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+Project Gutenberg's Treasure and Trouble Therewith, by Geraldine Bonner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Treasure and Trouble Therewith
+       A Tale of California
+
+Author: Geraldine Bonner
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #9775]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 15, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREASURE AND TROUBLE THEREWITH ***
+
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+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
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+Project Gutenberg's Treasure and Trouble Therewith, by Geraldine Bonner
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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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 _debacle_
+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 rotisserie 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--"Boye 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 coryphee 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 Lycee, 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," Boye 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.
+
+"BOYE 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,
+_rusee_ 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. BOYE 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 crepe 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. Boye 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 manana_, 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 naive.
+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 Boye 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 Boye 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, Boye 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 role. 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, Boye 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, Boye," 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 Boye 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 Boye
+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, Boye."
+
+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.
+
+Boye 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 Boye 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 BOYE:
+
+"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 manana,_
+
+"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 Boye 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 Boye 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 Boye 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
+Boye 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, Boye, 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, Boye," 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."
+
+"Boye, 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, Boye?"
+
+"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. Boye 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, Boye! 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 Rotisserie.
+
+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 Boye 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 Rotisserie 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 garcon_" 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 Boye
+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, Boye!" 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, Boye," 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, Boye. 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? Boye 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
+Boye 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
+_reclame_ 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 Boye 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 Boye 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 Boye 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.
+Boye 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. Boye 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
+Boye 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,
+"Boye, 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. "Boye!" 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 debris 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 Boye 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 melee; 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 Boye
+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 Marechal 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 Marechal 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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