her receptive
mood with a staggering shock.

It came, a bolt from the blue, but a bolt that fell precise on a spot
ready to accept it. It was like a sign following her troubled
premonitions, an answer to her anxious queries. If its author had known
just how Miss Alston's thoughts had been engaged, she could not have
aimed her missile better or timed it more accurately.

During the first moment she saw nothing but the central fact--the
concealed love affair of which the writer thought she was cognizant. Her
mind accepted that instantaneously, corroborating memories coming quick
to her call. They flashed across her mental vision, vivid and detached
like slides in a magic lantern--glimpses of Chrystie in her unfamiliar
brooding and her flushed elation, and the walks, the long walks, from
which she returned withdrawn and curiously silent--the silence of
enraptured retrospect.

Then quick, leaping upon her, came the recollection of Chrystie's
departure that afternoon--the clinging embrace, the rush down the steps,
the absence of her face at the carriage window. Lorry gave a moan and her
hands rose, clutched against her heart. It was proof of how her lonely
life had molded her that in this moment of piercing alarm, she thought of
no help, of no outside assistance to which she could appeal. She had
always been the leader, acted on her own initiative, and the will to do
so now held her taut, sending her mind forces out, clutching and groping
for her course. It came in a low-breathed whisper of, "The Barlows," and
she ran to the telephone, an old-fashioned wall instrument behind the
stairs. As she flew toward it another magic lantern picture flashed into
being--Chrystie boring down into her trunk and the pile of money on the
bureau. That forced a sound out of her--a sharp, groaned note--as if
expelled from her body by the impact of a blow.

She tried to give the Barlows' number clearly and quietly and found her
voice broken by gasping breaths. There was a period of agonized waiting,
then a drowsy "central" saying she couldn't raise the number, and Lorry
trying to be calm, trying to be reasonable--it _must_ be raised, it was
important, they were asleep that was all. _Ring_--_ring_--ring till
someone answers.

It seemed hours before Roy Barlow's voice, sleepy and cross, came
growling along the wire:

"What the devil's the matter? Who is it?"

Then her answer and her question: Was Chrystie there?

That smoothed out the crossness and woke him up. He became
suddenly alert:

"Chrystie? Here--with us?"

"Yes--staying over till Friday. Went down this afternoon."

"No. _She's _not here. What makes you think she is?"

She did not know what to say; the instinct to protect her sister was part
of her being, strong in a moral menace as a physical. She fumbled out an
explanation--she'd been out of town and in her absence Chrystie had
gone to the country without leaving word where. It was all right of
course, she was a fool to bother about it, but she couldn't rest till she
knew where the girl had gone. It was probably either to the Spencers or
the Joneses; they'd been teasing her to visit them all winter. Roy, now
wide-awake, showed a tendency to ask questions, but she cut him off,
swamped his curiosity in apologies and good-bys and hung up the receiver.

She was almost certain now, and again she stood pressing down her
terrors, urging her faculties to intelligent action. She did not let them
slip from her guidance; held them close as dogs to the trail. A moment of
rigid immobility and she had whirled back to the telephone and called up
a near-by livery stable. This answered promptly and she ordered a cab
sent round at once.

While she waited she tried to keep steady and think clearly. Prominent
in her mind was the necessity not to move rashly, not to do anything
that would react on Chrystie. There might yet be a mistake--a blessed,
unforseen mistake. She clung to the idea as those about a deathbed
cling to the hope that a miracle may supervene and save their loved
one. There _was_ a possibility that Chrystie had gone on some
mysterious adventure of her own, was playing a trick, was doing
anything but eloping with a man that no one had ever thought she cared
for. The only way to find out whether Mayer had any part in her
disappearance was to go directly to him.

She sat stiffly in the cab holding her hands tight-clenched to control
their trembling. Her whole being seemed to tremble like a substance
strained to the point of a perpetual vibration. She was not conscious of
it; was only conscious of her will stretching out like a tangible thing,
grasping at a fleeing Chrystie and dragging her back. And under that lay
a substratum of anguish--that it was _her_ fault, _her_ fault. The wheels
repeated the words in their rhythmic rotation; the horse's hoofs hammered
them out on the pavement.

The night clerk at the Argonaut Hotel, drowsing behind his desk, sat up
with a start when he saw her. Ladies in such gala array were rare at The
Argonaut at any hour, much more so at long past midnight. That this one
was agitated even the sleepy clerk could see. Her face was nearly as
white as the dress showing between the loosened fronts of her cloak. The
voice in which she asked if Mr. Mayer was there was a husky undertone.
The clerk, scrambling to his feet, said yes, as far as he knew Mr. Mayer
was in his room. He had come in about ten and hadn't gone out since.

A change took place in her expression; the strained look relaxed and the
white neck, showing between the cloak edges, lifted with a caught breath.

"Where is he?" she said, and before the man could answer had turned and
swept toward the stairs.

"Second floor--two doors from the stairs on your right--No. 8," he
called, and watched her as she ran, her skirts lifted, the rich cloak
drooping about her form as it slanted forward in the rush of her ascent.

Mayer was still up and sitting at his desk. Everything was progressing
satisfactorily. An excellent dinner had exerted its comforting influence
and the telephone message to Chrystie had shown her to be reassuringly
uncomplaining and tranquil. Elated by a heady sense of approaching
success he had packed his trunk in the bedroom and then come back to the
parlor and added up his resources and coming expenses. He had calculated
what these would be with businesslike thoroughness, his mind, under the
process of addition and subtraction, cogitating on a distribution of
funds that would at once husband them and yield him the means of
impressing his bride. Through the word "jewelry" he had drawn his pen,
substituting "candy and flowers," and was leaning back in gratified
contemplation when a knock fell on the door. He rose to his feet,
frightened, for the first moment inclined to make no answer. Then knowing
that the light through the transom would betray his presence, he called,
"Come in."

Lorry Alston, in evening dress, pale-faced and alone, entered.

His surprise and alarm were overwhelming. With the pen still in his hand
he stood speechless, staring at her, and had she faced him then and there
with her knowledge of the facts, admission might have dropped, in scared
amaze, from his lips.

But the sight of him, peacefully employed in his own apartment, when she
had suspected him of being somewhere else, nefariously engaged in running
away with her sister, had so relieved her, that, in that first moment of
encounter, she was silent. Bewilderment, verging toward apology, kept her
on the threshold. Then the memory of the letter sent her over it, brought
back the realization that even if he was here by himself he must know
something of Chrystie's whereabouts.

Closing the door behind her she said:

"Mr. Mayer, I'm looking for my sister."

If that told him that she did not know where Chrystie was, it also told
that she connected him with the girl's absence. He controlled his alarm
and drew his shaken faculties into order.

"Looking for your sister!" he repeated. "Looking for her _here_?"

"Yes." She advanced a step, her eyes sternly fixed on him. He did not
like the look, there was question and accusation in it, but he was able
to inject a dignified surprise into his answer.

"I don't understand you, Miss Alston. Why should you come to _me_ at this
hour to find your sister?"

He did it well, wounded pride, hostility under unjust suspicion, strong
in his voice.

"Chrystie's gone," she answered. "She told me she was going to friends,
and I find she isn't there. She deceived me and I had reason--I heard
something tonight that made me think--" She stopped. It was horrible to
state to this man, now frankly abhorred, what she suspected. There was a
slight pause while he waited with an air of cold forbearance.

"Well," he said at length, "would it be too much trouble to tell me what
you think?"

She had to say it:

"That she had gone to you."

"To _me_?" He was incredulous, astounded.

"Yes. Had run away with you."

"What reason had you for thinking such a thing?"

She made a step forward, ignoring the question.

"She isn't here--I can see that--but where is she?"

"How should I know?"

"Because you must know something about her, because you _do_ know.
Chrystie of herself wouldn't tell me lies; someone's made her do it,
_you've_ made her do it."

"Really, Miss Alston--"

But she wouldn't give him time to finish.

"Mr. Mayer, you've got to tell me where she is. I won't leave here
till you do."

He had always felt and disliked a quality of cool reasonableness in
this girl. Now he saw a fighting courage, a thing he had never guessed
under that gentle exterior, and he liked it even less. Had he followed
his inclination he would have treated her with the rough brutality he
had awarded Pancha, but he had to keep his balance and discover how
much she knew.

"Miss Alston, we're at cross-purposes. We'd come to a better
understanding if I knew what you're talking about. You spoke of finding
out something tonight. If you'll tell me what it is I'll be able to
answer you more intelligently."

She thrust her hand into her belt, drew out a folded paper and handed
it to him.

"_That._ I found it when I came back from the opera."

He recognized the writing at once, and before he was halfway through his
rage against Pancha was boiling. When he had finished he could not trust
his voice, and staring at the paper, he heard her say:

"I've known for some time Chrystie was troubled and not herself, and this
afternoon when I saw her go I _knew_ something was wrong. She looked ill;
she could hardly speak to me. And then _that_ came, and I telephoned to
the Barlows'--the place she was going. She wasn't there, they'd never
asked her, never expected her. She's gone somewhere--disappeared." She
raised her voice, hard, threatening, her face angrily accusing, "Where is
she, Mr. Mayer? Where is she?"

He knew it all now, and his knowledge made him master.

"Miss Alston, I'm very sorry about this--"

"Oh. don't talk that way!" she cried, pointing at the letter. "What does
_that_ mean?"

"I think I can explain. You've given yourself a lot of unnecessary
trouble and taken this thing," he scornfully dropped the letter on the
table, "altogether too seriously. Sit down and let me straighten it out."

He pointed to the rocker, but she did not move, keeping her eyes with
their fierce steadiness on his face.

"How _could_ I take it too seriously?" she said.

"Why"--he smiled in good-natured derision--"what is it? An anonymous
letter, evidently by the wording and the writing the work of an
uneducated person. It's perfectly true that I've seen your sister several
times on the streets, and once I _did_ happen upon her when she was
taking a walk in the plaza by the Greek Church. But there's nothing
unusual about that--I've met and talked with many other ladies in the
same way. The writer of that rubbish evidently saw us in the plaza and
decided--to use his own language--that he'd have some fun with us, or
rather with me. The whole thing--the expression, the tone--indicates a
vulgar, malicious mind. Don't give it another thought, it's unworthy of
your consideration."

He saw he had made an impression. Her eyes left him and she stood gazing
fixedly into space, evidently pondering his explanation. In a pleasantly
persuasive tone he added:

"You know that I've not been a constant visitor at your house. You've
seen my attitude to your sister."

She made no reply to that, muttering low as if to herself:

"Why should anyone write such a letter without a reason?"

"Ah, my dear lady, why are there mischief makers in the world? I'm
awfully sorry; I feel responsible, for the person who'd do such a thing
is more likely to be known by me than by you. It's probably some servant
I've forgotten to tip or by accident given a plugged quarter."

There was a pause, then she turned to him and said:

"But where's Chrystie?"

He came closer, comforting, very friendly:

"Since you ask me I'd set this down as a prank. She's full of high
spirits--only a child yet. She's gone somewhere, to some friend's house,
is playing a joke on you. Isn't that possible?"

"Yes, possible." She had already found this straw herself, but grasped it
anew, pushed forward by him.

He went on, his words sounding the note of masculine reason and
reassurance.

"You'll probably hear from her tomorrow, and you'll laugh together over
your fears of tonight. But if you take my advice, don't say anything
outside, don't tell anyone. You're liable to set the gossips talking, and
you never know when they'll stop. They might make it very unpleasant for
you both. Miss Chrystie doesn't want her schoolgirl tricks magnified into
scandals."

She nodded, brows drawn low, her teeth set on her underlip. If he had
convinced her of his innocence he saw he had not killed her anxieties.

"Is there any way I can help you?" he hazarded.

She shook her head. She had the appearance of having suddenly become
oblivious to him--not finding him a culprit, she had brushed him aside as
negligible.

"Then you'll go home and give up troubling about it?"

"I'll go home," she said, and with a deep sigh seemed to come back to the
moment and his presence. Moving to the table she picked up the letter.
Now that he was at ease, her face in its harassed care touched a
vulnerable spot. He was sorry for her.

"Don't take it so to heart, Miss Alston. I'm convinced it's going to turn
out all right."

She gave him a sharp, startled look.

"Of course it is. If I thought it wasn't would I be standing here
doing nothing?"

She walked to the door, the small punctilio of good-bys ignored as
she had ignored all thought of strangeness in being in that place at
that hour.

"I wish I could do something to ease your mind," he said, watching her
receding back.

"You can't," she answered and opened the door.

"Have you a trap--something to take you home?"

She passed through the doorway, throwing over her shoulder:

"Yes, I've a cab--it's been waiting."

In spite of his success he had, for a moment, a crestfallen sense of
feeling small and contemptible. He watched her walk down the hall and
then went to the window and saw her emerge from the street door, and
enter the cab waiting at the curb.

Alone, faced by this new complication, the sting of her disparaging
indifference was forgotten. There was no sleep for him that night, and
lighting a cigarette he paced the room. He would have to let the gambling
debt go; there could be no delay now. By the afternoon of the next day
Lorry would be in a state where one could not tell what she might do. He
would have to leave on the morning train, call up Chrystie at seven, go
out and change the tickets, and meet her at Oakland. In the sudden
concentrating of perils, the elopement was gradually losing its
surreptitious character and becoming an affair openly conducted under
the public eye. But there was no other course. Even if they were seen on
the train they would reach Reno without interference, and once there he
would find a clergyman and have the marriage ceremony performed at once.
After that it didn't matter--he trusted in his power over Chrystie. In
the back of his mind rose a discomforting thought of an eventual
"squaring things" with Lorry, but he pushed it aside. Future difficulties
had no place in the present and its desperate urgencies. The thought of
Pancha also intruded, and on that he hung, for a moment, his face evil
with a thwarted rage, his hands instinctively bent into talons. Had he
dared he would like to have gone to her and--but he pushed that aside too
and went back to his plans and his pacings.

Lorry went home convinced of Mayer's ignorance. Finding him at the hotel
had done half, his arguments and manner the rest. And during the drive
back his explanation of Chrystie's disappearance had retained a consoling
plausibility. She held to it fiercely, conned it over, tried to force
herself to see the girl impishly bent on a foolish practical joke.

But when she was in her own room, the blank silence of the house about
her, it fell from her and left her defenseless against growing fears. It
was impossible to believe it--utterly foreign to Chrystie's temperament.
She racked her memory for occasions in the past when her sister had
indulged in such cruel teasing and not one came to her mind. No--she
wouldn't have done it, she couldn't--something more than a joke had made
Chrystie lie to her. A sumptuous figure in her glistening dress, she
moved about, rose and sat, jerked back the curtains, picked up and
dropped the silver ornaments on the bureau. Her lips were dry, her heart
contracted with a sickening dread; never in all the calls made upon her
had there been anything like this; finding her without resources,
reducing her to an anguished helplessness.

If in the morning there was no word from Chrystie she would have to do
something and she could not think what this should be. Mayer had not
needed to warn her against giving her sister up to the tongue of gossip.
The most guileless of girls living in San Francisco would learn that
lesson early. But what could she do? To whom could she go for help and
advice? She thought of her mother's friends, the guardians of the estate,
and repudiated them with a smothered sound of scorn. They wouldn't care;
would let it get into the papers; would probably suggest the police. And
would she not herself--if Chrystie did not come back or write--have to go
to the police?

That brought her to a standstill, and with both hands she pressed on her
forehead pushing back her hair, sending tormented looks about her. If
there was only someone who would understand, someone she could trust,
someone--she dropped her hands, her eyes widening, fixed and startled, as
a name rose to her lips and fell whispered on the stillness. It came
without search or expectation, seemed impelled from her by her inward
stress, found utterance before she knew she had thought of him. A deep
breath heaved her chest, her head drooped backward, her eyelids closing
in a relief as intense, as ineffably comforting, as the cessation of an
unbearable pain.

She stood rigid, the light falling bright on her upturned face, still as
a marble mask. For a moment she felt bodiless, her containing shell
dissolved, nothing left of her but her longing for him. Like an audible
cry or the grasp of her hand drawing him to her, it went out from her,
imperious, an appeal and a summons. Again she whispered his name; but
she heard it only as the repetition of a solace and a solution, was not
aware of forces tapped in lower wells of being.

After that she felt curiously calmed, her wild restlessness gone, her
nightmare terrors assuaged. If she did not hear from Chrystie by midday
she would call him up at his office and ask him to come to her. She
seemed to have found in the thought of him not only a staff to uphold,
but wisdom to guide.

She drew the curtains and saw the first thin glimmering of dawn,
pearl-faint in the sky, pearl-pale on the garden. The crystal trimmings
of her bodice gave a responsive gleam, and looking down she was aware of
her gala array. She slipped out of it, put on a morning dress, and
denuded her hair of its shining ornament. It seemed long ago, in another
life, that she had sat in Mrs. Kirkham's box, rejoicing in her costly
trappings, glad to be admired.

Then she pulled a chair to the window and sat there waiting for the light
to come. It crept ghostly over the garden, trees and plants taking form,
the walks and lawns, a vagueness of dark patches and lighter windings,
emerging in gradual definiteness. The sky above the next house grew a
lucid gray, then a luminous mother-of-pearl. She could see the glistening
of dew, its beaded hoar upon cobwebs and grassy borders. There was no
footstep here to disturb the silence; the dawn stole into being in a deep
and breathless quietude.




CHAPTER XXX

MARK SEES THE DAWN


That same Tuesday afternoon Mark sat in the doorway of the cowshed
looking at the road.

It was the first period of rest and ease he had had since his arrival. He
had found the household disorganized, his father hovering, frantic, round
the sick bed, and Sadie distractedly distributing her energies between
her mother's room and the kitchen. It was he who had driven over to
Stockton and brought back a nurse, insisted on the doctor staying in the
house and made him a shakedown in the parlor. When things began to look
better he had turned his hand to the farm work and labored through the
week's accumulation, while the old man sat beside his wife's pillow, his
chin sunk on his breast.

Today the tension had relaxed, for the doctor said Mother was going to
pull through. An hour ago he had packed his kit and driven off to his own
house up the valley, not to be back till tomorrow. It was very peaceful
in the yard, the warm, sleepy air full of the droning of insect life
which ran like a thin accompaniment under a low crooning of song from the
kitchen where Sadie was straightening up. On the front porch, the farmer,
his feet on the railing, his hat on his nose, was sunk in the depths of a
recuperating sleep.

Astride the milking stool Mark looked dreamily at the familiar prospect,
the black carpet of shade under the live oak, the bright bits of sky
between its boughs, beyond the brilliant vividness of the landscape.
This was crossed by the tall trunks of the eucalyptus trees, all ragged
bark and pendulous foliage, the road striped with their shadows. He
looked down its length, then back along the line of the picket fence, his
glance slowly traveling and finally halting at a place just opposite.

Here his imagination suddenly restored a picture from the past--the
tramp asking for water. His senses, dormant and unobserving, permitted
the memory to attain a lifelike accuracy and the figure was presented to
his inward eye with photographic clearness. Very still in the interest
of this unprovoked recollection, he saw again the haggard face with its
lowering expression, and remembered Chrystie's question about
recognizing the man.

He felt now that he could, even in other clothes and a different
setting. The eyes were unmistakable. He recalled them distinctly--a very
clear gray as if they might have had a thin crystal glaze like a watch
face. The lids were long and heavy, the look sliding out from under them
coldly sullen.

As he pictured them--looking surlily into his--a conviction rose upon
him that he had seen them since then, somewhere recently. They were not
as morose as they had been that first time, had some vague association
with smiles and pleasantness. He was puzzled, for he could only seem to
get them without surroundings, without even a face, detached from all
setting like a cat's eyes gleaming from the dark. Unable to link them to
anything definite he concluded he had dreamed of them. But the
explanation was not entirely satisfactory; he was left with a tormenting
sense of their importance, that they were connected with something that
he ought to remember.

He shook himself and rose from the stool--no good wasting time chasing
such elusive fancies. The tramp had brought to his mind the money found
in the tules and he decided to walk up the road and try to locate the
spot described to him that morning by Sadie.

On the hillock, where eight months earlier Mayer had sat and cursed the
marshes, he came to a stand, his glance ranging over the long, green
floor. By Sadie's directions he set the place about midway between where
he stood and the white square of the Ariel Club house. If it _was_ the
tramp he had gone across from there, which would argue a knowledge of the
complicated system of paths and planks. It was improbable--from his
childhood he could remember the hoboes footing it doggedly round the head
of the tules.

His thoughts were broken into by a voice hailing him, a fresh,
reed-sweet pipe.

"Hello, Mark--what you doin' there?"

It was Tito Murano returning from the Swede man's ranch up the trail,
with a basket of eggs for his mother. Tito had become something of a hero
in the neighborhood. In the preceding autumn he had developed typhoid,
nearly died, and been sent to a relative in the higher land of the
foothill fruit farms. From there he had only recently returned with the
_réclame_ of one who has adventured far and seen strange lands.
Barelegged, his few rags flapping round his thin brown body, he charged
forward at a run, holding the egg basket out at arm's length. His face
was wreathed in happy smiles, for the encounter filled him with delight.
Mark was his idol and this was the first time he had seen him.

They sat side by side on the knoll and Tito told of his wanderings. At
times he spit to show his growth in grace, and after studying the long
sprawl of Mark's legs disposed his own in as close an imitation as their
length would permit. It was when his story was over and the conversation
showed a tendency to languish that Mark said:

"I was just looking out over there and trying to locate the place where
the bandits had their cache."

Tito raised a grubby hand and pointed.

"Right away beyont where you see the water shinin'. It's a sort of
island--I was out there after I come back but the hole was all washed
away and filled up."

"_You_ were out there? Do you know the way?"

Tito spit calmly, almost contemptuously.

"_Me? _I bin often--there ain't a trail I don't know. I could lead you
straight acrost. I took a tramp wonct; anyways I would have took him if
he'd let me."

"A tramp!" Mark straightened up. "When?"

The episode of the tramp had almost faded from Tito's mind. What still
lingered was not the memory of his fear but the way he had been swindled.
Now in company with one who always understood and never scolded, he was
filled with a desire to tell it and gain a tardy sympathy. He screwed up
his eyes in an effort to answer accurately.

"I guess it was last fall. Yes, it was, just before school commenced. I
wouldn't 'a done it--Pop'd have licked me if he'd 'a known--but he
promised me a quarter."

"Who promised you a quarter?"

"Him--the tramp. And I was doin' it, but he got awful mean, swore
somethin' fierce and said I didn't know. And how was he to tell and us
only halfway acrost?"

"You mean you only took him halfway?"

"It was all he'd let me," said Tito, on the defensive. "I tolt him it was
all right, but he just stood up there cursin' me. And then he got to
throwin' things, almost had me here"--he put his hand against his
ear--"like he was plumb crazy. But I guess he wasn't, for he wouldn't
give me the quarter."

"Did you leave him there?"

"Sure I did. I run, I was scairt. Pop and Mom'd always be tellin' me to
have nothin' to do with tramps. And it was awful lonesome out there and
him swearin' and firin' rocks."

Tito did not receive that immediate consolation he had looked for. His
friend was silent; a side glance showed him studying the tules with
meditative eyes. For a moment the little boy had a dreary feeling that
his confidence was going to be rewarded by a reprimand, then Mark said:

"Do you remember what the man looked like?"

"Awful poor with long whiskers all sort 'er stragglin' round. He'd a
straw hat and a basket and eyes on him like he was sleepy."

Again Mark made no response, and Tito, feeling that he had not grasped
the full depths of the tragedy, piped up plaintively:

"I'd 'a stood the swearin' and I could 'a dodged the rocks if he'd given
me the quarter. But I couldn't get it off him--not even a dime."

That had a good effect, much better than Tito's highest hopes had
anticipated.

"Well, he treated you mean, old man. And, take it from me--don't you go
showing the way to any more tramps. They're the kind to let alone. As for
the quarter I guess that's due with interest. Here it is." And a half
dollar was laid on Tito's knee.

At the first glance he could hardly believe it, then seeing it immovable,
a gleaming disk of promise, his face flushed deep in the uprush of his
joy. He took it, weighed it on his palm, wanted to study it, but instead
slipped it mannishly into the pocket of his blouse. His education had
not included a training in manners, so he said nothing, just straightened
up and sent a slanting look into Mark's face. It was an eloquent look,
beaming, jubilant, a shining thanks.

They walked back together, or rather Mark walked and Tito circled round
him, curvetting in bridling ecstasy. Mrs. Murano's temper being historic,
Mark took the egg basket, and Tito, all fears of accident removed,
abandoned himself to the pure joys of the imagination. He became at once
a horse and his rider, pranced, backed, took mincing sidesteps and long,
spirited rushes; at one moment was all steed, mettlesome and wild; at the
next all man, calling, gruff-voiced, in quelling authority.

Mark, the eggs safe, was thoughtful. So it must have been the tramp as he
had suspected. But the eyes--he could not shake off that haunting fancy
of a second encounter. All the way home his mind hovered round them,
strained for a clearer vision, seemed at moments on the edge of
illumination, then lost it all.

That night in his room under the eaves he did not sleep till late. The
house sank early into the deep repose following emotional stress, the
nurse's lamp brightening one window in its black bulk. Outside the night
brooded, deep and calm, with whispers in the great oak's foliage, open
field and wooded slope pale and dark under the light of stars. Mark, his
hands clasped behind his head, looked at the blue space of the window and
dreamed of Lorry. He saw her in various guises, a procession of Lorrys
passing across the blue background. Then he saw her as she had been the
last time and that Lorry had not passed with the rest of the procession.
She had lingered, reluctant to follow the fleeting, unapproachable
others, had seemed to draw nearer to him, almost with her hands out,
almost with a shining question in her eyes. Holding that picture of her
in his heart he finally fell asleep.

Some hours later he woke with the sound of her voice in his ears. She was
calling him--"Mark, Mark," a clear, thin cry, imploring and urgent. He
sat up answering, heard his own voice suddenly fill the silence loud and
startling, "Lorry," and then again lower, "Lorry." For a moment he had no
idea where he was, then the starlight through the open window showed him
the familiar outlines, and, looking stupidly about, he repeated, dazed,
certain he had heard her, "Lorry, where are you?"

The silence of the house, the large outer silence enfolding it,
answered him.

He was fully awake now and rose. The reality of the cry in its tenuous,
piercing importunity, grew as his mind cleared. He could not believe but
that he had heard it, that she might not be somewhere near calling to him
in distress. He opened the door and looked into the hall--not a sound. At
the foot of the stairs the light from his mother's room fell across the
darkness in a golden slant. He turned and went to the window. His
awakening had been so startling, his sense of revelation so acute, that
for the moment he had no consciousness of prohibiting conditions. When he
looked out of the window he would have felt no surprise if he had seen
Lorry below gazing up at him.

After that he stood for a space realizing the fact. He had had no dream,
the voice had come to him from her, a summons from the depths of some
dire necessity. He knew it as well as if he had heard her say so, as if
she _had_ been outside the window calling him to come. He knew she was
beset, needed him, that her soul had cried to his and in its passionate
urgency had broken through material limitations.

He struck a match and consulted his watch--a quarter to four. Then, as he
dressed and threw some clothes into a bag, he thought over the quickest
route to the city. A stage line to Stockton crossed the valley eight
miles to the south. By making a rapid hike he could catch the down stage
and be in San Francisco before midday. He scrawled a few lines to Sadie,
stood the note up across the face of the clock, and, his shoes in his
hand, stole down the stairs and out of the house.

The country slept under the hush that comes before the dawn. There was
not a rustle in the roadside trees, a whisper in the grass. Farmhouse
and mansion showed in forms of opaque black, muffled in black foliage
and backed by a blue-black horizon. Above the heavens spread, vast and
far removed, paved with stars and mottlings of star dust. The sparkling
dome, pricked with white points and blotted with milky stains, diffused
a high, aerial luster, palely clear above the land's dense darkness.
Mark looked up at it, unaware of its splendors, mind and glance raised
in an instinctive appeal to some remote source of strength in those
illumined heights.

As his glance fell back to the road he suddenly knew where he had seen
the eyes. There was no jar of recognition, no startled uncertainty. He
saw them looking at him from the face of Boyé Mayer, standing in Lorry's
drawing-room with his hands resting on the back of a chair.

He stopped dead, staring ahead. Lorry's summons, the tramp, the man in
evening dress against the background of the rich room--all these drew to
a single point. What their connection was he could not guess, was only
aware of them as related, and, accepting that, forged forward at a
swinging stride. The beat of his feet fell rhythmic on the dust; his
breath came deep-drawn and even; his eyes pierced the dark ahead, fixed
on landmarks to be passed, goals to be gained, stations to leave behind
him in his race to the woman who had called.

Unnoted by him a pale edge of light stole along the east, throwing out
the high, crumpled line of the Sierra. The landscape developed from
nebulous shadows and enfoldings to hill slopes, tree domes, the clustered
groupings of barns. A stir passed, frail and delicate, over the earth's
face, a light tentative trembling in the leaves, a quiver through the
grain. Birds made sleepy twitterings; the chink of running water came
from hidden stream beds; plowed fields showed the striping of furrows on
which the dew glistened in a silvery crust. The day was at hand.




CHAPTER XXXI

REVELATION


While Lorry was still queening it in the front of Mrs. Kirkham's box,
while Chrystie was tossing in her strange bed, while Boyé Mayer was
packing his trunk, while Mark was thinking of Lorry in his room under the
eaves, Garland, one of the actors in this drama now drawing to its
climax, stood against the chain of a ferry boat bumping its way into the
Market Street slip.

He was over it first, racing up the gangway and along the echoing passage
to the street. People growled as he elbowed them, plowed a passage
through their slow-moving ranks, and ran for the wheeling lights of the
trolleys. He made a dash for one, leaped on its step, and holding to an
upright, stood, breathing quickly, as the car clanged its way up the
great thoroughfare. He had to change by the Call Building, and his heart
was hammering on his ribs as he dropped off the second car at the corner
of Pancha's street.

Up its dim perspective he could see the two ground glass globes at the
Vallejo's steps. He wanted to run but did not dare--the habits of the
hunted still held--and he walked as fast as he could, sending his glance
ahead for her windows. When he saw light gleaming from them his head
drooped in a spasm of relief. All the way down the fear that she might
be in a hospital--a public place dangerous for him to visit--had
tortured him.

Cushing, behind the desk, yawning over the evening paper, roused at the
sight of him and showed a desire to talk. At the sentence that "Miss
Lopez was gettin' along all right," the visitor moved off to the stairs.
He again wanted to run but he felt Cushing's eyes on his back and made a
sober ascent till the turn of the landing hid him; then he rushed. At her
door he knocked and heard her voice, low and querulous:

"Who is it now?"

"The old man," he whispered, his mouth to the crack. It was opened by her
and he had her in his arms.

Joy at the sight and feel of her, the knowledge that she was not as he
had pictured in desperate case, made him speechless. He could only press
her against him, hold her off and look into her face, his own working,
broken words of love and pity coming from him. His unusual display of
emotion affected her, deeply stirred on her own account, and she clung to
him, weak tears running down her cheeks, caressing him with hands that
said what her shaking lips could not utter.

He supported her to the sofa and laid her there, covering her, soothing
her, his concern finding expression in low, crooning sounds such as women
make over their sick babies. When she was quieted he drew the armchair up
beside her, and, his hand stroking hers, asked about her illness. He had
read in the paper that it was a nervous collapse caused by overwork, and
he chided her gently.

"What did you keep on for when you were so tuckered out? Why didn't you
let up on it sooner? You could 'a stood the expense, and if you didn't
want to use your own money what's the matter with mine?"

"I didn't want to stop," she murmured. "Every day I kept thinking I'd be
all right."

"Oh, hon, that don't show good sense. How can I keep up my lick if I
can't trust you better? You've pretty near finished me. I come on it in a
paper up there in the hills-God, I didn't know what struck me. It's
tore me to pieces."

His look bore testimony to his words. He was old, seamed with lines,
fallen away from his robust sturdiness. She suddenly seemed unable to
bear all this weight of pitifulness--his, hers, the world's outside
them. At first she had resolved to keep the real cause of her illness
secret. But now his devastated look, his pathetic tenderness, shattered
her. She was a child again, longing to creep into the arms that would
have held her against all harm, droop on the rough breast where she had
always found sympathy. As the truth had come out under Growder's
kindness, the truth came again. But this time there were no
reservations; the rich girl took her place in the story. Others might
see in that a mitigating circumstance but not the man who valued her
above all girls, rich or poor.

Garland listened closely, hardly once interrupting her. When she finished
his rage broke and she was frightened. Years had passed since she had
seen him aroused and now his lowering face, darkened with passion, his
choked words, brought back memories of him raging tremendously in old
dead battles with miner and cattleman.

"Pa, Pa," she cried, stretching her hands toward him, "what's the
use--what can you do? It's finished and over; getting mad and cursing
won't make it any better."

But he cursed, flinging the chair from him, rumbling out his wrath,
beyond the bounds of reason.

"Don't talk so," she implored and slid off the sofa to her feet. "They'll
hear you in the next room. I can't afford to let this get around."

For the first time in her knowledge of him he was deaf to the claims of
her welfare.

"Who is this fancy gentleman?" he cried. "Where is he?"

"Oh, why did I tell you?" she wailed. "What got into me to tell you! I
can't fight with you--I won't let you go to him. There's no use--it's all
over, it's done, it's ended. _Can't_ you see?"

He made no answer and she went to him, catching at his arm and shoulder,
staring, desperately pleading, into his face.

"You talk like a fool," he said, pushing her away. "This is my job.
Where is he?"

As she had said, she was unable to fight with him. Her enfeebled body was
empty of all resistant force. Now, as she clung to him, she felt its
sickly weakness, its drained energies. She wanted peace, the sofa again,
the swaying walls to steady, the angry man to be her father, quiet in the
armchair. She forgot her promise to Crowder, her pledged word,
everything, but that there was a way to end the racking scene. Holding to
the hand that thrust her aside she said softly:

"There's a punishment coming to him that's better than anything _you_
can give."

His glance shifted to hers, arrested.

"What you mean?"

"He's done something worse than the way he's treated me--something the
law can get him for."

"What?"

"Sit down quiet here and I'll tell you."

She pointed to the overturned chair and made a step toward the sofa. He
remained motionless, watching her with somberly doubting eyes.

"It's true," she said; "every word. It comes from Charlie Crowder. When
you hear it you'll see, and you'll see too that you'll only mix things up
by butting in. They're getting their net ready for him, and they'll have
him in it before the week's out."

This time the words had their effect. He picked up the chair and brought
it to the sofa. She sat there erect, her legs curled up beside her, and
told him the story of Boyé Mayer and the stolen money.

The light was behind him and against it she saw him as a formless shape,
the high, rounded back of the chair projecting above his head. The
silence with which he listened she set down to interest, and feeling that
she had gained his attention, that his wrath was appeased by this
unexpected retribution, her own interest grew and the narrative flowed
from her lips, fluent, complete, full of enlightening detail.

Once or twice at the start he had stirred, the rickety chair creaking
under his weight. Then, slouched against its back, he had settled into
absolute stillness. To anyone not seeing him, it might have seemed that
the girl was talking to herself, pauses that she made for comment passed
in silence, questions she now and then put remained unanswered. Peering
at him she made him out, a brooding mass, his chin sunk into his collar,
his hands clasped over his waist, his eyes fixed on the floor.

When she was done he stayed thus for a moment apparently so buried in
thought that he could not rouse himself.

"Well," she said, surprised at his silence, "isn't it true what I said?
Hasn't fate rounded things up for him?"

The chair creaked as he moved, heavily as if with an effort. He laid his
hands on the arms and drew himself forward.

"Yes," he muttered, "it sounds pretty straight."

"Would anything you could do beat that?"

He sat humped together looking at the floor, his powerful, gnarled hands
gripping at the chair arms. She could see the top of his head with a bald
place showing through the thick, low-lying grizzle of hair.

"Nup," he said, "I guess not."

He heaved himself up and walked across the room to the window.

"It's as hot as hell in here," he growled as he fumbled at the sash.

"Hot!" she exclaimed. "Why, it's cold. What's the matter with you?"

"It's these barred-up city places; they knock me out. I smother in
'em." He threw back the window and stood in the opening. "I'll shut it
in a minute."

She pulled up the Navajo blanket and cowering under it said with
vengeful zest:

"I guess there won't be a more surprised person in this burg than Mr.
Boyé Mayer when they come after him."

"Do you know when they're calculatin' to do it?"

"Thursday or Friday. Charlie said he was going to give the Express people
his information some time tomorrow and after they'd fixed things he'd
spring the story in the _Despatch_."

"If he gives it in tomorrow they'll have him by evening."

"I don't think they'll be in any rush. Mr. Mayer's not going to skip;
he's too busy with his courting."

There was no reply, and pulling the blanket higher, for the night air
struck cold, she went on in her embittered self-torment:

"I wanted to give him a jolt myself and I tried, but I might as well have
stayed out. You and me show up pretty small when the law gets busy.
That's the time for us to lie low and watch. And he thinking himself so
safe, drawing out all the money. Maybe it was to buy her presents or get
his wedding clothes. I'd like--"

The voice from the window interrupted her.

"That paper--the one he had under the floor--Crowder said a piece was
tore out?"

"Yes, part of his correspondence letter--the last paragraph about me.
Don't you remember it? It was that one after 'The Zingara' started, way
back in August. I showed it to you here one evening. I thought maybe
Mayer had read it and that was what brought him to see me--got him sort
of curious. But Charlie thinks he wasn't bothering about papers just
then. He had it on him and used it to wrap up the money and that piece
got torn out someway by accident."

"Um--looks that way."

The current of air was chilling the room, and Pancha, shivering under the
blanket, protested.

"Say, Pa, aren't you going to shut that window? It's letting in an awful
draught." He made no movement to do so, and, surprised at his
indifference to her comfort, she said uneasily, "You ain't got a fever,
have you?"

"Let me alone," he muttered. "Didn't I tell you these het-up rooms
knock me out."

She was silent--a quality in his voice, a husky thinness as if its
vigor was pinching out, made her anxious. He was worn to the bone, the
shade of himself. She slid her feet to the floor, and throwing off the
blanket said:

"Looks like to me something is the matter with you. The room ain't hot."

"Oh, forget it. For God's sake, quit this talk about me."

He closed the window and turned to her. As he advanced the lamp's glare
fell full on him and she saw his face glistening with perspiration and
darkened with unnatural hollows. In that one moment, played upon by the
revealing side light, it was like the face of a skeleton and she rose
with a frightened cry.

"Pop! You _are_ sick. You look like you were dead."

She made a step toward him and before her advance he stopped, bristling,
fierce, like a bear confronted by a hunter.

"You let me alone. You're crazy--sit down. Ain't I gone through enough
without you pickin' on me about how I _look_?"

She shrank back, scared by his violence.

"But I can't help it. The room's like ice and you're sweating. I saw it
on your forehead."

He almost roared.

"And supposin' I am? Ain't I given you a reason? Sweating? A Chihuahua
dog 'ud sweat in this d----d place. It's like a smelting furnace." With a
stiff, uncertain hand he felt in his pocket, drew out a bandanna and ran
it over his face. "God, you'd think there was nothin' in the world but
the way I _look_! I hiked down from the hills on the run to see you and
you nag at me till I'm almost sorry I come."

That was too much for her. The tears, ready to flow at a word, poured out
of her eyes, and she held out her arms to him, piteously crying:

"Oh, don't say that. Don't scold at me. I wouldn't say it if I didn't
care. What would I do if you got sick--what would I do if I lost you?
You're all I have and I'm so lonesome."

He ran to her, clasped her close, laid his cheek on her head as she
leaned against him feebly weeping. And what he said made it all right--it
was his fault, he was ugly, but it was because of what she'd told him.
That had riled him all up. Didn't she know every hurt that came to her
made him mad as a she-bear when they're after its cub?

"Will you be back tomorrow?" she said when he started to go.

"Yes, in the morning. Eight be too early?"

"No--but--" her eyes were wistful, her hands reluctant to loose his.
"Will you have to leave the city soon?"

"I guess so, honey."

"Tomorrow?"

"Maybe--but we'll get a line on that in the morning."

"I wish you could stay, just for one day," she pleaded.

"I'll tell you then. What you want to do now is rest. Sleep tight and
don't worry no more. It's going to be all right."

He gave her a kiss and from the doorway a farewell nod and smile.




CHAPTER XXXII

THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT


When Garland passed through the lobby the hall clock showed him it was
after midnight. Cushing, roused from a nap, looked up at the sound of his
step, and asked how Miss Lopez was. "Gettin' on first rate," he called
back cheerily as he opened the door and went out.

His immediate desire was for silence and seclusion--a place where he
could recover from the stunned condition in which Pancha's story had left
him. Before he could act on it he would have to get back to a clearness
where coordinated thought was possible. He walked down the street in the
direction of his old lodgings; he had a latch-key and could get to his
room without being heard. On the way he found himself skirting the open
space of South Park, an oval of darkness, light-touched at intervals and
encircled by a looming wall of houses. Here and there on benches huddled
figures sat, formless and immovable, less like human beings than ghosts
come back in the depths of night to find themselves denied an entrance
into life, and drooping disconsolate. His footsteps sounded abnormally
loud, thrown back from the houses, buffeted between their frowning
fronts, as if they were maliciously determined to reveal his presence,
wanted him to know that they too were leagued against him. He stumbled
over the sidewalk's coping to the grass and stole to a bench under the
shade of a tree.

There he burrowed upward toward the light through the avalanche that had
fallen on him.

At first there was only a gleam of it, a central glow. About this his
thoughts circled like May flies round a lamp, irresistibly attracted and
seemingly as purposeless.

"Hello, Panchita! Ain't you the wonder. Your best beau's proud of
you"--that was the glow. He saw the words traced at the end of the
column, saw a hand tearing the piece out, saw into the mind that directed
the hand, knew its conviction of the paper's value.

It was some time before he could get away from it; divert his mental
energies to this night, the hour and its necessities, and the next day,
the formidable day, now so close at hand.

From a clock tower nearby two strokes chimed out, dropping separate and
rounded on the silence. They dropped on him like tangible things, calling
him to action. He sat up, his brain-clouds dispersed, and thought. Any
information of the lost bandit would gain clemency for Mayer, and Mayer
had a clew. Knapp would remember the paper taken from his partner's coat
and buried with the money. That would lead them to Pancha. Years before
in Siskiyou he had witnessed the cross-examination of a girl, daughter of
an absconding murderer, and the scene in the crowded courtroom of the
wild mountain town rose in his memory, with Pancha as the central figure.
They would badger and break her down as they had the murderer's daughter.
She would know everything. There would be no secrets from her any more.

In an uprush of despair his life unrolled before him, all, it now seemed,
progressing to this climax. Step by step he had advanced on it, builded
up to it as if it were the goal of his desire. Wanting to keep her in
ignorance he had created a situation that had worked out worse for her
than for him. He could fly, leave her to face it alone, enlightenment
come with shame and ignominy. It wasn't fair, it wasn't human. If it had
only been himself that he had ruined he wouldn't have cared, he would
have been glad to end the whole thing. But under the broken law of his
conduct he had held to the greater law of his love. It was that he would
sacrifice; be untrue to what had sustained him as his one ideal. He could
have cried to the heavens that to let her know him for what he was, was a
retribution too great for his sins. Death would have been a release but
he could not die. He must live and make one final fight to preserve the
belief that was his life's sole apology.

That determination toughened him, his despair past, and wrestling with
the problem he came upon its solution and with it his punishment.

He would tell the man, give him warning and let him go. There was plenty
of time; the authorities were not yet informed; no one was on the watch.
Mayer could leave the city that morning and make the Mexican border by
night. It was the only way out and it dragged his penance with it--Pancha
unavenged, the enemy rewarded, the prison doors set wide for the flight
of their mutual despoiler.

Three strokes chimed out and he rose, trying to step lightly with feet
that felt heavy as lead. It was very silent, as if the night and the
brooding city were at one in that conspiracy to impress him with a sense
of their hostility. The houses were still malignly watchful, again took
up and tossed about his footsteps, echoed them from wall to wall till he
wondered doors did not open, people did not come. On the main street he
shrank by shop window and closed doorway, gliding blackly across a gush
of light, slipping, a moving darkness, against the deeper darkness of
shuttered lower stories. He had it almost to himself--a policeman
lounging on a corner, a reveler reeling by with indignant mutterings, one
or two night workers footing it homeward to rest and bed.

At the door of a drugstore he stopped and looked in. A frowsy woman was
talking across the counter to a clerk whose bald head shone, glossy as
ivory, above the gray fatigue of his face. In a corner was a telephone
booth. Garland opened the door, then started as a bell jangled stridently
and the bald-headed man craned his neck and the woman whisked round.

"Telephone," he muttered, tentative on the sill.

The clerk, too listless for words, jerked his head toward the booth and
then handed the woman a package. As Garland entered the booth he heard
her dragging step cross the floor and the bell jangle on her exit.

While he waited he struggled for a closer control on the rage that
possessed him. He had decided what he would say and he cleared his throat
for a free passage of the words that were to carry deliverance to one he
longed to kill. He had expected a wait--the man, confidant in his
security, would be sleeping--but almost on top of his request for Mr.
Mayer came a voice, wide-awake and incisive:

"Hello, who is it?"

His answer was very low, the deep tones hoarse despite his effort.

"Is this Mr. Boyé Mayer?"

"Yes. What do you want? Who are you?"

The voice fitted his conception of the man, hard, commanding, with
something sharply imperious in its cultivated accents. He thought he
detected fear in it.

"It don't matter who I am. I got somethin' to say to you that matters.
It's time for you to skip."

There was a momentary pause, then the word was repeated, seemed to be
ejected quickly as if delivered on a rising breath:

"Skip?"

"Yes--get out. You've got time--till tomorrow afternoon. They'll be
lookin' for you then."

Again there was that slight pause. When the voice answered, trepidation
was plain in it.

"Who's looking for me? What are you talking about ?"

It was Garland's turn to pause. For a considering moment he sought his
words, then he gave them in short, telegraphic sentences:

"End of August. The tules--opposite the Ariel Club. Twelve thousand.
Whatcheer House, Sacramento. Harry Romaine."

The pause was longer, then the voice came breathless, shaken:

"What in hell do you mean by this gibberish?"

"I guess that's all right. You don't need to play any baby business. You
know now and _I_ know, and by tomorrow evening the Express company and
the police'll know."

A stammering of oaths came along the wire, a burst of maledictions,
interspersed by threats. Garland cut into it with:

"That don't help any. You ain't got time to waste that way. You want
to make the Mexican border by tomorrow night and to do that you got to
go quick."

The man's anger seemed to rise to a pitch of furious incoherence. His
words, shot out in a storm of passion and fear, were transmitted in a
stuttering jumble of sound, from which phrases broke, here and there
rising into clearness. Garland caught one: "Who's turned you loose on
this? Who's behind it?" and the restraint he had put on himself gave
way. He laid his hand on the shelf before him as something to seize and
wrenched at it.

"If _I_ was there you'd know--I'd make it plain. And maybe you guess. You
thought you'd struck someone who was helpless. But she could pay you back
and she _has_."

He stopped, realizing what he was saying. Through the singing of the
blood in his ears the answering words came as an unintelligible mutter.
With an unsteady hand he hung up the receiver, his breath beating in loud
gasps on the stillness that had so suddenly fallen on the small,
walled-in place. For a space he sat crouched in the chair, trying to
subdue the pounding of his heart, the shaking of his limbs. Then,
stealthily, like a guilty thing, he opened the door and came out. From
above a line of bottles on the prescription desk the clerk's bald head
gleamed, his eyes dodging between them.

"It's all right," Garland muttered; "I'm through," and shambled to the
door with its jangling bell.

In his room at Mrs. Meeker's he threw himself dressed on the bed. The
shade was up and through the window he could see the long flank of
the new building and above it a section of sky. He kept his eyes on
the night-blue strip and as he lay there his spirit, all spring gone,
sank from depths to depths. He saw nothing before him but the life of
the outlaw, and, mind and body taxed beyond their powers, he longed
for death.

Presently he slept, sprawled on the wretched bed, the light of the dawn
revealing the tragedy of his ravaged face.




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE MORNING THAT CAME


When the voice had ceased Mayer stood transfixed at the phone, seeing
nothing. He fumbled the receiver back into its hook and, wheeling,
propped himself against the wall, his mouth slack, his eyelids drooped in
sickly feebleness. The final shock, succeeding the long strain, came like
a blow on the head leaving destruction.

He got to a chair and dropped into it, sweat-bathed, feeling as if cold
airs were blowing on his damp skin. Sunk against the back, his legs
stretched before him, his arms hanging over the sides, he lay shattered.
His mind tried to focus on what he had heard and fell back impotent,
eddying downward through darkling depths like a drowning swimmer. A vast
weakness invaded him, turning his joints to water, giving him a sensation
of nausea, draining his strength till he felt incapable of moving his
eyes, which stared glassily at the toes of his shoes.

Presently this passed; he raised his glance and encountered the clock
face on the mantelpiece. He held to it like a hand that was dragging him
out of an abyss; watched it grow from a circular object to a white dial
crossed by black hands and edged by a ring of numerals. The hour marked
slowly penetrated to his consciousness--a quarter to four. He drew
himself up and looked about; saw his notes on the desk, his hat on the
table, the matchsafe with a cigarette stump lying on its saucer. They
were like memorials from another state of existence, things that
connected him with a plane of being that he had left long ago. He had a
vision of himself in that distant past, packing his trunk, making brisk,
satisfactory jottings on a sheet of hotel paper, standing on the hearth
looking into Lorry Alston's angry eyes.

Groaning, he dropped his head into his hands, rocking on the chair, only
half aroused. He was aware of poignant misery without the force to combat
it, and knowing he must act could only remember. Irrelevant pictures,
disconnected, having no point, chased across his brain--the saloon in
Fresno where he had cleaned the brasses, and, jostling it, Chrystie's
face, just before she had wept, puckered like a baby's. He saw the tules
in the low sun, the green ranks, the gold-glazed streams, Mark Burrage
coming down the long drawing-room eyeing him from under thick brows,
Lorry's hand with its sparkle of rings holding out the letter.

That last picture shook him out of his torpor. He lifted his head and
knew his surroundings for what they were--four walls threatening to close
in on him. The necessity to go loomed suddenly insistent, became the
obsessing matter, and he staggered to his feet. Flight suggested disguise
and he went to the bedroom and clawed about in the bottom of the cupboard
for the old suitcase which held the clothes he had worn on his Sacramento
trips. As he pulled it out he remembered the side entrance of the hotel
accessible by a staircase at the end of the hall; he could slip out
unseen. There would be early trains, locals, going south; an express to
be caught somewhere down the line. By the next night he could be across
the Mexican border. It was the logical place, the only place--he knew it
himself and the voice had said so.

The Voice! Obliterated by the mental chaos it had caused, whelmed in the
succeeding rush of fear, it now rose to recognition--a portentous fact.
He stood stunned, the suitcase dangling from his hands, immovable in
aghast wonder as if it had just come to his ears. A voice without a
personality, a voice behind which he could envisage no body, a voice of
warning dropping out of the unknown, dropping doom!

His surface faculties were now obedient to his direction and
automatically responded to the necessity for haste. As he went about
collecting his clothes, tearing up letters, opening drawers, he ransacked
his brain for a clew to the man's identity, tried to rehear the voice and
catch a familiar echo, went back and forth over the words. And in the
fevered restoration of them, the last sentences, "You thought you'd
struck someone who was helpless. But she could pay you back and she has,"
brought light in an illuminating flash. "Pancha," he whispered, "Pancha,"
and stood rooted, recalling, searching the past, linking the known with
the deduced.

The man was the bandit, the old lover, the one he had supplanted, the
one who had written the message on the paper. He had heard she was
sick--come to see her--and she had told him, called upon him to avenge
her as she said she would. And the man--he couldn't--his hands were
tied. If Mayer had the paper--and the cache showed it was gone--Mayer
could direct the pursuit to Pancha and to Pancha's "best beau." So, fact
marshaled behind fact, he drew to the truth, grasped it, knew why he had
been warned and by whom.

Pancha had found out somehow--but he did not linger on that; his mind
wasted no time filling profitless gaps. Fiercely alive now it only saw
what counted. He turned and looked out of the window, a glance in her
direction. She had made good, kept her word, beaten him. The feeble
thing, the scorned thing, that he had kicked out of his path, had
risen and destroyed him. He stood for a still moment looking toward
where she was, triumphant, waiting for his arrest, and he muttered,
his gray face horrible.

Soon afterward he was ready, the old hat and coat on, the suitcase
packed. There was a look about for forgotten details and he attended to
them with swift competence. The papers on the desk--those expense
accounts--were crammed into his pockets, the shades drawn up, the bed
rumpled for the room boy's eye in the morning. Then a last sweeping
survey and he turned out the gas, opened the door and peered into the
hall. It stretched vacant to the window at the far end, a subdued light
showing its carpeted length. His nostrils caught its unaired closeness,
his ears the heavy stillness of a place enshrining sleep.

Night still held the streets, at this hour dim, deserted vistas, looking
larger than they did by day. He stole along them feeling curiously
small, dwarfed by their wide emptiness, wanting to hide from their
observation. It was typical of what the rest of his life would be,
shunning the light, footing it furtively through darkness, forever
apprehensive, forever outcast.

His heart sank into blackness, dense, illimitable. It stretched from him
out to the edges of the world and he saw himself never escaping from it,
groping through it from pursuers, always retreating, always looking back
in fear. Poverty would be his close companion; makeshifts, struggles,
tricks of deceit, the occupation of his days. The effort of new endeavor
rose before him like a mountain to be climbed and for which he had not
the strength; the ease he was reft of, a paradise only valued now it was
lost. Hate of those who had brought him so low surged in him, dominating
even his misery. He set his teeth, looking up at the graying sky, feeling
the poison pressing at his throat, aching in his limbs, burning at the
ends of his fingers.

There was a faint diffused light when he reached the corner of Pancha's
street, the first gleam of the coming day. Like one who sees temptation
placed before him in living form and hesitates, reluctant yet impelled,
he stood and gazed at the front of the Vallejo Hotel. The lamps showed up
a pinkish orange, two spheres, concrete and solid, in a swimming, silvery
unreality. Beyond the steps a man's figure moved, walking up the street,
his back to Mayer. It was very quiet; the hush before the city, turning
in its sleep, stretched, breathed deeply, and awakened.

Mayer went forward toward the lamps.

He had no definite intention; was actuated by no formed resolution; was,
for the moment, a being filled to the skin by a single passion. He felt
light, as if his body weighed nothing, or as if he might have been
carried by a powerful current buoyant and beyond his control. It took him
up the steps to the door. Through a clear space in the ground glass panel
he looked in and saw that the hall was empty. His heart rose stranglingly
and then contracted; his hand closed on the knob, turned it and the door
opened. That unexpected opening, the vacant hall and stairway stretching
before him like an invitation, ended his lack of purpose. Despair and
hate combined into the will to act, propelled him to a recognized goal.

He entered and mounted the stairs.

Cushing, having found the long vigil at the Vallejo exhausting, had
contracted the habit of slipping out in the first reaches of the dawn to
a saloon down the street. It was a safe habit, for even the few
night-roving tenants the Vallejo had were housed at that hour, and if a
belated reveler should stray in, the door was always left on the latch.
Moreover he only stayed a few minutes; a warming gulp and he was back
again, wide-awake for the call of the day. His was the figure Mayer had
seen walking down the street.

Pancha was asleep and dreaming. It was a childish dream, but it was
impregnated with that imminent, hovering terror that often is associated
with the simple visions of sleep. She was back in the old shack in Inyo
where her mother had died, and it was raining. Juana was sitting on the
side of the bed, her dark hair parted, a shawl over her head framing her
face. From the side of the bed she watched Pancha, who was sweeping,
sweeping with urgent haste, haunted by some obscure necessity to finish
and continually retarded by obstacles. Against the door the rain fell,
loud, and then louder. It grew so loud that it ceased to be like rain,
became a shower of blows, a fearful noise, never before made by water.
Horror fell upon them, a horror of some sinister fate beyond the door.
Juana held out her arms and Pancha, dropping the broom, ran to her, and
clinging close listened to the sound with a freezing heart.

She woke and it was still there, not so loud, very soft, and falling,
between pauses, on her own door. Her fear was still with her and she sat
up, seeing the room faintly charged with light. "Who is it?" she said and
heard her voice a stifled whisper, then, the knocking repeated, she
leaped out of bed and thrust her feet into slippers. She was awake now
and thought of her father, no one else would come at such an hour. As she
ran to the door she called, "What is it--is something the matter?"
Through the crack she heard an answering whisper, "Open--it's all right.
Let me in." It might have been anybody's voice. She opened the door and
Boyé Mayer came in.

They looked at one another without words, and after the look, she began
to retreat, backing across the room, foot behind foot. He locked the
door and then followed her. There were pieces of furniture in the way
that she skirted or pushed aside, keeping her eyes on him, moving
without sound. She knew the door into the sitting room was open and with
one hand she felt behind her for the frame, afraid to turn her back on
him, afraid to move her glance, the withheld shriek ready to burst out
when he spoke or sprang.

She gained the doorway and backed through it and here breathed a hoarse,
"Boyé, what do you want?" He made no answer, stealing on her, and she
slid to the table and then round it, keeping it between them. In the pale
light, eye riveted on eye, they circled it like partners in a fantastic
dance, creeping, one away and one in pursuit, steps noiseless, movements
delicately alert. Her body began to droop and cower, her breath to stifle
her; it was impossible to bear it longer. "Boyé!" she screamed and made a
rush for the door. She had shot the bolt back, her hand was on the knob,
when he caught her. His grip was like iron, hopeless to resist, but she
writhed, tore at him, felt herself pressed back against the wall, his
fingers on her throat.

It was a quarter to five on the morning of April 18, 1906.

The first low rumble, the vibration beneath his feet, did not
penetrate his madness. Then came a road, an enormous agglomeration of
sound and movement, an unloosing of titanic elements--above them,
under them, on them.

They were separated, each stricken aghast, no longer enemies, beings of
a mutual life seized by a mutual terror. The man was paralyzed, not
knowing what it was, but the girl, bred in an earthquake country, clasped
her hands over her skull and bent, crouching low and screaming, "_El
temblor!_" The floor beneath them heaved and dropped and rose, groaning
as the ground throes wrenched it. From walls that strained forward and
sank back, pictures flew, shelves hurled their contents. Breaking free,
upright for a poised second, the long mirror lunged across the room, then
crashed to its fall. On its ruin plaster showered, stretches of ceiling,
the chandelier in a shiver of glass and coiled wires.

Through the dust they saw one another as ghosts, staggering, helpless,
dodging toppling shapes. They shouted across the chaos and only knew the
other had cried by the sight of the opened mouth. All sounds were
drowned in the surrounding tumult, the roar of the shaken city and the
_temblor's_ thunderous mutter. Rafters, crushed together, then strained
apart, creaked and groaned and crunched. Walls receded with a reeling
swing and advanced with a crackling rush. The paper split into shreds;
the plaster skin beneath ripped open; lathes broke in splintered ends;
mortar came thudding from above and swept in a swirling drive about
their feet.

He shouted to her and made a run for the door. Hanging to the knob he
was thrown from side to side by the paroxysmal leaps of the building.
The door jammed, and, his wrenchings futile, he turned and dashed to the
window. Here again the sash stuck. He kicked it, frantic, caught a
glimpse of the street, people in nightgowns, a chimney swaying and then
falling in a long drooping sweep. Somewhere beyond it a high building
shook off its cornices like a terrier shaking water from its hair.
Grinding his teeth, cursing, he wrenched at the window, tore at the
clasp, then turned in desperation and saw the door, loosed by a sudden
throe, swing open. Through reeling dust clouds Pancha darted for it, her
flight like the swoop of a bird, and he followed, running crazily along
the heaving floor.

The hall was fog-thick with powdered mortar, and careening like a ship in
a gale. He had an impression of walls zigzagged with cracks, of
furniture, upturned, making dives across the passage. White figures were
all about; some ran, some stood in doorways and all were silent. He
thrust a woman out of his way and felt her move, acquiescingly, as if
indifferent. Another, a child in her arms, clawed at his back, forced him
aside, and as she sped by he saw the child's face over her shoulder,
placid and sweet, and caught her voice in a moaning wail, "Oh, my baby!
Oh, my baby!" A man, holding the hand of a girl, was thrown against the
wall and dropped, the girl tugging at him, trying to drag him to his
feet. Something, with blood on its whiteness, lay huddled across the sill
of an open doorway.

Pancha was ahead of him, a long narrow shape that he could just discern.
A length of ceiling fell between them, a sofa, like a thing endowed with
malign life, rushed from the wall and blocked his passage. He scrambled
over it and saw the stair head, and a clearer light. That meant
deliverance--the street one flight below. The floor sagged and cracked,
he could feel it going, and with a screaming leap he threw himself at the
balustrade, caught and clung. From above he heard a cry, "Up, up, not
down!" had a vision of Pancha on the second flight, flying upward, and
himself plunged downward to the street.

The litter of the great mirror lay across the landing, the light from the
hall on its shattered fragments, broken glitterings amid a débris of
gold. The balustrade broke and swung loose, the stairs drooped, humped
again, and gave, sinking amid an onrush of walls, of splintered beams, of
ceilings suddenly gaping and discharging their weight in a shoot of
plaster, snapped boards and furniture. Something struck him and he fell
to his knees, struggled against a smothering mass, then sank, whelmed in
the crumbling collapse.

Pancha at the stair top, lurching from wall to wall, felt a slow
subsidence, a sinking under her feet, and then the frenzied movement
settle into a long, rocking swing. A pallor of light showed through the
dust rack, and making her way to it she found an open doorway giving on a
front room. She passed through; crawled over a heap of entangled
furniture toward a window wide to the rising day. She thought she was on
the third story, then heard voices, looked out and saw faces almost on a
level with her own, the street a few feet below her, a clouded massing of
figures, moving, gesticulating, calling up to the windows. The greater
bewilderment had shut out all lesser ones. She did not understand, did
not ask to, only wanted to get out and be under the safe roof of the sky.
Climbing across the sill, she found her feet on grass, stumbled over a
broken railing, heard someone shout, and was pulled to her feet by two
men. They held her up, looking her over, shaking her a little. Both their
faces were as white as if they had been painted.

"Are you hurt?" one of them cried, giving her arm a more violent shake as
if to jerk the answer out quickly.

"Hurt?" she stammered. "No. I'm all right. But--but how did I get out
this way--onto the street?"

She saw then that his teeth were chattering. Closing his lips tight to
hide it he pointed to where she had come from.

She turned and looked. The Vallejo, slanting in a drunken sprawl, its
roof railing hanging from one corner, its cornices strewn on the
pavement, had sunk to one story. Built on the made ground of an old creek
bed, it had buckled and gone down, the first and second stories crumpling
like a closed accordion, the top floor, disjointed and wrecked, resting
on their ruins.




CHAPTER XXXIV

LOST


Aunt Ellen always maintained the first shock threw her out of bed, and
then she would amend the statement with a qualifying, "At any rate I was
on the floor when Lorry came and I never knew how I got there." She also
said that she thought it was the end of the world, and pulled to her feet
by Lorry, announced the fact, and heard Lorry's answer, short and sharp,
"No--it's an earthquake. Don't talk. Come quick--run!"

Lorry threw a wrapper about her and ran with her along the hall, almost
dark and full of rending noises, and down the stairs that Aunt Ellen said
afterward she thought "were going to come loose every minute." A long
clattering crash made her scream, "There--it's the house--we're killed!"
And Lorry, wrestling with the front door, answered in that hard,
breathless tone, "No, we're not--we're all right." The door swung open.
"Mind the glass, don't step in it. Down the steps--on the lawn--_quick_!"

They came to a stand by the front gate, were aware of the frantic leaps
of the earth subsiding into a long, rhythmic roll, and stood dumbly, each
staring at the other's face, unfamiliar in a blanched whiteness.

There were people in the street, scatterings, and huddled clusters and
solitary figures. They were standing motionless in attitudes of poised
tension, as if stricken to stone. Holding snatched up garments over their
night clothes, they waited to see what was coming next, not speaking or
daring to move, their eyes set in terrified expectancy. Lorry saw them
like dream figures--the fantastic exaggerations of nightmare--and looked
from them to the garden, the house--the solid realities. The ruins of the
chimney lay sprawled across the flower beds, the splintered trunk of the
fig tree rising from the debris. Stepping nimbly among the bricks, in his
white coat and trousers as if prepared to wait on table, was Fong.

"Oh, Fong!" she cried. "Thank heaven, you're all 're all right!"

Fong, picking his way with cat-like neatness, answered cheerfully:

"I velly well. I see chimley fall out and know you and Missy Ellen all
'ighty. If chimley fall in you be dead."

"Oh, Fong!" Aunt Ellen wailed; "it's like the Day of Judgment."

Fong, having no opinions to offer on this view of the matter, eyed her
costume with disapproval.

"I get you cover. Velly bad stand out here that way. You ketch cold," and
turning went toward the house.

"He'll be killed!" Aunt Ellen cried. "He mustn't go!" Then suddenly she
appeared to relinquish all concern in him as if on this day of doom there
was no use troubling about anything. Her eye shifted to Lorry, and
scanning her became infused with a brisk surprise. "Why, Lorry, you're
all dressed. Did you sleep in your clothes? You certainly never had time
to put them on."

Lorry was spared the necessity of answering. A violent quake rocked the
ground and Aunt Ellen, clasping her hands on her breast, closed her eyes.

"It's beginning again--it's coming back. Oh, God, have mercy--God,
have mercy!"

The figures in the street, emitting strangled cries, made a rush for the
center of the road. Here they stood closely packed in a long line like a
great serpent, stationary in the middle of the thoroughfare. The low
mutter, the quiver under their feet, died away; Aunt Ellen dropped her
hands and opened her eyes.

"Is this going to go on? Isn't one enough?" she wailed. "I'll never enter
a house again, never in this world."

The appearance of Fong, coming down the steps carrying an armchair,
diverted her.

"He's got out alive. Don't you go back into that house, Fong. It isn't
safe, it'll fall at any moment. There's going to be more of this--it
isn't finished."

Fong, without answering, set the chair down beside her, taking from its
seat a cloak and an eiderdown coverlet. He and Lorry wrapped her in the
cloak and disposing her in the chair tucked the coverlet round her knees.
Thus installed, her ancient head decorated with crimping pins, her old
gnarled hands shaking in her lap, she sank against the back murmuring,
"Oh, what a morning, what a morning!"

A lurid light glowed above the trees and sent a coppery luster down the
street. The sun had swum up over the housetops and the people in the
roadway; Lorry, on the lawn, gazed at it aghast, a crowning amazement. It
hung, a scarlet ball, enormously large, like a red seal of vengeance
suspended in the heavens. "Look at the sun, look at the sun!" came in
thin cries from the throng. It shone through a glassy, brownish film in
which its rays were absorbed, leaving it a sharply defined, magnified
sphere. Fong, coming down the steps with another chair, eyed it
curiously.

"Awful big sun," he commented.

"It's shining through something," said Lorry. "It must be dust."

Fong put the chair beside Aunt Ellen's, pressing it into steadiness on
the lawn's yielding turf.

"Maybe smoke," he answered. "After earthquake always fire."

Aunt Ellen gave forth a despairing groan.

"Anything _more_!"

"Don't be afraid," Lorry comforted. "We've the best department in the
country. If there should be any fires they'll be put out."

Aunt Ellen took courage from this confident statement and, life running
stronger in her, sat up and felt at her head.

"Oh, I've got my pins in, but how was I to take them out? Lorry, _do_ sit
down. You're as white as a sheet."

"I'm all right, Aunt Ellen. Don't bother about me. I'm going into
the house."

The old lady shrieked and clutched at her skirt.

"No--no, I won't allow it." Then as the girl drew her dress away,
"Lorry Alston, do you want my death on your head as well as your own?
If you want anything let Fong get it. He seems willing and anxious to
risk his life."

"Fong can't do this. I'm going to telephone; I want to find out if
Chrystie's all right. I'm sorry but I must go," and she ran to the house.

From the first clear moment after the shock her thoughts had gone to
Chrystie. As she had tucked Aunt Ellen into the chair, she had been
thinking what she could do and the best her shaken brain had to offer was
a series of telephone messages to those friends where Chrystie might have
gone. The anxiety of last night was as nothing to the anguish of this
unprecedented hour.

That was why her face held its ashen pallor, her eyes their hunted fear.
But there was no relief to be found at the phone--a dead stillness, not
even the whispering hum of the wires met her ear. "It's broken," she said
to herself. "Or the girls have got frightened and gone."

Out on the lawn she paused a moment beside Aunt Ellen.

"Something's the matter with the wires. I'm going to the drugstore on
Sutter Street."

"But what for--what for?" Aunt Ellen wanted to know. "Telephoning when
the city's been smitten by the hand of God!"

"It's Chrystie," she called over her shoulder as she went out of the
gate. "I want to find out how she is."

"Chrystie's at San Mateo," Aunt Ellen quavered. "She's all right there.
She's with the Barlows."

The man in the doorway of his wrecked drugstore laughed sardonically at
her request to use the phone. All the wires were broken--you couldn't
telephone any more than you could fly. Everything was out of commission.
You couldn't telegraph--you couldn't get a message carried--except by
hand--not if you were the president of the country. Even the car lines
were stopped--not a spark of power. The whole machinery of the city was
at a standstill. "Like the clock there," he said, and pointed to the face
of the timepiece hanging shattered from the wall, its hands marking a
quarter to five.

She went back, jostling through the people. Bold ones were going into the
houses to put on their clothes, timid ones commissioning them to throw
theirs out of the windows. She saw Chinese servants, unshaken from their
routine, methodically clearing fallen bricks and cornices from front
steps to which they purported, giving the matutinal sweeping. She
skirted a fallen stone terrace, its copings strewn afar, the garden above
a landslide across the pavement. People spoke to her, some she knew,
others who were strangers. She hardly answered them, hurrying on. Dazed,
poor girl, they said, and small wonder.

If Chrystie was in the city she would certainly come home. It was the
natural, the only, thing for her to do. But it would be impossible to sit
there waiting for her, doing nothing. The best course for Lorry was to go
out and look for her--go to all those places where she might be. Aunt
Ellen would be at the house, waiting, if she came, to tell her they were
all right. And Lorry would return at intervals to see if she had come. If
by midday she hadn't, then there was Mark Burrage. She would go to him.
But Chrystie would be back before then--she might be there even now.

Her rapid walk broke into a run and presently she was flying past the
garden fence, sending her glance ahead under the trees. No--Aunt Ellen
was alone, looking as if she was participating in a solitary picnic. In
front of her stood a small table covered with a white cloth and set with
glass and silver. She was inspecting it closely as if trying to find
flaws in its arrangement and as Lorry came panting up the steps, said
with a relieved air:

"Oh, there you are! Fong's brought out breakfast. He says the kitchen's a
wreck and he had to make the coffee on an alcohol lamp. The range is all
broken and there's something the matter with the gas in the gas stove.
Did you get the Barlows?"

Lorry sank down on the other chair.

"No. the telephone isn't working. We can't get any word to anyone."

"She'll be all right," said Aunt Ellen, lifting the silver coffee pot.
"San Mateo's a long way off."

It was an unfortunate moment for a heavy shock to send its rocking
vibrations along the ground. Aunt Ellen collapsed against the chair back,
the coffee pot swaying from her limp grasp. Lorry snatched it and Aunt
Ellen's hands, liberated, clutched the corners of the table like talons.

"Oh, God have mercy! God have mercy!" she groaned. "If this doesn't stop
I'll die."

Fong came running round the corner of the house.

"Be care, be care, Missy Ellen," he cried warningly. "You keep hold on
him coffee pot. I not got much alcohol." He saw the treasure in Lorry's
hand and was calmed. "Oh, all 'ight! Miss Lolly got him. You dlink him
up, Miss Lolly. He make you good nerve."

But Lorry could not drink much. It seemed to Aunt Ellen she hardly
touched the cup to her lips when she was up and moving toward the house
again--this time for her hat.

"Hat!" muttered the old lady, picking at a bunch of grapes. "The girl's
gone mad. Wanting a hat in the middle of an earthquake."

Then her attention was attracted by a man stopping at the gate and
bidding her good-morning. He was the fishman from Polk Street, extremely
excited, his greeting followed by a voluble description of how he had
escaped from a collapsing building in his undershirt. Aunt Ellen swapped
experiences with him, and pointed to the chimney, which if it had fallen
inward would have killed her. The fishman was not particularly interested
in that and went on to tell how he had been down to Union Square and seen
thousands of people there--and had she heard that fires had started in
the Mission--a good many fires? Lorry, emerging from the house, drew
near and said, as she had said to Fong:

"But there's no danger of fires getting any headway. You can't beat our
firemen in the country."

The fishman, moving to go, looked dubious.

"Yes, we got a grand department, no one denies that. But the Mission's
mostly wood and there's quite some wind. It looks pretty serious to me."

He passed on and Lorry went to the gate.

"Where are you going _now_?"' Aunt Ellen cried.

"Out," said Lorry, clicking up the hasp. "I want to see what's going on.
I'll be back in an hour or two. If Chrystie comes, stay here with
her-right here on this spot."

Afterward Lorry said she thought she walked twenty miles that day. Her
first point of call was Crowley's livery stable where she asked for a
carriage. There were only two men in the place; one, owl-eyed and
speechless, in what appeared to be a state of drunken stupefaction,
waved her to the other, who, putting a horse into the shafts of a cart,
shook his head. He couldn't give her a carriage for love or money. Every
vehicle in the place was already gone--the rich customers had grabbed
them all, some come right in and taken them, others bought them
outright. He swung his hand to the empty depths of the building; not an
animal left but the one he had and he was taking it to go after his wife
and children; they were down in the Mission and the Mission was on fire.
He had the animal harnessed and was climbing to the seat as Lorry left
the stable.

After that she gave up all hope of getting a carriage and started to
walk. She went to every house in that part of the city where Chrystie had
friends, and in none of them found trace or word of her sister. She saw
people so stunned that they could hardly remember who Chrystie was,
others who treated the catastrophe lightly--not any worse than the quake
of '68, nothing to make a fuss about--a good shake-up, that was all. She
found families sitting down to cold breakfasts, last night's coffee
heated on the flicker of gas left in the pipes; others gathered in pallid
groups on the doorsteps, afraid to go into the house, undaunted Chinamen
bringing down their clothes.

As she moved her ears were greeted with a growing narrative of disaster.
There had been great loss of life in the poorer sections; the injured
were being taken to the Mechanics' Pavilion; the Mission was on fire and
the wind was with it. In this, the residential part, there was no water.
Thrifty housekeepers were filling their bathtubs with the little dribble
that came from the faucets, and cautioning those who adhered to the
habits of every day to forego the morning wash. It was not till she was
near home again that, meeting a man she knew, she learned the full
measure of ill-tidings. The mains had been torn to pieces, there was no
water in San Francisco, and the fire, with a strong wind behind it, was
eating its way across the Mission, triumphant and unchecked.

It gave her pause for a wide-seeing, aghast moment, then her eye caught
the roof of her home and she forgot--Chrystie might be there, ought to be
there, _must_ be there. She broke into a run, sending that questing
glance ahead to the green sweep of the lawn. It met, as it had done
before, the figure of Aunt Ellen in front of the little table, the empty
chair at her side. Even then she did not give up hope. Chrystie might be
in the house; all Aunt Ellen's pleadings could not restrain her if it
suited her purpose to dare a danger.

Before she reached the gate she called, hoarse and breathless.

"Is Chrystie there?"

Aunt Ellen started and looked at her.

"Oh, dear, here you are at last! I've been in such a state about you. No,
of course Chrystie's not here. I knew she wouldn't be. They say all the
trains are stopped--the rails are twisted. How could she get back?"

Lorry dropped on to the steps. She did not know till then how much she
had hoped. Her head fell forward in the hollow of her chest, her hands
clenched together in her lap. Aunt Ellen addressed the nape of her neck:

"I don't know what's going to happen to us. I've just sat here all
morning and heard one awful thing after another. Do you know that the
whole Mission's burning and there's not a drop of water to put it out
with? And if it crosses Market Street this side of the city'll burn too."

Lorry did not answer and she went on:

"The people are coming out of there by hundreds. A man told me--no, it
was a woman. I didn't know her from Adam, but she hung over the gate like
an old friend and talked and talked. They're coming out like rats;
soldiers are poking them out with bayonets. All the soldiers are down
there from the Presidio and Black Point. And lots of people are
killed--the houses fell on them and caught them. It was a man told me
that. He'd been down there and he was all black with smoke. I thought it
was the end of the world and it might just as well have been. Thank
goodness your father and mother aren't here to see it. And, _thank God_,
Chrystie's safe in San Mateo!"

Lorry raised her head in intolerable pain.

"_Don't_, Aunt Ellen!" she groaned, and got up from the step.

The old lady, seeing her face, cast aside the eiderdown, and rose in
tottering consternation.

"Oh, Lorry dear, you're faint. It's too much for you. Let's get a
carriage and go--somewhere, anywhere, away from here."

Lorry pushed away her helpless, shaking hands.

"I'm all right, I'm all right," she said. "Sit down, Aunt Ellen. Leave me
alone. I'm tired, I've walked a long way, that's all."

Aunt Ellen could only drop back, feebly protesting, into her chair. If
Lorry wanted to walk herself to death _she_ couldn't stop her--nobody
minded what she said anyway. She sat hunched up in her wraps, murmurously
grumbling, and when Fong brought out lunch on a tray, ordered a glass of
wine for her niece.

"I suppose she won't drink it," she said aggrievedly to Fong; "but
whether she does or not I want the satisfaction of having you bring it."

Lorry did drink it and ate a little of the lunch. When it was over she
rose again and made ready to go. She said she wanted to look at the fire
from some high place, see how near it was to Market Street. If it
continued to make headway they might have to go further up town, and
she'd be back and get them off.

She went straight to Mark Burrage's lodgings. She knew the business
quarter was burning and thought the likeliest place to find him was his
own rooms, where he would probably be getting ready to move out. It was
nearer the center of town than her own home and as she swung down the
hills she felt, for the first time, the dry, hot breath of the fire.
Cinders were falling, bits of blackened paper circling slowly down. Below
her, beyond the packed roofs and chimneys, the smoke rose in a thick,
curling rampart. It loomed in mounded masses, swelled into lowering
spheres, dissolved into long, soaring puffs, looked solid and yet was
perpetually taking new forms. In places it suddenly heaved upward, a
gigantic billow shot with red, at others lay a dense, churning wall, here
and there broken by tongues of flame.

On this side of town the residence section was as yet untouched, but the
business houses were ablaze, and she met the long string of vehicles
loaded deep with furniture, office fixtures, crates, books, ledgers,
safes. Here, also, for the first time, she heard that sound forever to be
associated with the catastrophe--the scraping of trunks dragged along the
pavement. There were hundreds of them, drawn by men, by women, drawn to
safety with, dogged endurance, drawn a few blocks and despairingly
abandoned. She saw the soldiers charging in mounted files to the fire
line, had a vision of them caught in the streets' congestion, plunging
horses and cursing men fighting their way through the tangled traffic.

The door and windows of Mark's dwelling were flung wide and a pile of
household goods lay by the steps. As she opened the gate a boy came from
the house, stooped under the weight of a sofa, a woman behind him carding
a large crayon portrait in a gilt frame. The boy, dropping the sofa to
the ground, righted himself, wiping his dripping face on his sleeve. The
woman, holding the picture across her middle like a shield, saw Lorry and
shouted at her in excited friendliness:

"We're movin' out. Goin' to save our things while we got time."

"Where's Mr. Burrage?" said Lorry.

"Mr. Burrage?" The woman looked at her, surprised. "He ain't here; he's
in the country."

"The country?" Too many faces were smitten by a blank consternation, too
many people already vainly sought, for Lorry's expression to challenge
attention.

"Yes, he went--lemme see, I don't seem to remember anything--I guess it
was nearly a week ago. His mother was took sick. He's lucky to be out of
this." Her glance shifted to the boy who was looking ruefully at the pile
of furniture. "That'll do, Jack, we can't handle any more."

As Lorry turned away she heard his desperate rejoinder:

"Yes, we got it out here, but how in hell are we goin' to get it
any farther?"

After that she went to Mrs. Kirkham's. There was no reason to expect
news of Chrystie there, except that the old lady was a friend, had been
a support and help on occasions less tragic than this. Also she knew
many people and might have heard something. Lorry was catching at any
straw now.

In the midst of her wrecked flat, her servant fled, Mrs. Kirkham was
occupied in sweeping out the mortar and glass and "straightening things
up." She was the first woman Lorry had seen who seemed to realize the
magnitude of the catastrophe and meet it with stoical fortitude. Under
her calm courage the girl's strained reserve broke and she poured out her
story. Mrs. Kirkham, resting on the sofa, broom in hand, was disturbed,
did not attempt to hide it. Chrystie might have gone out of town, was her
suggestion, gone to people in the country. To that Lorry had the answer
that had been haunting her all day:

"But she would have come in. They all--everybody she could have gone
to--have motors or horses. Even if she couldn't come herself she would
have sent someone to tell where she was. She wouldn't have left us this
way, hour after hour, without a word from her."

It was dark when Mrs. Kirkham let her go, claiming a promise to bring
Aunt Ellen back to the flat. They couldn't stay in the Pine Street
house. Only an hour earlier the grandnephew had been up to say that the
fire had crossed Market Street that afternoon. No one knew now where it
would stop.

With the coming of the dark the size of the conflagration was apparent.
Night withdrew to the eastern edges of the heavens; the sky to the zenith
was a glistening orange, blurred with shadowy up-rollings of smoke, along
the city's crest the torn flame ribbons playing like northern lights.
Figures that faced it were glazed by its glare as if a red-dipped paint
brush had been slapped across them; those seen against it were black
silhouettes moving on fiery distances and gleaming walls. The smell of it
was strong, and the showers of cinders so thick Lorry bent down the brim
of her hat to keep them out of her eyes. As she came toward the house she
felt its heat, dry and baking, on her face.

In front of her, walking in, the same direction, was a man, pacing the
pavement with an even, thudding foot-fall. The gun over his shoulder
proclaimed him a soldier, and having already heard tales of householders
stopped on their own doorsteps and not allowed to enter, she curbed her
eager speed and slunk furtively behind him, skirting the fence. Through
the trees she could see the lawn, lighted up as if by fireworks, and then
the two chairs--empty--the eiderdown lying crumpled on the grass. In the
shade of branches that hung over the sidewalk, she scaled the fence and
flew, her feet noiseless on the turf. She passed the empty chairs, and
sent a searching glance up toward the windows, all unshuttered, the glass
gone from the sashes. Were they in there? Had Aunt Ellen dared to enter?
Had Fong overcome her terrors and forced her to take shelter? If he had
she would be no farther than the hall.

Like a shadow she mounted the steps and stole in, the front door
yawning on darkness. The stillness of complete desolation and
abandonment met her ears.

She stood motionless, looking down the hall's shattered length and up the
stairs. The noises from without, the continuous, dragging shuffle of
passing feet, calls, crying of children, the soldier's directing voice,
came sharply through the larger, encircling sounds of the city fighting
for its life. They flowed round the house like a tide, leaving it
isolated in the silence of a place doomed and deserted. She suddenly felt
herself alone, bereft of human companionship, a lost particle in a world
terribly strange, echoing with an ominous, hollow emptiness. A length of
plaster fell with a dry thud, calling out small whisperings and
cracklings from the hall's darkened depths. It roused her and she turned,
pushed open the door and went into the drawing-room.

The long side windows let in the glare, a fierce illumination showing a
vista of demolishment. Through broken bits of mortar the parquet
reflected it; it struck rich gleams from the fragments of a mirror, ran
up the walls, playing on the gilt of picture frames. She moved forward,
trying to think they might be there, that someone might flit ghost-like
toward her through that eerie barring of shadow and ruddy light. But the
place was a dry, dead shell; no pulse of life seemed ever to have beaten
within those ravaged walls. She summoned her energies to call, send out
her voice in a cry for them, then stood--the quavering sound
unuttered--hearing a step outside.

It was a quick, firm step, heavier than a woman's, and was coming down
the stairs. She stood suddenly stricken to a waiting tension, dark
against a long sweep of curtain, possessed by an immense expectancy, a
gathering and condensing of all feeling into a wild hope. The steps
gained the hall and came toward the doorway. Her hands, clasped, went out
toward them, like hands extended in prayer, her eyes riveted on the
opening. Through it--for a moment pausing on the sill to sweep the room's
length--came Mark Burrage.

He did not see her, made a step forward and then heard her whisper, no
word, only a formless breath, the shadow of a sound.

"Lorry!" he cried as he had cried the night before, and stood staring
this way and that, feeling her presence, knowing her near.

Then he saw her, coming out of the darkness with her outstretched hands,
not clasped now, but extended, the arms spread wide to him as he had
dreamed of some day seeing them.




CHAPTER XXXV

THE UNKNOWN WOMAN


A few minutes after the Vallejo Hotel had sunk into ruin, a man came
running up the street. Even among those shaken from a normal demeanor by
an abnormal event, he was noticeable; for he was wild, a creature
dominated by a frenzied fear. As he ran he cried out for news of the
hotel, and shouted answers smote against him like blows: "Down--gone
down! Collapsed. Everybody in the lower floors dead!" And he rushed on,
burst his way through groups, shot past others flying to the scene, flung
obstructing figures from his path.

"Mad," someone cried, thrown to the wall by a sweep of his arm, "mad and
running amuck."

They would have held him, a desperate thing, clawing and tearing his way
through the crowd, but that suddenly, with a strangled cry, he came to a
stop. Over the shoulders of a group of men he saw a girl's head, and his
shout of "Pancha!" made them fall back. He gathered her in his arms,
strained her against him, in the emotion of that supreme moment lifting
his face to the sky. It was a face that those who saw it never forgot.

The men dispersed, were absorbed into the heaving tumult, running,
squeezing, jamming here, thinning there, falling back before desperate
searchers calling out names that would never be answered, thronging in
the wake of women shrieking for their children. Police came battling
their way through, forcing the people back. Swept against a fence Garland
could at first only hold her, mutter over her, want to know that she was
unhurt. She gave him broken answers; she had run up instead of down--that
was how she was there. The horror of it came back in a sickening
realization, and she shook, clinging to him, only his arm keeping her
from falling. A man had thrown his coat about her, and Garland pulled it
over her, then, looking down, saw her feet, bare and scratched in
pointed, high-heeled slippers. The sight of them, incongruous reminders
of the intimate aspects of life, brought him down to the moment and her
place in it.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of this. You want to get something on.
Can you walk? Not far, only a few blocks."

She could do anything, she said, now that she knew he was safe, and, her
fingers in the bend of his arm, he pulled her after him through the
press. Gaining clearer spaces, they ran, side by side, their faces
curiously alike, stamped by the same exalted expression as they fronted
the rising sun.

She heard him say something about taking her away, having a horse and
cart. She made no answer; with his presence all sensations but
thankfulness seemed to have died in her. And then, upon her temporary
peace, came thronging strange and dreadful impressions, waking her up,
telling her the world had claims beyond the circle of her own
consciousness. She caught them as she ran--a shifting series of sinister
pictures: a house down in a tumbled heap of brick and stone, a sick woman
on a couch on the sidewalk, a family dragging furniture through a blocked
doorway, pillars, window ledges, cornices scattered along the road. Over
all, delicately pervasive, adding a last ominous suggestion, was a
faint, acrid odor of burning wood.

"Fire!" she said. "I can smell it."

"Oh, there'll be fires. That's bound to come."

"Where are we going?" she panted.

"Right round here--the place where I was stayin'. There's a widder woman
keeps it, Mrs. Meeker. She's got a horse and cart that'll get you out of
this. I guess all the car lines is bust, and I guess we'll have to move
out quick. Look!"

He pointed over the roofs to where glassy films of smoke rose against the
morning sky.

"Everyone of 'em's a fire and the wind's fresh. I hope to God this shake
up ain't done any harm to the mains."

They had reached Mrs. Meeker's gate. He swung it open and she followed
him across the garden to where a worn, grassy path, once a carriage
drive, led past the house to the back yard. Here stood Mrs. Meeker, a
hatchet in her hand, trying to pry open the stable door.

"Oh, Lord!" she cried, turning at his step, "I'm glad you've come back.
Every other soul in the place has run off, and I can't get the stable
door open."

Her glance here caught Pancha, her nightgown showing below the
man's overcoat.

"Who's she?" she asked, a gleam of curiosity breaking through the larger
urgencies.

"My daughter. She lives right round here. I run for her as soon as I felt
the first quake. You got to take her along in the cart, and will you give
her some clothes?"

"Sure," said Mrs. Meeker, and the flicker of curiosity extinguished, she
returned to the jammed door that shut her out from the means of flight.
"Upstairs in my room. Anything you want." Then to Garland, who had moved
to her assistance, "I'm goin' to get out of here--go uptown to my
cousin's. But I wouldn't leave Prince, not if the whole city was down in
the dust."

Prince was Mrs. Meeker's horse, which, hearing its name, whinnied
plaintively from the stable. Pancha disappeared into the house, and the
man and woman attacked the door with the hatchet and a poker. As they
worked she panted out disjointed bits of information:

"There's a man just come in here tellin' me there's fires, a lot of 'em,
all started together. And he says there's houses down over on Minna and
Tehama streets and people under them. Did you know the back wall's out of
that new hotel? Fell clear across the court. I saw it go from my
room--just a smash and a cloud of dust."

"Umph," grunted the man. "Anybody hurt?"

"I don't think so, but I don't know. I went out in front first off and
saw the people pourin' out of it into the street--a whole gang in their
nightgowns."

A soldier appeared walking smartly up the carriage drive, sweeping the
yard with a glance of sharp command.

"Say. What are you fooling round that stable for?"

Mrs. Meeker, poker in hand, was on the defensive.

"I'm gettin' a horse out--my horse."

"Well, you want to be quick about it. You got to clear out of here.
Anybody in the house?"

"No. What are you puttin' us out for?"

"Fire. You don't want to lose any time. We've orders to get the people on
the move. I just been in that hotel next door and rooted out the last of
'em--running round packing their duds as if they'd hours to waste. Had
to threaten some of 'em with the bayonet. Get busy now and get out."

He turned and walked off, meeting Pancha as she came from the house. A
skirt and blouse of Mrs. Meeker's hung loose on her lithe thinness, their
amplitude confined about her middle by a black crochet shawl which she
had crossed over her chest and tied in the back.

"A lot of that big building's down," she cried, as she ran up. "I could
see it from the window, all scattered across the open space behind it."

Engrossed in their task neither answered her, and she moved round the
corner of the stable to better see the debris of the fallen wall.
Standing thus, a voice dropped on her from a window in the house that
rose beyond Mrs. Meeker's back fence.

"Do you know if all the people are out of that hotel?"

She looked up; standing in a third story window was a young man in his
shirt sleeves. He appeared to have been occupied in tying his cravat, his
hands still holding the ends of it. His face was keen and fresh, and was
one of the first faces she had seen that morning that had retained its
color and a look of lively intelligence.

"I don't know," she answered. "I've only just got here. Why?"

"Because it looks to me as if there was someone in one of the
rooms--someone on the floor."

The stable door gave with a wrench and swung open. Garland jerked it wide
and stepped back to where he could command the man in the window.

"What's that about someone in the hotel?" he said.

The young man leaned over the sill and completed the tying of his cravat.

"I can see from here right into one of those rooms, and I'm pretty sure
there's a person lying on the floor--dead maybe. The electric light
fixture's down and may have got them."

Garland turned to Mrs. Meeker:

"You get out Prince and put him in the cart." Then to the man in the
window: "I'll go in and see. A soldier's just been here who says they've
cleaned the place out. There's maybe somebody hurt that they ain't seen."

"Hold on a minute and I'll go with you," called the other. "I'm a doctor
and I might come in handy. I'll be there in a jiff."

He vanished from the window, and before Prince was backed into the
shafts, walked up the carriage drive, neatly clad, cool and alert, his
doctor's bag in his hand.

"I was just looking at the place as I dressed. Queer sight--looks like a
doll's house. Bedding flung back over the footboards, the way they'd
thrown it when they jumped. Clothes neatly folded over the chairs. And
then in that third-story room I saw something long and solid-looking on
the floor. Seems to be tangled up in the coverlets. The electric light
thing's sprinkled all over it. That's what makes me pretty sure--hit 'em
as they made a break. Come on."

He and Garland made off as Pancha and Mrs. Meeker set to work on the
harnessing of Prince.

The soldiers had done their work. The hotel was empty--a congeries of
rooms left in wild disorder, opened trunks in the passages, clothes
tossed and trampled on the floors. As the men ran up the stairs, its
walls gave back the sound of their feet like a place long deserted and
abandoned to decay. The recurring shocks that shook its dislocated frame
sent plaster down, and called forth creaking protests from the wrenched
girders. The rear was flooded with light, streaming in where the wall
had been, and through open doors they saw the houses opposite filling in
the background like the drop scene at a theater.

The third floor had suffered more than those below, and they made their
way down a hall where mortar lay heaped over the wreckage of glass,
pictures and chairs. The bedroom that was their goal was tragic in its
signs of intimate habitation strewn and dust-covered, as if years had
passed since they had been set forth by an arranging feminine hand. The
place looked as untenanted as a tomb. Anyone glancing over its blurred
ruin, no voice responding to a summons, might have missed the figure that
lay concealed by the bed and partly enwrapped in its coverings.

The doctor, kneeling beside it, pushed them off and swept away the litter
of glass and metal that had evidently fallen from the ceiling and struck
the woman down. She was lying on her face, one hand still gripping the
clothes, a pink wrapper twisted about her, her blonde hair stained with
the ooze of blood from a wound in her head. He felt of her pulse and
heart and twitching up her eyelids looked into her set and lifeless eyes.

"Is she dead?" Garland asked.

"No," He snapped his bag open with businesslike briskness. "Concussion.
Got a glancing blow from the light fixture. Seems as if she'd been trying
to wrap herself up in the bedclothes and got in the worst place she
could--just under it."

"Can you do anything for her?"

"Not much. Rest and quiet is what she ought to have, and I don't see how
she's going to get it the way things are now."

"We got a cart. We can take her along with us."

"Good work. I'll fix her up as well as I can and turn her over to you."
He had taken scissors from his bag and with deft speed began to cut away
the tangled hair from the torn flesh. "I'll put in a stitch or two and
bind her up. Looks like a person of means." He gave a side glance at her
hand, white and beringed. "You might get off the mattress while I'm doing
this. We can put her on it and carry her down. She's a big woman; must be
five feet nine or ten."

Garland dragged the mattress to the floor, while the doctor rose and made
a dive for the bathroom. He emerged from it a moment later, his brow
corrugated.

"No water!" he said, as he stepped over the strewn floor to his patient.
"That's a cheerful complication."

He bent over her, engrossed in his task, every now and then, as the
building quivered to the earth throes, stopping to mutter in irritated
impatience. Garland went to the window and called down to Pancha and Mrs.
Meeker that they'd found a woman, alive but unconscious, and space must
be left for her in the cart. He stood for a moment watching them as they
pulled out the up-piled household goods with which Mrs. Meeker had been
filling it. Then the doctor, snapping his bag shut and jumping to his
feet, called him back:

"That's done. It's all I can do for her now. Come on--lend a hand. Take
her shoulders; she's a good solid weight."

Her head was covered with bandages close and tight as a nun's coif. They
framed a face hardly less white and set in a stony insensibility.

"Lord, she looks like a dead one," Garland said, as he lowered the
wounded head on the mattress.

"She's not that, but she may be unless she gets somewhere out of this.
Easy now; these quakes keep getting in the way."

They carried her down the stairs and out into the street. Here the
crowd, already moving before the fire, was thick, a dense mass, plowing
forward through an atmosphere heat-dried and cinder-choked. The voices of
police and soldiers rose above the multiple sounds of that tide of egress
urging it on. A way was made for the men with their grim load, eyes
touching it sympathetically, now and then a comment: "Dead is she, poor
thing?" But mostly they were too bewildered or too swamped in their own
tragedy to notice any other.

Prince and the cart were ready. From her discarded belongings Mrs. Meeker
had salvaged three treasures, which she had stowed against the dashboard,
a solio portrait of her late husband, a canary in a gilt cage, and a
plated silver teapot. The body of the cart was clear, and the men placed
the mattress there. The spread that covered the woman becoming
disarranged, Pancha smoothed it into neatness, pausing to look with
closer scrutiny into the marble face. It was so unlike the face she had
seen before, rosy and smiling beneath the shade of modish hats, that no
glimmer of recognition came to her. Chrystie was to her, as she was to
the others, an unknown woman.

Mrs. Meeker, even in this vital moment, knew again a stir of curiosity.

"Who is she?" she said to the men. "Ain't you found anything up there to
tell us where she belongs?"

The doctor's voice crackled like pistol shots:

"Good God, woman, we've not got time to find out who people _are_. Take
her along--get a move on. It's getting d----d hot here."

It was; the heat of the growing conflagration was scorching on their
faces, the cinders falling like rain.

"Get up there, Mrs. Meeker," Garland commanded; "on the front seat. You
drive and Pancha and I'll walk alongside."

The woman climbed up. The doctor, turning to go, gave his last orders:

"Try and get her out of this--uptown--where there's air and room. Keep
her as quiet as you can. You'll run up against doctors who'll help.
Sorry I can't go along with you, but there'll be work for my kind all
over the city today, and I got a girl across toward North Beach that I
want to see after."

He was off down the carriage drive almost colliding with a soldier, who
came up on the run, a bayoneted musket in his hand, his face a blackened
mask, streaming with sweat. At the sight of the cart he broke into an
angry roar:

"What are you standing round for? Do you want to be burnt? Get out. Don't
you know the fire's coming? _Get out."_

They moved out and joined the vast procession of a city in exodus.

For months afterward Pancha dreamed of that day--woke at night to a sense
of toiling, onward effort, a struggling slow progress, accomplished amid
a sea of faces all turned one way. The dream vision was not more
prodigiously improbable than the waking fact--life, comfortable and
secure, suddenly stripped of its garnishings, cut down to a single
obsessing issue, narrowed to the point where the mind held but one
desire--to be safe.

Before the advancing wall of flame the Mission was pouring out,
retreating like an army in defeat. Every avenue was congested with the
moving multitude, small streets emptying into larger ones, houses
ejecting their inmates. At each corner the tide was swollen by new
streams, rolling into the wider current, swaying to adjustment, then
pressing on. Looking forward Pancha could see the ranks dark to the limit
of her vision; looking back, the faces, smoke-blackened, sweat-streaked,
marked with fierce tension, with fear, with dogged endurance, with cool
courage, with blank incomprehension. The hot breath of the fire swept
about them, the sound of its triumphant march was in their ears, a
backward glance showed its first high flame crests. Soldiers drove them
on, shouted at them, thrust stupefied figures in amongst them, pushed
others, dazedly cowering in their homes, out through doors and
ground-floor windows. At intervals the earth stirred and heaved, and then
with a simultaneous cry, rising in one long wail of terror, they jammed
together in the middle of the street, so close-packed a man could have
walked on their heads.

To make way through them Garland was forced to lead the horse. Women
clung to the shafts and trailed at the tailboard; the cart stopped by an
influx of traffic, men stood on the hubs of the wheels staring back at
the swelling smoke clouds. Mutual experiences flashed back and forth,
someone's death dully recounted, a miraculous escape, tales of falling
chimneys and desperate chances boldly taken. Some were bent under heavy
loads, which they cast down despairingly by the way; some carried
nothing. Those who had had time and clearness of head had packed baby
carriages edge full of their dearest treasures; others pulled clothes
baskets after them into which anything their hand had lighted on had been
hurled pell-mell. There were sick dragged on sofas, wounded upheld by
the arms of good Samaritans, old people in barrows, in children's carts,
sometimes carried in a "chair" made by the linked hands of two men.

And everywhere trunks, their monotonous scraping rising above the shuffle
of the myriad feet. Men pulled them by ropes taut about their chests, by
the handles, pushed them from behind. Then as the day progressed and the
smoke wall threw out long wings to the right and left, they began to
leave them. The sidewalk was littered with them, they stood square in the
path, tilted over into the gutter, end up against the fence. Other
possessions were dropped beside them, pictures, sewing machines, furs,
china ornaments, pieces of furniture, clocks, even the packed baby
carriages and the clothes baskets. Only two things the houseless
thousands refused to leave--their children and their pets. It seemed to
Pancha there was not a family that did not lead a dog, or carry a cat, or
a bird in a cage.

By midday the cart had made an uptown plaza, and there come to a halt for
rest. The grass was covered thick with people, stretched beside their
shorn belongings, many asleep as they had dropped. A few of them had
brought food; others, with money, went out to buy what they could at the
nearby shops, already depleted of their stores. All but the children were
very still, looking at the flames that licked along the sky line. They
had heard now the story of the broken mains, and somberly, without lament
or rebellion, recognized the full extent of the calamity.

A young girl, standing on a wall, a line of pails beside her, offered
cupfuls of water to those who drooped or fainted. Thirsty hoards besieged
her, and Pancha, edging in among them, made her demand, not for herself,
but for a sick woman. The girl dipped a small cut-glass pitcher in one of
the pails and handed it to her.

"That's a double supply," she said. "But you look as if you needed some
for yourself. We've a little water running in our house, and I'm going to
stand here and dole it out till the fire comes. They say that'll be in a
few hours, so don't bring back the pitcher. There's only my mother and
myself, and we can't carry anything away."

Pancha squeezed out with her treasure, and going to the cart climbed into
the front, sliding over the seat to a space at the head of the mattress.
She bent over the still figure, looking into the face. Its youth and
comeliness smote her, seemed to knock at her heart and soften something
there that had been hard. An uprush of intense feeling, pity for this
blighted creature, this maimed and helpless thing, rescued by chance from
a horrible death, rose and flooded her. She moistened the temples and dry
lips, lifted the bound head to her lap, striving for some expression of
her desire to heal, to care for, to restore to life the broken sister
that fate had cast into her hands. Mrs. Meeker came and peered over the
side of the cart, shaking her head dubiously.

"Looks like to me she'd never open her eyes again."

Pancha was pierced with an angry resentment.

"Don't say that. She's going to get well. I'm going to make her."

"I hope you can," said the elder woman. "Poor thing, what a time she must
have had! Your pa says it seemed as if there was no one there with her.
I'd like to know who she is."

"She's somebody rich. Look at her hands."

She touched, with a caressing lightness, Chrystie's hand, milk-white,
satin-fine, a diamond and sapphire ring on one finger.

Mrs. Meeker nodded.

"Oh, yes, she's no poor girl. Anyone can see that. You'd get it from the
wrapper, let alone the rings. I've been wondering if maybe she wasn't
straight."

"She is. I know it."

"How could you know that?"

"By her face."

Mrs. Meeker considered it, and murmured:

"I guess you're right. It has got an innocent look. It'll be up to you,
whether she lives or dies, to find out who she is and if she's got any
relations."

"Oh, that'll be all right," said Pancha confidently, "I'm going to take
care of her and cure her, and when she's good and ready she'll tell me."

They moved on for quieter surroundings and to find a doctor. This was a
hopeless quest. Every house that bore a sign was tried, and at each one
the answer was the same: the doctor was out; went right after the quake
to be back no one knew when. Some were at the Mechanics' Pavilion,
where the injured had been gathered, and which had to be vacated later
in the day; others at work in the hospitals being cleared before the
fire's advance.

Late in the afternoon Mrs. Meeker left them to go to her cousin's, who
had a cottage up beyond Van Ness Avenue. Prince and the cart she gave
over to them; they'd need it to get the woman away out of all this noise
and excitement. Tears were in her eyes as she bade farewell to the old
horse, giving Garland an address that would find her later--"unless it
goes with the rest of the town"--she added resignedly. In the first
shadowing of twilight, illumined with the fire's high glow, they watched
her trudge off, the bird cage in one hand, the portrait in the other, the
teapot tucked under her arm.

It was night when they came to a final halt--a night horribly bright, the
sky a blazing splendor defying the darkness. The place was an open space
on the first rise of the Mission Hills. There were houses about, here
and there ascending the slope in an abortive attempt at a street which,
halfway up, abandoned the effort and lapsed into a sprinkling of
one-story cottages. Above them, on the naked hillside, the first wave of
refugees had broken and scattered. Under the fiery radiance they sat,
dumb with fatigue, some sleeping curled up among their bundles, some
clustered about little cores of fire over which they cooked food brought
out to them from the houses. A large tree stretched its limbs over a
plateau in the hill's flank and here the cart was brought to a stop.
Prince, loosed from the shafts, cropped a supper from the grass, and the
unknown woman lay on her mattress under the red-laced shade.

A girl from a cottage down the slope brought them coffee, bread and
fruit, and sitting side by side they ate, looking out over the sea of
roofs to where the ragged flame tongues leaped and dropped, and the
smoke mountains rolled sullenly over the faint, obscured stars. They
spoke little, aware for the first time of a great exhaustion, hearing
strangely the sounds of a life that went on as if unchanged and
uninterrupted--the clinking of china, the fitful cries of children
sinking to sleep, the barking of dogs, a voice crooning a song, and
laughter, low-voiced and sweet.

Presently they drew closer together and began to talk; at first of
immediate interests--food to be procured, the injured woman, how to care
for her, find her shelter, discover who she was. Then of themselves--how
the quake had come to each, that mad, upward rush of Pancha's, Garland's
race along the street. That done, she suddenly dropped down and lying
with her head against his knee, her face turned from the firelight, she
told him how Boyé Mayer had come to her in the dawn, and how he lay
buried in the ruins of the Vallejo Hotel.




CHAPTER XXXVI

THE SEARCH


There was no interchange of vows, no whispered assurances and shy
confessions, between Lorry and Mark. After that sheltering enfoldment in
his arms, she drew back, her hands on his shoulders, looking into his
face with eyes that showed no consciousness of a lover's first kiss. For
a space their glances held, deep-buried each in each, saying what their
lips had no words for, pledging them one to the other, making the pact
that only death should break. Then her hands slid down and, one caught in
his, they moved across the room.

During the first moments exaltation lifted her above her troubles. His
longed-for presence, the feel of his hand round hers, made her forget the
rest, gave her a temporary respite. Only half heeding, she heard him tell
how her summons had come, how, with two other men who had families in the
city, he had chartered an engine, made part of the journey in that, then
in a motor, given them by a farmer, reached Oakland, and there hired a
tug which had landed him an hour before at the Italian's wharf.

For himself he had found her, after a day of agonized apprehension, at a
time when his hopes were dwindling. To know her safe, to feel her hand
inside his own, was enough. All she told him then was that she had come
back to the house for Aunt Ellen and Chrystie, and found they were gone.
But they might have left a letter, some written message to tell her where
they were. With those words her anxieties came to life again, her step
lost its lingering slowness, her face its rapt tranquillity.

Dropping his hand, she started on a search, through slanting doorways, by
choked passages, across the illumined spaciousness of the wide, still
rooms. Nothing was there, and she turned to the stairs, running up, he at
her heels, two shadows flitting through the red-shot gloom. The upper
floor, more damaged than the lower, was swept with the sinister luster,
shooting in above the trees, revealing perspectives of ruin. Every window
was broken, and the heat and the smell of burning poured in, the drift of
cinders black along the floors.

She darted ahead into her own room, going to the bureau, sending a
lightning look over it. Standing in the doorway he saw her start, wheel
about to glance at the bed, the chair. A pile of dresses lay in a corner,
the closet door was open.

"Someone's been here," she said. "The diamond aigrette, the jewel
box--all my things are gone. Even the dress I wore last night--it was on
the bed. They've all been taken."

He came in and took her arm, drawing her away.

"Everything of value's gone," he said quietly. "I went all through the
house before you came and saw it: the silver downstairs; even a lot of
the pictures are cut out of their frames. Looters have been here, and
they've made a clean sweep. I hoped you wouldn't see it. Come, let's go."

She lingered, moving the ornaments about on the bureau, still hunting for
the letter, and muttering low to herself,

"It doesn't matter. Those things don't matter"--then in a voice suddenly
tremulous--"they've left no letter. They've left nothing to tell me if
Chrystie's back and where they've gone to."

His hand on her arm drew her toward the door.

"Lorry, dear, there's no good doing this. They were probably put out, had
to go in a hurry, hadn't time to do any thinking. When I came in here
there was a soldier patrolling along the street. He may have been there
when they left; and if he was he may know something about them."

She caught at the hope, was all tingling life again, making for
the stairs.

"Of course. I saw him, too, and I dodged behind him. If he was here
then he'd know. They might even have left a message with him. Oh,
there he is!"

The arch of the hall door framed the soldier's figure, standing on the
top of the street steps, a gold-touched statue lifted above the surging
procession of heads. With a swooping rush she was at his side.

"Where are the people who were in this house?" she gasped.

The man started and wheeled on her, saw Burrage behind her, and looked
from one to the other, surprised.

"How'd you get in there?" he demanded. "That house was cleared out this
afternoon."

"Never mind that," said Mark. "We're leaving it now. This lady's looking
for her family that she left here earlier in the day."

"Well, I got 'em off--at least I got the only one here, an old lady. She
was sittin' there on the grass where you see the chairs. We had orders to
put out everyone along this block, and seem' she was old and upset I
commandeered an express wagon that was passin' and made the driver take
her along."

"Only _one_ lady?" Lorry's voice was husky.

"Yes, miss, only one. I asked her if there was anybody in the house, and
she said no, she was alone. There was a Chinaman with her that helped me
pack her in comfortable--a smart, handy old chap. I don't know where he
went; I didn't see him again."

A heart-piercing sound of suffering burst from the girl, and her face
sank into her hands. The soldier eyed her sympathetically.

"I'm sorry, lady, I can't tell you where she's gone. But, believe me, it
was no picnic gettin' the people started--some of 'em wantin' to stay,
and others of 'em wantin' to take all the furniture along. We didn't have
time to ask questions. But you'll happen on her all right. She's safe
uptown with friends."

Lorry made no answer, and Mark led her down the steps. He thought her
emotion the expression of overwrought nerves, and consoled her with
assurances of a speedy finding of Aunt Ellen. She dropped her hands,
lifted to his a face that startled him, and cried from the depths of a
despair he had yet to understand.

"It's Chrystie, it's Chrystie! She's gone, she's lost!"

Then, pressed close to him, two units absorbed into the moving mass, she
told him the story of Chrystie's disappearance.

His heart sank as he listened. Disagreeing in words, he saw the truth of
her contention that if Chrystie had been out of town she would have been
able to get word to them and would have done it. It looked as if the girl
was in the city, hidden somewhere by Mayer. Listening to Lorry's account
of the interview in the Argonaut Hotel, he disbelieved what the man had
said, rejected her theory of his innocence. Chrystie nerved to a bold
deception, the charges in the anonymous letter, all stood to him for
signs of Mayer's guilt. He told her none of this, tried to cheer and
reassure her, but he saw with a dark dread what might have happened. An
hour before he had skirted the edges of the fire, seen the hotel district
burning, heard of fallen buildings. Chrystie could have been there
keeping a tryst with Mayer. He let his thoughts go no further, stopped
them in their race toward a tragedy that would shatter the girl beside
him as the city had been shattered.

As they walked her eye ranged over the throng, shot its strained inquiry
along the swaying sea of bodies. Chrystie might be among them, might even
now be somewhere in this endless army. A woman's figure, caught through a
break in the ranks, called her to a running chase; a girl's face,
glimpsed over her shoulder, brought her to a standstill, pitifully
expectant. He tried to get her to Mrs. Kirkham's, but was met with a
refusal he saw there was no use combating. Early night found them in a
plaza on a hilltop, moving from group to group.

He had a memory of her never to be forgotten, walking ahead of him,
copper-bright, as she fronted the blazing light, black against it,
bending to look at a half-hidden face, kneeling beside a covered shape,
outstretched in a stupor of sleep. The night had reached its middle
hours, the dense stillness of universal repose held the crowded spot,
when she finally sank in a helpless exhaustion and slept at his feet. He
could do nothing but cover her with his coat, hold vigil over her, move
so that his body was a shield to keep the glare from her face. He watched
her till the day came, and the noises of the waking life around them
called her back to the consciousness of her anxiety.

The loss of relatives and friends was one of the following features of
the great disaster. With every means of communication cut off, with a
great area flaming, impossible to cross, enormous to circle, with the
exodus in some places so hurried no time was left for plans or the
sending of messages, with the spread of the fire so rapid no one knew
where the houseless thousands would end their march, families were
scattered, individuals lost track of. Groups that at dawn had been a
compact whole, an hour later had broken, been dispersed, members
vanished, disappeared in the inconceivable chaos. To those who suffered
this added horror the earthquake remains less a national calamity than
the memory of a time when they knew an anguish beyond their dreams of
what pain could be.

So it was with Lorry. The wide, encompassing distress touched her no more
than the storm does one sick unto death. The growing demolition, spread
out under her eyes roused no responsive interest. It was like a story
someone was trying to tell her when she was writhing in torment, a
nightmare coming in flashes of recollection through a day full of real,
poignant terrors.

For two days she and Mark searched. There were periods when she sought
the shelter of Mrs. Kirkham's flat, dropped on a bed and slept till the
drained reservoir of her strength was refilled, then was up and out
again. Mark and the old lady had no power to stay her. He went with her,
and Mrs. Kirkham kept a fire in the little oven of bricks in the gutter
so that food might be ready when they came back. Returning from their
fruitless wanderings, they found the old lady seated in a rocking-chair
on the sidewalk, a parasol over her head to keep the cinders off, the
coffeepot on the curb and the brick oven hot and ready.

It was Mrs. Kirkham who found Aunt Ellen--safe with friends near the
Presidio. Lorry would not go to her, unable to bear her questions. So,
Mrs. Kirkham, who had not walked more than three blocks for years,
toiled up there, sinking on doorsteps to get back her wind, helping where
she could--a baby carried, a woman told to come round to the flat and get
"a bite of dinner." She quieted Aunt Ellen, explained that Lorry was with
her, said nothing of Chrystie, and toiled home, dropping with groans into
her chair by the gutter. When she had got her breath she built up the
fire and brewed a fragrant potful of coffee, which she offered to the
worn and weary outcasts as they plodded past.

There was not a plaza or square in that part of the city to which Lorry
and Mark did not go. They hunted among the countless hoards that spread
over the lawns in Golden Gate Park, and covered the hillsides of the
Presidio. They went through the temporary hospitals--wards given to the
sick and injured in the military barracks, tent villages on the parade
ground. They saw strange sights, terrible sights; birth and death under
the trees in the open; saw a heroism, undaunted and undismayed; saw men
and women, ruined and homeless, offering aid, succoring distress,
gallant, selfless, forever memorable.

Night came upon them in these teeming camping grounds. Along the road's
edges the lights of tiny fires--allowed for cooking--broke out in a line
of jeweled sparks. Women bent over them; men lighted their pipes and lay
or squatted round these rude hearths, all that they had of home. The
smell of supper rose appetizingly, coffee simmering, bacon frying. Calls
went back and forth for that most valued of possessions, a can opener.
There was laughter, jokes passed over exchanges of food, an excess of tea
here swapped for a loaf of bread there, a bottle of Zinfandel for a box
of sardines. It was like a great, democratic picnic to which everybody
had been invited--the rich, the poor, the foreign elements, white, black
and yellow, the old and the young, the good and bad, virtue from Pacific
Avenue, vice from Dupont Street, the prominent citizen and the derelict
from the Barbary Coast.

The fire flung its banners across the sky, a vast lighting up for them,
under which they went about the business of living. At intervals, booming
through the sounds of their habitation, came the dynamite explosions
blowing up the city in blocks. When the muffled roar was over, the
gathering quiet was pierced by the thin, high notes of gramophones. From
the shadow of trees Caruso's voice rose in the swaggering lilt of "_La
Donna e Mobile_," to be answered by Melba's, crystal-sweet, from a
machine stored in a crowded cart. There were ragtime melodies, and
someone had a record of "Marching Through Georgia" that always drew forth
applause. Then, as the night advanced, a gradual hush fell, a slow
sinking down into silence, broken by a child's querulous cry, a groan of
pain, the smothered mutterings of a dreamer. Like the slain on a
battlefield, they lay on the roadside, dotted over the slopes, thick as
fallen leaves under the trees, their faces buried in arms or wrappings
against the fall of cinders and the hot glare.

In all these places Lorry and Mark sent out that call for the lost which
park and reservation soon grew to know and echo. Standing on a rise of
ground Mark would cry with the full force of his lungs, "Is Chrystie
Alston there?" The shout spread like a ring on water, and at the limits
of its carrying power, was taken up and repeated. They could hear it
fainter in a strange voice--"Is Chrystie Alston there?"--then fainter
still as voice after voice took it up, sent it on, threw it like a ball
from hand to hand, till, a winged question, it had traversed the place.
But there was no answer, no jubilant response to be relayed back, no
Chrystie running toward them with welcoming face.

Late on the second night he induced her to go back to Mrs. Kirkham's. She
was heavy on his arm, stumbling as she walked, not answering his attempts
at cheer. He delivered her over to the old lady, who had to help her to
bed, then sat and waited in the dining room. No lights were allowed in
any house, and this room was chosen as the place of their night counsels
because of the illumination that came in through the open hole of the
fireplace, wrenched out when the chimney fell. When Mrs. Kirkham came
back he and she exchanged a somber look, and the old lady voiced both
their thoughts:

"She can't stand this. She can't go on. She's hardly able to move now.
What shall we do?"

Their consultation brought them nowhere. As things stood there was no
way of instituting a more extended search. The police could be of no
assistance, overwhelmed with their labors; individuals who might have
helped were lost in the mêlée; money was as useless as strings of
cowrie shells.

At dawn Mrs. Kirkham stole away to come back presently saying the girl
was sleeping.

"She looks like the dead," she whispered. "She hasn't strength enough to
go out again. I can keep her here now."

Mark got up.

"Then I'll go; it's what I've been waiting for. Without her I can cover a
big area; move quick. I want to try the other side of town. In my opinion
Mayer had Chrystie somewhere. She was prepared for a journey--the trunk
and the money show that--and the journey was to be with him. If he got
her off we'll hear from her in a day or two. If he didn't she's in the
city, and it's just possible she drifted or was caught in the Mission
crowd. Anyway, I'm going to try that section. Tell Lorry I've gone there.
Keep up her hope, and for heaven's sake try to keep her quiet. I'll be
back by evening."

So he went forth. It seemed a blind errand--to find a woman gone without
leaving a trace, in a city where two hundred thousand people were
homeless and wandering. But it was a time when the common sense of every
day was overleaped, when men attempted and achieved beyond the limits of
reason and probability.

Half an hour after he had left the flat he met with a piece of luck that
gave his spirit a brace. On the steps of a large house, deserted for two
days, he came upon one of his companion clerks. This youth, son of the
rich, had procured a horse and delivery wagon and had come back to carry
away silver and valuables left piled in the front hall. Also he had a
bicycle, an article just then of inestimable value, and hearing Mark's
intention of crossing the city, loaned it to him.

People who live in the Mission are still wont, when the great quake is
spoken of, to remember the man on the bicycle. So many of them saw him,
so many of them were stopped and questioned by him. Looking for a lady,
he told them, and that he looked far and wide they could testify. He was
seen close to the fire line, up along the streets that stretched back
from it, in among the crowds camped on the vacant lots, through the
plazas and the tents that were starting up like mushrooms in every clear
space. In the little shack where the _Despatch_ was getting out its
first paper, full of advertisements for the lost and offers of shelter
to the outcast, he turned up at midday. He saw Crowder there, told him
the situation, and left with him an advertisement "for any news of
Chrystie Alston."

Late afternoon saw him back on the edges of the Mission Hills. The great
human wave here had reached the limit of its wash. The throng was
thinner, dwindling to isolated groups. Wheeling his bicycle he threaded a
way among them, looking, scrutinizing, asking his questions. But no one
had any comfort for him, heads were shaken, hands uplifted and dropped in
silent sign of ignorance.

He followed a road that ascended by houses, steps and porches crowded
with refugees, to the higher slopes where the buildings were small and
far apart. The road shriveled to a dusty track, and leaning his bicycle
against the fence he sat down. He felt an exhaustion, bodily and
spiritual, and propping his elbows on his knees, let his forehead sink on
his hands. For a space he thought of nothing but Lorry waiting for news
and his return to her that night.

A woman's voice, coming from the hill above roused him,

"Say, mister, have you got a bicycle?"

He started and turning saw a girl running down the slope toward him. She
came with a breathless speed--a grotesque figure, thin and dark, loose
cotton garments eddying back from her body, her feet in beaded,
high-heeled slippers sure and light among the rolling stones.

"Yes," he said, rising, "I've got a bicycle."

She came on, panting, her hair in the swiftness of her progress blown out
in a black mist from her brow. Her face, dirty and smoke-smeared, struck
him as vaguely familiar.

"I saw you from the barn up there," she jerked her hand backward to a
barn on the summit, "and I just made a dash down to catch you." She
landed against the fence with a violent jolt. "This morning a man who'd
come up from below told me the _Despatch_ was going to be published with
advertisements in it."

"It is," he said. "By tomorrow probably."

"Are you going down there again?" She swept the city with a grimed,
brown hand.

"I'm going down sometime, not right now."

"Any time'll do--only the sooner the better. I've got an advertisement to
put in. Will you take it?"

He nodded. He would be able to do it tomorrow.

She smiled, and with the flash of her teeth and something of gamin
roguishness in her expression, the feeling that he had seen her
before--knew her--grew stronger. He eyed her, puzzled, and seeing the
look, she grinned in gay amusement.

"I guess you know _me_, a good many people do. But my make-up's
new--dirt. Water's too valuable to use for washing."

He was not quite sure yet, and his expression showed it. That made her
laugh, a mischievous note.

"Ain't you ever been to the Albion, young man?"

"Oh!" he breathed. "Why, of course--Pancha Lopez!"

"Come on then," she cried; "now we're introduced. Come up while I
write the ad."

She drew away from the fence while he wheeled his bicycle in through a
break in the pickets. As she moved along the path in front of him, she
called back:

"We're up here in the barn, our castle on the hill. It mayn't look much
from the outside, but it's roomy and the view's fine. Better than being
crowded into the houses with the people sleeping on the floors. They'd
have taken us in, any of 'em, but we chose the barn--quieter and more
air. My pa's with me." She turned and threw a challenging glance at him.
"You didn't know I had a pa? Well, I have and a good one." Then she
raised her voice and called: "Pa, hello! I've corralled a man who'll
take that ad."

From the open door of the barn a man of burly figure appeared. He nodded
to Mark, bluffly friendly.

"That's good. We didn't know how we was to get in from this far, and we
bin lookin' out for someone." Then turning to the girl, "You get busy?
honey, and write it. We don't want to waste this young feller's time."

They entered the barn, a wide, shadowy place, cool and quiet, with hay
piled in the back. Depressions in it showed where they had been sleeping,
a horse blanket folded neatly beside each nest. To the left an open door
led into what seemed a room for tools and farm supplies. Mark could see
one corner where below a line of pegs gunny sacks, stacked and bulging,
leaned against the wall.

"Now if you'll further oblige me with a pencil and paper," said the girl,
"I'll tackle it, though writing's not my strong suit."

He pulled out a letter--offering a clean back--and a fountain pen. The
girl took them, then stood in dubious irresolution, looking at them with
uneasy eyes.

"I don't know as I can," she said. "I don't know how to put it. I guess
you'd do it better. I'll tell you and you write."

"Very well." She handed the things back, and going to the wall he
placed the letter against it and, the pen lifted, turned to her. "Go
ahead, I'm ready."

The girl, baffled and uncertain, looked for help to her father.

"How'll I begin?"

"Tell him what it's about," he suggested. "You give him the facts, and
he'll put 'em into shape."

"Well, we've got a sick woman here, and we don't know who she is. We
found her in a hotel, hit on the head, and she's not spoken much yet--not
anything that'll give any clew to where she comes from or who she belongs
to. That's what the ad's for. She's a lady, young, and she's tall--nearly
as tall as you. Blonde, blue eyes and golden hair, and she's got three
rings--" She stopped, the words dying before the expression of the young
man's face.

"Where is she?" he said.

Pancha pointed to the room on the left, saw the letter drop to the floor
as he turned and ran for the doorway, saw him enter and heard his loud
ejaculation.

For a moment she and her father stared, open-mouthed, at one another,
then she went to the door. In the room, swept with pure airs from the
open window, the light subdued by a curtain of gunny sacks, the young man
was kneeling by the side of the mattress, his hand on the sick woman's.
She was looking at him intently, a slow intelligence gathering in her
eyes. The ghost of a smile touched her lips, and they parted to emit in
the small voice of a child,

"Marquis de Lafayette."




CHAPTER XXXVII

HAIL AND FAREWELL


The Alstons had taken a house in San Rafael. It was a big comfortable
place with engirdling balconies whence one looked upon the blossoming
beauties of a May-time garden. Aunt Ellen thought it much too large, but
when the settling down was accomplished, saw why Lorry had wanted so much
room. Mrs. Kirkham was invited over from town "to stay as long as she
liked," and now for a week there had been visitors from up country--Mrs.
Burrage and Sadie.

It made quite a houseful and Fong, with a new second boy to break in, was
exceedingly busy. He had brushed aside Lorry's suggestion that with half
the city in ruins and nobody caring what they ate, simple meals would
suffice. That was all very well for other people--let them live frugally
if they liked; Fong saw the situation from another angle. Back in his old
place, his young ladies blooming under his eye, he gave forth his
contentment in the exercise of his talents. Gastronomic masterpieces came
daily from his hands, each one a note in his hymn of thanksgiving.

When the fire was under control he had turned up at Mrs. Kirkham's,
saying he had thought "Miss Lolly" would be there. Then he had taken
Lorry's jewel box from under his coat and held it out to her, answering
her surprise with a series of smiling nods. He had everything safe, down
on the water front--the silver, the best glass, all the good clothes and
most of the pictures which he cut from their frames. Yes, he had moved
them after Aunt Ellen left, having packed them earlier in the day and got
a friend from Chinatown who had a butcher's wagon. They had worked
together, taken the things out through the back alley, very quiet, very
quick; the soldiers never saw them. He had driven across town to a North
Beach wharf, hired a fishing smack, and with two Italians for crew, cast
off and sailed about the bay for three days.

"I stay on boat all time," he said. "My business mind your stuff. I watch
out, no leave dagoes, no go sleep. All locked up now. Chinamen hide him,
keep him safe. I bring back when you get good house."

When they moved to San Rafael he brought them back, a load that must have
filled the butcher's wagon to its hood. His young ladies' gratitude
pleased him, but to their offers of a reward he would not listen.

"Old Chinaman take care of my boss's house like my boss want me. Bad
time, good time, ally samey. You no make earthquake--he come--my job
help like evly day. I no good Chinaman if I don't. I no get paid extla
for do my job."

The girls, after fruitless efforts, had to give in. Afterward, in their
rooms when they sorted the clothes--the two beds were covered with
them--they cried and laughed over the useless finery. Fong had carried
away only the richest and costliest--evening dresses, lace petticoats,
opera wraps, furs, high-heeled slippers, nothing that could be worn as
life was now.

"We'll have to go about in ball dresses for the rest of the summer," said
Chrystie, giggling hysterically. "How nice you'll look weeding the garden
in an ermine stole and white satin slippers."

"We've got to wear them somewhere," Lorry decided.

"For one reason we've almost nothing else, and for another--and the real
one--Fong mustn't know he's rescued the wrong things. I _will_ weed the
garden in white satin slippers, and I'll put on a ball dress for dinner
every night."

Chrystie was well again now. Drowsing on the balcony in the steamer chair
and taking sun baths in the garden had restored her, if not quite to her
old rosy robustness, to a pale imitation of her once glowing self. The
rest of her hair had been cut off, and her shaven poll was hidden by a
lace cap with a fringe of false curls sewed to its edge. This was very
becoming and in sweeping draperies--some of the evening dresses made over
into tea gowns--she was an attractive figure, her charms enhanced by a
softening delicacy.

The dark episode of her disappearance was allowed to rest in silence. She
and Lorry had threshed it out as far as Lorry thought fit. That Boyé
Mayer had dropped out of sight was all Chrystie knew. Some day later she
would hear the truth, which Lorry had learned from Pancha Lopez. Lorry
had also decided that the world must never know just what _did_ happen to
the second Miss Alston. The advertisement in the _Despatch_ was withdrawn
in time, and those who shared the knowledge were sworn to secrecy. Her
efforts to invent a plausible explanation caused Chrystie intense
amusement. She hid it at first, was properly attentive and helpful, but
to see Lorry trying to tell lies, worrying and struggling over it, was
too much. A day came when she forgot both manners and sympathy, began to
titter and then was lost. Lorry was vexed at first, looked cross, but
when the sinner gasped out, "Oh, Lorry, I never thought I'd see _you_
come to this," couldn't help laughing herself.

On a bright Saturday afternoon Chrystie and Sadie were sitting on the
front balcony in the shade of the Maréchal Niel rose. Mrs. Burrage and
Lorry had gone for a drive, later to meet Mark--who was to stay with them
over Sunday--at the station. Upstairs Aunt Ellen and Mrs. Kirkham were
closeted with a dressmaker, fashioning festal attire. For that night
there was to be a dinner, the first since the move. Beside the household
Mark was coming, and Crowder was expected on a later train with Pancha
Lopez and her father--eight people, quite an affair. Fong had been
marketing half the morning, and was now in the kitchen in a state of
temperamental irritation, having even swept Lorry from his presence with
a commanding, "Go away, Miss Lolly. I get clazy if you wolly me now."

Sadie and Chrystie had become very friendly. Sadie was not disinclined to
adore the youngest Miss Alston, so easy to get on with, so full of fun
and chatter. Chrystie had fulfilled her expectations of what an heiress
should be, handsome as a picture, clothed in silken splendors, regally
accepting her plenty, carelessly spendthrift.

Lorry had rather disappointed her. She was not pretty, didn't seem to
care what she had on, and was so quiet. And as an engaged girl there was
nothing romantic about her, no shy glances at Mark, no surreptitious hand
pressures. Sadie would have set her down as dreadfully matter-of-fact
except that now and then she did such queer, unexpected things. For
example the first afternoon they were there, she had astonished Sadie by
suddenly getting up and without a word kissing Mother on the forehead.
Mother, whom you never could count on, had begun to talk about the days
when she was waitress in The Golden Nugget Hotel--broke into it as if it
didn't matter at all. It made Sadie get hot all over; she didn't suppose
they knew, and under her eyelids looked from one girl to the other to
see how they'd take it. They didn't show anything, only seemed
interested, and Sadie was calming down when Mother started off on George
Alston--how fine he used to treat her and all that. It was then that
Lorry did the queer thing--not a word out of her; just got up and kissed
Mother and sat down. In her heart Sadie marveled at the perversity of
men--Mark to have fallen in love with the elder when the younger sister
was there!

She spoke about it to Mother upstairs that night, but Mother was
unsatisfactory, smiled ambiguously and said:

"I guess Mark's the smart one of _our_ family."

In the shade of the Maréchal Niel rose the girls talked and Chrystie, her
tongue unloosed by growing intimacy, told about her wild adventure. She
could not help it; after all Sadie knew a lot already, and it hampered
conversation and the spontaneities of friendship to have to stop and
think whether one ought to say this or not say that. It completed Sadie's
subjugation: here _was_ a romance. She breathlessly listened, in a state
of staring attention that would have made a less garrulous person than
Chrystie tell secrets. When she knew all she couldn't help asking--no
girl could:

"But did you love him _really_?"

Chrystie, stretching a white hand for a branch of the rose and drawing
it, blossom-weighted, to her face, answered:

"No, I thought I did at first; it was so exciting and all the girls said
he was such a star. But I was always afraid of him. He sort of
magnetized me--made me feel I'd be a poor-spirited chump if I didn't run
away with him. You don't want to have a man think that about you, so I
said I would and I did go. But that night--shall I ever forget it? It
was pure misery."

"Do you think you _would_ have gone with him?"

"I guess so, just because I hadn't the nerve not to. I felt as if I _had_
to see it through--was sort of pledged to it. Maybe I didn't want to go
back on him, and maybe I was ashamed to. You can hardly call the
earthquake a piece of luck, but it was for me."

She sniffed at the roses while Sadie eyed her almost awed. Eighteen and
with this behind her! The more she knew of the youngest Miss Alston the
more her respect and admiration increased. She waited expectantly for the
heroine to resume, which she did after a last, luxurious inhalation of
the rose's breath.

"Wasn't it wonderful that the person who found me was Pancha Lopez? I
keep thinking of it all the time. You know I was always crazy about
her, but I never thought I'd meet her. And then to finally do it the
way I did!"

Sadie's comment showed a proper comprehension of this strange happening,
and then she wanted to know what Pancha Lopez was like.

"Oh, she's a priceless thing--there's nobody anywhere like her, in looks
or any other way. She's different. You can't take your eyes off her, and
yet she's not pretty. Remarkable people never are."

This was a new thought to Sadie who, absorbing it slowly, ventured a
safe:

"Aren't they?"

"No, it's only the second-class ones who don't amount to anything who are
good-looking. I must say it was a blow to me to hear that her real name
was Michaels. But of course actresses generally have other names, and
Lopez does belong to her in a sort of way. She told Lorry about it and
about her father, too. Nobody knew she had a father."

"What's he like?"

"Oh, he's a grand old dear--rough, but he would be naturally, just a
miner all his life. He took care of me as if I was a baby."

"He won't have to be a miner any more now."

They exchanged a glance of bright meaning, and Chrystie, drawing herself
up in the chair, spoke with solemn emphasis:

"Sadie, I've always been glad I had money, because I'd be lost without
it. But I'm glad now for another reason--because we could do something
for those two. If we couldn't they'd have had to go back and begin all
over again. Pancha's got some money saved up, but it'll be a long time
before she gets it, and Lorry says it wouldn't be enough any way. Think
of that kind old bear with his hair getting gray trudging up and down the
Mother Lode! If I'd thought that was to go on I'd never have had a
peaceful night's sleep again. We'd have had to adopt him, and I _know_ he
wouldn't have liked that. Now, thank heaven, we can make him comfortable
in his own way."

"Did he tell you what it was he wanted to do?"

"No, he wouldn't, but Lorry got hold of Pancha and wormed it all out of
her. For years he's been longing to settle down on a ranch--that was his
dream. Poor little dream! Well, it's coming true. We've got several
ranches, but there's only one that counts--in Mexico. There's a small one
down in Kern that father bought ages ago for a weighmaster he had who got
consumption. He died there--the weighmaster, I mean--and we've gone on
renting it out and the trustees having all sorts of bother with the
tenants. So that's going to be Mr. Michael's. Lorry had the transfer
made, or whatever you call it, yesterday in town. She's going to give
him the papers tonight."

"It'll be the last time you'll see them for a long while, I guess."

Chrystie, suddenly pensive, dropped back in the chair.

"Um, it will. Before we see Pancha again it may be years. She's going
abroad to study. But she's promised to write and tell us all about how
she's getting on. And when she comes back--a real grand opera
singer--won't I be in a state! I get all wrought up now thinking about
it. If she makes her first appearance in New York I'm going on there
to see her."

"How long will it take--getting her ready, training her and
teaching her?"

"No one can tell exactly. People here who've heard her and know about
those things say she has such a fine voice and is so quick and clever
that she might go on the stage over there in a year or two. She's got a
lot to learn of course; even the way I feel about her I can see she needs
to be more educated. But no matter how long it takes she's going to be
financed--that's what they call it--till she's finished and ready.
Lorry's guaranteed that."

"Lorry's awful grateful to them, isn't she?"

"Lorry!" Chrystie's glance showed surprise at such a question. "She's
ready to give them everything she has. She's not just grateful, she's
_bowed down _with it. Why she advertised in all the papers for that
doctor who saw me on the floor, and now she's found him she'd build him a
whole hospital if he'd let her. Lorry's not like me. _She's_ got _deep_
feelings."

The carriage, turning in at the gate, stopped the conversation, and
Chrystie rose and sauntered to the top of the steps. Mother Burrage, in
her new black silk mantle, bought through a catalogue, and a perfect
fit, came up the path, Mark and Lorry behind her. Mark waved a greeting
hand and Lorry called instructions--please tell Fong to bring out
something cold to drink and tell Aunt Ellen and Mrs. Kirkham to come
downstairs even if they were in their wrappers--they must be worn out
shut up with the dressmaker all day. It was exactly the sort of thing
Sadie knew she would say--and Mark only just off the train.

The dinner that night was a brilliant success. Fong had outdone himself,
the menu was a triumph, the table a shining splendor. He had insisted on
setting it--no green second boy could lay a hand on the family treasures,
now almost sacred, like vessels lost from a church and miraculously
restored. In the center he had placed the great silver bowl given to
George Alston by the miners of The Silver Queen when he had retired from
the management. Fong had been at the presentation ceremony, and valued
the bowl above all his old boss's possessions. In the flight from the
Pine Street house he had trusted it to no hands but his own, and finding
it hard to hold had carried it on his head. He had also elected to wait
on the table--the reunion had a character of intimacy upon which no
second boy should intrude--and to do the occasion honor had put on his
lilac crepe jacket and green silk trousers. From behind the chairs he
looked approvingly at the glistening spread of silver and glass, the
flowered mound of the Silver Queen bowl, the ring of faces, and "Miss
Lolly" and "Miss Clist" in the dresses he had saved.

Clothes of any kind were at a premium, and the Misses Alstons'
hospitality extended to their wardrobe. Sadie had no need to avail
herself of it; she had stocked hers well before coming, making a special
trip to Sacramento for that purpose. But Pancha, who had lost everything
but a nightgown and slippers, was scantily provided. Before dinner there
had been a withdrawal to Lorry's room, whence had issued much laughter
and cries of admiration from Chrystie. Now, between Mark and Crowder,
Pancha loomed radiant, duskily flushed, gleamingly scintillant, in the
white net dress with the crystal trimmings that Lorry had worn on an
eventful night.

Yes, it was a very fine dinner. At intervals each told his neighbor so,
and then told his hostess, and then told Fong. Crowder, whose customary
haunts were burned and who was eating anything, anywhere, sighed
rapturously over every succeeding course, and Mrs. Kirkham said she'd
never seen its peer "except in Virginia in the seventies." Toward the end
of it they drank toasts--to Lorry and Mark on their engagement, to Mother
and Sadie as the new relations, to Pancha and Mr. Michaels as the
saviors, to Chrystie on her restoration to health, to Crowder as the
mutual friend, to Aunt Ellen as the ambulating chaperon, to Mrs. Kirkham
as the dispenser of hospitality and wisdom, and finally, on their feet
with raised glasses, to Fong.

The party broke up early; there were trains and boats to catch for those
going back to the city. With the hour of departure a drop came in their
high spirits, a prevailing pensiveness in the face of farewells. Chrystie
quite broke down, kissed Mr. Michaels to his great confusion, and wept in
Pancha's arms. Father and daughter were to go their several ways early in
the week and this was good-by. They stumbled over last phrases to Lorry,
good wishes, reiterated thanks. She hushed them, hurried their adieux to
the others, herself affected but anxious to get them off; such excitement
was bad for Chrystie. As the carriage rolled away she stood on the steps,
a waving hand aloft, hearing over the roll of the wheels and the talk in
the hall, Pancha's clear voice calling, "Good-by, good-by; oh, good-by!"

When she came back the others were already preparing to disperse for bed.
The old ladies were tired, yawning as they exchanged good-nights and
moved, heavy-footed, for the stairs. They began to mount, their silks
rustling, muttering wearily as they toiled upward. Chrystie had to go
too, at once, and straight to bed; no reading or talking to Sadie. She
agreed dejectedly and trailed after the ascending group, throwing sleepy
farewells over her shoulder.

Sadie, who felt very wide-awake, was for lingering. It was only ten, and
what with the unwonted excitement and two cups of black coffee, she did
not feel at all inclined toward sleep. She thought she would stay down a
little longer, and then her glance slipping from the file of backs fell
on her brother and Lorry, side by side, their faces raised, their eyes
on the retreating procession. Sadie waited a moment, then seeing they
made no move to follow it, bade them a brisk good-night and went up the
stairs herself.










End of Project Gutenberg's Treasure and Trouble Therewith, by Geraldine Bonner



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