"'Course I know it. And you're not going against me now, Bob, either, are you?" She lifted his hand, and with one of her rare, caressing gestures laid it against her cheek for a moment and, turning her face a little, lightly brushed his palm with her lips.

He shivered and quickly drew his hand away. There was silence between them for a few moments and then he sighed again and more heavily than ever. "Oh, Pearl," he cried, "what do you want to make things so hard for? Let that dog—" he checked himself hastily, seeing her expression. "I beg your pardon, you don't look at him that way. Let Hanson go. I know you about as well as anybody in the world, don't I?"

"Better," she nodded her head affirmatively, answering without hesitation.

"Well, won't you believe me when I tell you that you couldn't be happy with him. Won't you listen to me, Pearl?"

She looked at him a little slyly out of the corners of her eyes, a little one-sided, cynical smile on her lips. "We're always so dead sure what's going to make other people happy, ain't we, Bob? Always can see what's good for them so much better than they ever can see for themselves."

Flick looked away from her, down the long, shaded alley; once or twice he swallowed hard. "It ain't easy to say what I got to," a faint flush on his cheek, "'cause I hate to talk that-a-way to a lady, especially to you, Pearl; but I know you; and you can't be happy, you just naturally can't, with a man that's married for keeps to one woman, and that'll—God, Pearl! It hurts me to talk like this to you—that'll throw you over when he's tired of you just like he's thrown over several others."

She caught his arm and shook it violently, as if she scarcely knew what she did. "Throw me over! Me! the Black Pearl!" she cried hoarsely, and broke into a torrent of Spanish oaths. "Dios!" she paused at last, panting for breath, "you must be crazy to talk to me like that, Bob Flick."

"I told you how I hated it," he answered, with that sad, unaltered patience with which he always took her unspared blame, "but I had to do it. You got to know these things, Pearl, and it's better for me to tell you than for your Pop to try."

"He wouldn't have gotten very far," she muttered.

"That's just it. You'd both have got to scrapping and screaming at each other and nothing told."

"Better nothing told, as far as you are concerned," she flashed at him fiercely, and then lapsed into sullen silence.

"Hello! Hello!" Hughie's voice came to them from a side avenue or narrower path down which he had wandered.

"Hello, yourself," Flick answered. "We'll wait for you right here."

"Bob." Pearl's soft voice held no evidence of rancor. "Tell me something quick, before he reaches us. Tell me true, and I'll be good friends, honest, I will."

"You know I'll tell you anything I can."

"Then—then—is she—that woman in Colina—pretty? As pretty as I am?"

He smiled bitterly. "No one's as pretty as you, Pearl. No, she ain't pretty."

"Well, what does she look like?" impatiently.

"Nothing much. Why, I don't know, just looks like most every other woman you see."

"Oh, Bob, quick! Is she little or big? Is she kind of saucy and quick, or is she quiet and slow? Quick, now, Hughie's almost here."

"Why—why," he rubbed his hand across his brow, "she's kind of—kind of motherly."

Pearl threw back her head and laughed, then she took a few dancing steps up and down the road.

"It's Pearl and Bob," called Hughie. "I knew it a while back when I stopped to listen, and then I heard a bird note down yonder," with a wave of his hand toward the direction in which he had come, "and I wanted to hear it closer, so I didn't wait for you. I can always tell you two by the sound of your footsteps. Pearl walks in better rhythm than you do, Bob."

"Of course. What do you expect?" It was Flick who spoke. "What are you doing so far away from home, anyway, Hughie?"

The boy's wistful, delicate face clouded. "I had to go somewhere," he said. "That Hanson has been there all morning, and mother has been sitting with her head so close to his, talking, talking."

Pearl laughed a single note, like her father's. "Poor Rudolf!" she muttered, "the men are all jealous of him, even Hugh."

Fortunately, the boy did not hear her, although Bob Flick did, as she intended he should.

"I do love mother," Hugh added plaintively, "but I can't love the people she mostly likes, so I came as far away as I could, and here," his face was irradiated in one of its quick changes, "I've been walking up and down and hearing and seeing things; listening to the quail and the doves; and a while ago there was a humming-bird; and did you ever smell the desert as sweet as it is this morning?" He lifted his head and sniffed ecstatically. "I've been turning the whole morning into music. It's all gold and green and gay with little silver trumpets through it, and now and again the moan of the doves. I'm going to work it out as soon as we get home. That is," he shrugged his shoulders impatiently, "if that Hanson has gone. He stops all the music and the color." This was Hugh's invariable plaint when any one was about whom he disliked.

"Oh, forget him," cried Pearl. "Don't be a cross, Hughie." She spoke with a half impatient, half teasing tenderness. It was remarkable that she showed no resentment toward the boy for the difficulties in which she found herself entangled, although his intuitions and the almost superstitious respect which they were accorded in the Gallito household might be said to have caused the disturbing investigations into Hanson's past. That Pearl herself disregarded these intuitions in this case was to those about her the strongest proof of her infatuation; but she never dreamed of blaming the boy or harboring rancor against him for this mischief he had done. On the contrary, she accepted it fatalistically. He never could account himself for these instinctive likes and dislikes of his; therefore, they were to be accepted and borne with as something of him, and yet apart from him; and that was all there was to it.

"I'll tell you what to do, Hugh. You help me work out some new dances," she cried. "A lot has been coming to me. One shall be 'Night on the Desert.' We can get some great effects. Something really artistic for the big cities, not the old waltz things we have to do for the desert and mountain villages. We might try that 'Desert Morning' that you've just been planning to compose, and I've been thinking of another one—a Cactus Blossom Dance. Something like this." She began to dance.

"Tell me the steps, Pearl; tell me the steps," called the boy impatiently. "Oh, that's a great idea!" His face was flushed; and then suddenly it fell. "Oh!" he cried despairingly to Flick, "she always gets all sorts of ideas for new dances when she's in love—always. I never knew it fail."

He flung himself away pettishly, and started off alone. Hugh never had any difficulty about direction. In a locality with which he was familiar he would walk about with the utmost confidence. Occasionally he would stop, rap his leg sharply with one hand, listen a moment, and then, apparently satisfied, walk on. Those who pressed him for an explanation of this merely received the vague and unilluminating reply that he could feel the earth that way and tell from the sound of it, probably meaning the vibration, just where he was.

Pearl and Flick followed him in a more leisurely way, although no word was spoken between them until they reached home. Pearl's eyes scanned the house, but it was evident that Hanson had gone, for her mother sat in a rocking-chair before the window, her head tilted back, fast asleep.

"What do you suppose your Pop'll say to your signing up with Hanson?" asked Flick, as they passed through the gate.

"I suppose we'll have a row that'll make the house rock," she answered indifferently, dismissing him with a nod.



CHAPTER V

Hanson had learned of Flick's return to Paloma almost as soon as the Pearl, although from a different source; Jimmy, the bar-keeper, having informed him of the fact. He had sauntered into Chickasaw Pete's place as was his wont, soon after breakfast on the same morning that Pearl had walked in the mesquite alleys with Flick. This he selected as the most agreeable place in which he could while away the time until a suitable hour for either seeking Pearl, or else hastening to keep an appointment with her. And Jimmy, with the same instinct that a squirrel hides nuts, hoarded such chance bits of gossip as came his way and brought them out one by one for the delectation of those with whom he conversed.

"Hello, Paloma Morning Journal!" called Hanson as he entered the door, his large, genial presence radiating optimism and good cheer. "How many big black headlines this morning?"

Jimmy's smile made creases in his round, red cheeks above his white linen jacket. "Pretty shy of headlines," he chuckled. "Nothing but a few personals."

"No murders, no lynchings, nor merry cowboys on bucking broncos shooting up the town?" exclaimed Hanson, in affected dismay. "My! My! What is the West coming to? I'm afraid you ain't serving them the right kind of poison, Jimmy."

"It's so bad I won't touch it myself." Jimmy defended himself with professional pride. "Have some?"

"Not I. I got to be going, anyway."

Seeing that Hanson was about to follow this intention, Jimmy drew forth his first nut. "Bob Flick got back last night," he said, and then, abashed by the meagerness of this bit of information, attempted to enhance its value. "I'd like to know," leaning his elbow on the bar and his chin in his hand, "I'd like to know where he went and what he went for."

Hanson did not alter his lounging pose and yet, indefinably, his attitude became more tense, as if, in a quick riveting of attention, every sense had become alert. "He's doing a good mining business, ain't he?" he spoke carelessly. "I should think there would be a good many things that would take him out of Paloma."

"Oh, 'course," conceded Jimmy, "but don't you know how you kind of feel things sometimes. Well, you listen to me, there's something queer about this trip." He half closed his eyes and shook his head mysteriously.

"Come, now, Jimmy," Hanson's tone was bantering; he rapped on the bar in playful emphasis, but there was anxiety in his glance. "You're just trying to work up a little excitement. A show down now, a show down."

"Kid me all you please," chuckled Jimmy, with imperturbable good humor, "but, take it from me, something special's been doing. Bob's not one to talk about his or any one's else business, but if he's going off on any little trip he's likely to mention it. And, when he comes back, he'll tell you this or that he's seen or heard, just like other folks. But this time, not a word. Glum as an oyster. You just bet," Jimmy emphasized the statement with a series of nods, "that somethin's going on. Him and Gallito have had their heads too close. And that old fox is usually up to some mischief."

"What kind?" asked Hanson quickly.

"I don't know," answered Jimmy, and Hanson saw to his relief that the bar-keeper was sincere, and that he was to his own manifest regret as ignorant as he appeared. "But," he added shrewdly, "you been taking up a good deal of the Pearl's time and attention, and Bob ain't going to stand that from anybody very long."

"He ain't, ain't he?" the insolence of Hanson's tone was touched with triumph.

"No," said Jimmy simply, "he ain't; and so I kind of feel that this trip of his had something to do with you. And, say, Mr. Hanson," there was a touch of embarrassment in his voice, "you and me's been pretty good friends since you been here, and I thought I'd just give you the tip."

Hanson did not answer for a second, and then he looked up with one of his most open and genial smiles. "Thanks, Jimmy," he said heartily. "Always glad to get the straight tip. I've been so anxious since I've been here to sign up with the Black Pearl that maybe, considering Mr. Bob Flick, I haven't been very discreet in the way I've been chasing there." He leaned his elbow on the bar and assumed a more confidential manner. "But, say, it's funny the way every one speaks the same about Gallito. Hints everywhere, but no facts. What is it about him, anyway?" He either could not or did not conceal that he awaited a reply with eagerness.

"I wish I knew." Jimmy spoke with the utmost sincerity. "Folks whisper and shake their heads, but there's nothing to lay a finger on. I've tried to pump Mrs. Gallito more than once, but if she knows anything she keeps it dark. She's afraid of me, anyway. She always says: 'Oh, Jimmy, you're such a gossip!' Me!" He was really injured. "I guess if everybody did as little gossiping as I do this world would be a heap sight better place."

"Sure," agreed Hanson cordially; and this time his smile was genuinely expressive of his thankful and undisguised relief. By what seemed to him an almost incredible piece of good luck, considering the mutual predilection of Mrs. Gallito and Jimmy for gossip, his secret was still intact.

He straightened up involuntarily, and stood a moment deep in thought, his unseeing gaze fixed on a row of bottles on a shelf behind Jimmy. He picked up an apple which Jimmy had left on the bar and turned it around in his hands, apparently considering the effect of its scarlet stripes on a green surface. Then he threw back his shoulders and laughed aloud. "Bill Jones left a peckful of luscious apples in ye editorial sanctum to-day," he said gaily. "Come again, Bill," and laying the fruit down, turned away, Jimmy's delighted chuckles following him to the door and beyond.

Outside, he hesitated a moment, and then turned in the direction of the little railroad station. Seeing him, the weedy youth who acted as agent brought his chair, tilted back at an almost impossible angle, to the earth, took his feet down from a table, laid aside an old and battered magazine and expressed devout gratitude to heaven that any one should relieve what he was pleased to term his solitary confinement.

Hanson took the chair pushed toward him and for nearly an hour discussed events in the outside world, and the various phases of his profession in what the agent found a most entertaining manner. Finally he looked at his watch, murmured something about an engagement and rose to go. "Well," he said at parting, "I expect the next time I see you I'll be buying a ticket."

"Going to leave us soon?" asked the youth regretfully.

"Not to-day," smiled the manager, "but soon. Oh, by the way, now I think of it—is there a train goes straight from here to Colina?"

"Not straight. You got to change twice; once at the junction and once at the branch."

"And what kind of a place is there to stay at? Any hotel?"

"I don't know. Not much of one, I guess. Gallito would know. But he's got his own cabin, ain't he? That's so. Why don't you ask Bob Flick? He's just been up there. I sold him a ticket the other day, and he got back on the train yesterday evening. Thanks," taking the cigar Hanson offered. "So long."

With his suspicions thus definitely confirmed, Hanson wasted no time in following his inclinations and seeking the Pearl in her own home, but his delay had cost him a word with her, and he did not arrive at the Gallito house until after she and Bob Flick had left. This was the first untoward event in a successful morning, but he concealed his chagrin and, with his usual adaptability to circumstances, exerted himself to be agreeable to Mrs. Gallito, not without hope of gaining more or less valuable information.

Mrs. Gallito was in one of her sighing moods. In spite of all the methods of protection which she and Hughie had utilized the coyotes still continued to commit their depredations upon her chicken yard and daily to make way with her choicest "broilers" and "fryers." Also she had shipped several large consignments of sweet potatoes to the eastern markets and, instead of their being, as usual, snapped up by epicures at enormous prices, they had fallen, through competition with other shippers, almost to the price of the ordinary variety—desert sweet potatoes, too.

Life, she averred, was hard, almost a failure. Sometimes things went sort of smooth and you thought it wasn't so bad, and then everything went wrong.

"Oh, not everything," said Hanson, with a rather perfunctory attempt at consolation.

"Yes, sir, everything"—dolefully she creaked back and forth in her rocking-chair—"everything. Here's Gallito, the luckiest man at cards ever was, and he's been losing steady for three nights, and he's getting blacker and sourer and stiller every minute. Oh, if him and Pearl would only talk when things go wrong with 'em. It would seem so natural and—and—humanlike."

"Back in the old sawdust days," she continued reminiscently, "when things went wrong in the circus, everybody'd be screaming at each other, calling names and threatening, and often as not throwing anything that came handy. They'd get it all out of their systems that way, and there was nothing left to curdle. But to sit and glower and think and think! Oh, it's awful! Why, even Hughie, he'll talk and pound the piano like he was going to break the poor thing to pieces; but this Spanish way of Pearl and her father! Oh, my!" Mrs. Gallito shook her head and carefully wiped a tear from her eye, before it could make a disfiguring rivulet down the paint and powder on her cheek.

"It can't be so much fun, all things considered," conceded Hanson.

"Fun!" Mrs. Gallito merely looked at him. "When I think of what life used to be! Lots of work, but just as much excitement. Why, I was awful pretty, Mr. Hanson," a real flush rose on her faded cheek, "and I had lots of admiration, 'deed I did."

"You don't need to tell me that," said Hanson. "I guess I got eyes."

"And when I married Gallito," she went on, "I was awful happy. I guess I was soft, but I always wanted to love some one and be loved a whole lot, and I thought that was what was going to happen, but it didn't. I often wonder what he married me for. But," her voice was poignant with wistfulness, "I would have liked to have been loved, I would."

Hanson nodded understandingly and without speaking, this time, an expression of real sympathy in his eyes. She was weak and silly. She was dyed and painted and powdered almost to the point of being grotesque, and yet, in voicing the universal longing, she became real, and human, and touching.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Hanson giving Mrs. Gallito an opportunity to recover her self-control, while he devoted his attention to Lolita, who had sidled up to him and was gazing at him evilly, ready to nip him malevolently should he attempt the familiarity of scratching her head.

Mrs. Gallito, alive to the courtesies of the occasion, had succeeded in choking back her sobs, and now she endeavored to turn the conversation into less personal channels. "Bob Flick got back yesterday."

"Where's he been traveling?" asked the manager easily. "He can't have gone so very far, hasn't been gone long enough."

Mrs. Gallito leaned forward carefully. "He's been to Colina and, Mr. Hanson, I think his trip had something to do with you. Him and Gallito talked late last night. I tried my best to hear what they were saying," naively, "but I couldn't for a long while, and then Gallito said out loud: 'Who's going to tell her, you or me?'

"And Bob kind of waited a minute and then he said: 'Me. You'd only stir her up and make her obstinate. But, God!' he said, sighing awful heavy, 'I wish I didn't have to.'"

"I'll bet he does," muttered Hanson, and throwing back his head laughed aloud.

She looked at him doubtfully, as if surprised at his manner of receiving her information. "Is it funny?" she asked.

"Not for Bob," still vindictively amused.

"I suppose something's gone wrong with her contract with Sweeney, and he can hold her to it, or else have the law on her," ventured Mrs. Gallito. "That's all I can think of to stir them up so."

"I guess that must be it," agreed Hanson. "Eh, Lolita?"

"Here comes Gallito now." She leaned forward suddenly, shielding her eyes with her hand. "Yes, it's him, sure. Why, I thought he'd gone to the mines and wouldn't be back to-day."

Gallito was riding slowly toward the house, his head bent, his frowning gaze fixed before him. Nevertheless, he had seen his wife's guest, and, after taking his horse back to the stable, he made his appearance on the porch. He shook hands with Hanson with his usual punctilious courtesy, and then, turning to Mrs. Gallito, remarked without ceremony:

"Mr. Hanson and I have business matters to discuss and you have duties within; but first bring the small table, the cognac and some glasses."

His wife wasted no time in doing his bidding, setting forth the articles required with a timid and practiced celerity. But even after the brandy had been tasted and praised by Hanson, and his appreciation of it accepted with a grave Spanish bow by Gallito, the latter had made no move to open the conversation, but had insisted upon his guest trying his cigarettes and giving an opinion upon their merits.

Again Hanson was complaisant, extolling them as worthy to accompany the cognac, and after that a silence fell between them. Gallito sat puffing his cigarette, watching with half closed eyes the smoke wreaths curl upward, while Hanson waited patiently, smoking his cigarette in turn with an admirable show of indifference.

"The old fox!" thought he scornfully. "Does he hope to bluff me into giving myself away?"

Finally Gallito spoke, directly and to the point, surprising the other man, in spite of himself, by a most unexpected lack of diplomatic subterfuge and subtlety.

"I received a letter from Sweeney yesterday," he drew it slowly from his pocket, "and he doubles his offer to my daughter, making her salary, practically, what you are willing to pay her. Now, Mr. Hanson, your offer is very fine. I appreciate it; my daughter appreciates it; but she cannot accept it. She treated Sweeney badly, very badly. She is an untaught child, headstrong, wilful," his brow darkened, "but she must learn that a contract is a contract." He took another sip of cognac. "She will go back to Sweeney."

He slightly shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands as if to say: "I deprecate this for your sake, but the question is definitely settled; I beg you, therefore, to advance no useless counter-arguments."

But Hanson ignored this unspoken request. "I'm sorry you feel that way about it," he said, "but your daughter is of age. I guess I'll wait and see what she has to say about this." He spoke pleasantly, almost carelessly, no hint of a threat in his tone, at least.

Gallito looked at him from under his brows in surprise, then he laughed, one single, menacing note. "My daughter will say what I have said."

"I'm not so sure," returned Hanson, and had some difficulty in restraining himself from speaking violently. Then he forced the issue.

"Look here, Gallito," he cried, "what's all this about, anyway? I came down here to the desert anxious to secure the Black Pearl as a new attraction for my vaudeville houses. I see her and I know that she's all to the good. So, banking on my own judgment, I make her an offer that's more than generous, just because I've the courage of my convictions and am willing to back my enthusiasms. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose," he snapped his fingers lightly, "but I'm always ready to take the chances.

"Well—what happens? In the first place, instead of jumping at my offer, like any sensible man would—I'm talking plain now, Gallito—you got to drag Sweeney into the game, which, look at it any way you please, wasn't particularly square. Pah!" scornfully, pitching his cigarette with a single muscular sweep of the arm into the heart of the garden, "you don't know it or you wouldn't have been talking to me like you have, but I've got Sweeney pigeon-holed, know all his resources, and know positively that he can't come up to my offer. I tell you what, Gallito, it's cards on the table now, and," he tapped the table between them with his knuckles, "I'm politely requesting you to draw your nigger from the woodpile."

Gallito's glance was like the stab of a poignard. "But this is strange talk." He drew back haughtily. "I do not have to make explanations. I have my daughter's interests at heart."

"Yes, I know," interrupted Hanson, "but the black man, the black man. Out with him."

Gallito's face had grown livid, his mouth had tightened until it was drawn and pinched. "Have it, then," he growled. "Sweeney's straight. Sweeney hasn't left one wife in Colina while he eloped with one of his head-liners. He's not in one scrape after another with a woman, until he's a joke in the coast newspapers, and every woman he features in his shows has got a black smirch on her—"

"By God, you've got your nerve," cried Hanson violently, interrupting him.

Gallito made a deprecating motion with his hands, as if to say: "Don't mention it, I beg of you," and then carefully selected another cigarette from the box between them. "My nerve is something that rarely deserts me, Mr. Hanson," he replied, "but I wish to finish what I was saying. My daughter has a future. She will not only be a great dancer, but she has the making of a great actress in her, too. And Dios!" he still maintained his cold restraint, but now, in spite of himself, his tones vibrated with passion, "just at the beginning of her career, to be made cheap by you, or any like you—"

He lifted his hooded hawk's eyes and looked at Hanson, who in turn looked boldly back at him with something indefinable yet unmistakable, something that was not only defiance, but also a threat in the blaze of his angry eyes.

And Gallito caught it and raised his brows ever so slightly, pondering surprisedly for a moment, and then resolutely putting the matter aside for the present. But Hanson continued to gaze across the table at him.

"Read me my pedigree, ain't you?" he snarled. "All right. Now just let me tell you something, Gallito. I take my answer from your daughter, and from no one else. Understand?"

"No," returned Gallito, "I do not understand."

Hanson controlled himself with difficulty. For a moment it was on the tip of his tongue to tell Gallito that the latter's connivance in the escape of the notorious Crop-eared Jose was known to him; also, he was perfectly cognizant of the present whereabouts of that much-desired person, and that he, Hanson, had but to step to the telegraph office and send a wire to Los Angeles, and not only Jose, but Gallito would be in custody before night. An admirable method for securing Gallito's consent to his daughter's acceptance of this professional engagement which Hanson offered. But, carefully considered, it had its flaws, and Hanson was not the man to overlook them. Indeed, he sat there in a baffled and furious silence, going over them mentally and viewing them from every possible angle.

In the first place, it was extremely doubtful if, after communicating his knowledge to Gallito, he would ever be permitted to reach the telegraph station, and, in the second place, he would, he was convinced, have not only Gallito, but the, to him, more formidable Bob Flick to deal with. Therefore, and most reluctantly, he decided to keep his information and his threats to himself for the present and, certainly, until he was better able to enforce the latter.

But, as he told himself, twisting his shoulders irritably, there was something about this old Spaniard which got on his nerves. A quality of composed patience, as if he, at least, never doubted the successful outcome of his plans; a rock-like imperturbability against which violence or vituperation shattered itself and fell harmless.

"Look here, Gallito," again he adopted a conciliatory manner, leaning his elbows on the table, as if prepared for a long discussion, after first helping himself to another glass of cognac and a fresh cigarette, "what's the use of a row, anyway? Now, why can't we come to some agreement. What you say about your daughter's abilities is all true, every word of it. That's the reason I'm so keen to get her. I know, and I'm frank enough to confess it, that out here in the desert, with not much to think about, on a vacation, and all, why—I kind of lost my head about her. She's a beautiful woman, Gallito, no need to tell you that. But you know, and I know, that a man can always shut down on that sort of thing if he's got to. My reputation ain't what it ought to be, no one knows that better than I, or feels it more; but, honest to God, Gallito, I ain't as black as I've been painted. No man is, probably. Now, what I got to say is this—"

"No need to say it, Mr. Hanson," interrupted Gallito, who had been twisting his mouth wryly during these remarks.

Again Hanson concealed his rising anger, although the color rose in his cheeks. "Now just let me talk a minute, Gallito." He spread out his hands placatingly. "The proposition I'm going to make you is this: Miss Gallito tells me that her mother traveled with her when she was younger, and even now, when she can spare the time from her farming, she goes out on the road with the young lady. Now, why not have a purely business arrangement. Let Miss Pearl sign up with me, and then we'll coax her mother to go with her. I should think that would satisfy you. It ought to satisfy any one, for a girl's mother to go with her."

"Of course," the Spaniard bowed with stately courtesy, but not before had his smile been so sardonic. "As you say, every one should be satisfied with such an arrangement and, let me say, it is one that would greatly please me, but as I told you before, Mr. Hanson, it cannot be. My daughter must keep her contract with Sweeney."

At white heat, Hanson rose and pushed back his chair. "Hell!" he cried. "What am I up against, anyway! Give some people the earth and it wouldn't suit 'em. But you can take this from me, Gallito," he leaned forward and pounded his fist on the table, "I don't take my answer from you. We'll see what the Black Pearl has got to say. The Black Pearl smirched by going out with me!" He laughed aloud.

He fell back frightened as Gallito half rose from his chair, and then, to his unbounded surprise, the Spaniard sat down again and softly rubbed his hands together. Hanson had a fleeting and most disturbing impression of the old man gloating over some secret and pleasant prospect.

Lolita had balanced herself on the edge of the table and Gallito bent forward and scratched her head, making little clucking noises in his throat the while: "Our guest is a great poker player, Lolita, he understands how to make a bluff, but," again that single grating note of a laugh, "assure him, my Lolita, that he will be cold-decked."

Again Hanson was almost betrayed into making his threat then and there. He leaned forward and shook his forefinger under the Spaniard's eyes, his face was purple, but just in time he remembered himself, closed his mouth and drew back.

"Bob, Bob," croaked Lolita, "mi jasmin Pearl, mi corazon."

"A most intelligent bird, you see, Mr. Hanson," observed Gallito, with saturnine politeness.

Hanson turned away impatiently. "I will see your daughter this afternoon," he said.

Gallito had begun to roll a fresh cigarette, but now, checking himself abruptly, he threw a long comprehensive glance at the cloudless brazen sky, and then, squinting his eyes, studied for a second or two the equally brazen desert.

"I think not, Mr. Hanson," he said, with assured finality in his voice. "I do not think you will see my daughter to-day. What? Going so soon? Another glass of cognac? No. Adios, then. Adios."



CHAPTER VI

Hanson walked away, more disturbed in mind by his interview with Gallito than he would have thought possible an hour or two earlier. Something in the finality of the Spaniard's voice when making those last predictions, his evidently sincere belief that his daughter would not appear under Hanson's management, had impressed the latter in spite of himself, causing him seriously to question the extent of his influence over Pearl, a weakness which he had not previously permitted himself.

He strove with all the force of his optimistic will to throw off the depression which deepened with each moment, assuring himself that he was tired, that all morning he had played a part, every faculty on the alert; and that this growing dissatisfaction and unrest were only the evidence of a natural reaction.

He attempted to buttress his hope with mental argument, logical, even final, but singularly unconvincing where Pearl was concerned, as anything logical and final must ever be. He tried to recall in detail stories he had heard of her avarice and her coquetries; he thought of her jewels, her name, her wiles. Who was she to object to past peccadillos on his part? Then, uncomforted, he sought to reassure himself with the remembrance of her love for him, ardent and beautiful as the sun on the desert, but her image rose on the dark of his mind like a flame, veering and capricious, or as the wind, lingering, caressing, yet ever fleeing.

He was tormented by the remembrance also of strange phases of her which he divined but could not analyze. Again, he would in fancy look deep into her dark eyes, demanding that his imagination revive for him those moments when his heart had thrilled to the liquid languor of her gaze, and instead he saw only the world-weariness of that sphynx glance which seemed to brood on uncounted centuries, and far back in her eyes, illusive and brief as the faint, half seen shadow on a mirror, he discerned mockery and disdain.

He took off his hat, baring his brow to the air, and drew long breaths, unpleasantly conscious of an increasing heaviness and sultriness in the air, according well with the oppression of his thoughts. When he arrived at the San Gorgonio, he was glad to take refuge in his room and there, to relieve the tension of nerves strung almost unbearably high, he walked back and forth and, after his fashion, swore volubly and unintermittently.

At last, having exhausted his vocabulary as well as his breath, he turned to the window, struck by some impending change in the atmosphere which had now revealed itself by a slight obscuring of the light in the room. He looked out curiously, half fearfully, dimly but rebelliously aware that the world, his human world of personal desires and activities, as well as all external nature was threatened by vast, unseen, menacing forces. The great, gray desert lay in crouching stillness, a silence which filled the soul of man with horror. The sun, crimson as blood, hung in a sky over which seemed to have been drawn a veil of golden mist.

"Must be something doing," muttered Hanson, and even as he spoke his eye was taken by a movement on the horizon line, a billowing as if the desert were rising like the sea. And truly it did. It lifted in waves that mounted almost to the sky and swept forward with a savage eagerness as if to bear down upon and engulf and obliterate the little oasis of a village with its green productive fields, and reduce it again to the wastes of desolation from which it had been so painfully redeemed by man.

For nearly three days the storm lasted, raging by day and by night. The trees bowed to earth and lifted themselves to bow again with the sound of many waters in their leaves; and in the voice of the wind every savage, primeval menace alternated with every wail of human grief and anguish which has echoed through the ages. All desolation in the heart of man, "I am without refuge!" shrieked in its high cries, and, as if failing to find adequate expression in these, it summoned its chorus of demons and rang with the despairing fury of all damned and discordant things, until one bowed and covered the ears and muttered a prayer.

And the sand! It sifted constantly through doors and windows, and seemed to fall in a fine continuous shower from the very roof. It covered everything with a white rime; it sifted into the hair, the eyes; breathing was difficult, the air was so chokingly full of it.

The rooms, too, were ever paced by the restless feet of the wind, curtains swayed as if shaken by ghostly fingers; rugs and carpets rose and fell upon the floor, and, whether one sat alone or with others, the air seemed full of stealing presences, sad, and sometimes terrible; and of immemorial whispers that would not be stilled.

The desert knows no time, its past and present are one, a thousand years is as a single day, and when it chooses to find its voice all yesterdays and all to-morrows blend.

Some day, when grief and horror shall be abandoned by man as utterly as his dreams of cave-life; when his remembrances of wrestling with the forces of nature or commerce shall seem as remote as his warfare with beasts, and tribes as savage as beasts; when he lifts his dull eyes and dares to dream only joy and beauty, then he will know that the gray cries of the wind are but the emphasis to the singing of the sunlight, that the black storm-clouds are but the contrast Beauty offers to deepen and heighten the effect of her more ethereal hues, blue and rose and pearl.

Hanson had stood the storm badly; inactivity was always a hardship to him, also he was unused to such discomfort as he had to endure; and his depression and unrest induced by the suspense he suffered in continually wondering how Pearl would take Bob Flick's news were greatly increased by the fact that he could get no word to her, nor receive any from her.

But on the third night the storm stilled and in the morning the desert showed herself sparkling like an enchantress, exhibiting all of her marvelous illusions of color and wrapped in a golden garment of sunshine. She smiled with all the allurement of a radiant and beautiful woman.

Early in the morning, just as Hanson was preparing to send a note to Pearl, he received one from her, asking him to meet her again within an hour or two, amid the palms. She did not suggest his riding thither with her. The note was brief, a mere line, and, study it as he would, he found nothing in it to indicate what her attitude was toward him, therefore it did not allay his nervousness in the least as to how she would meet him. But with the passage of the storm his nerves had recovered their normal tone, and with the brilliance and freshness of the morning much of his optimism had returned.

He reached the approach to the foothills where the palms lifted their stately and magnificent height, long before Pearl, and there, walking restlessly back and forth, he watched the road with straining eyes. And then he saw her, at first a mere speck in the distance; then she became more and more distinct, for she rode fast. She waved her hand to him as she came nearer and his heart rose in a great bound. Slackening the speed of her horse, she leaped from the saddle while it was still going, ran by its side, throwing the bridle over her arm, stopped, laughing and breathless, and cast herself into Hanson's waiting arms.

"Pearl, Pearl," he cried, in a low voice, holding her close against him and kissing her upturned face again and again. "Oh, Pearl, it's been a thousand years in hell since I saw you last."

She laughed and, gazing eagerly into her care-free eyes and unreproachful face, his heart rose again in a great sigh of relief. "That's the way a tenderfoot always feels about a sand-storm," she said. "Well, we sure gave you some nice theatrical effects, didn't we? It's the biggest I've seen for many a long day. But you were bound to see something like that before you went away." She spoke with a fatalism approaching Bob Flick's. "The desert never lets you go and forget her." Her eyes dreamed a moment.

"She's like you in that, Pearl. My heavens! I wish you could see yourself this morning. Beautiful ain't the word."

"Am I beautiful, Rudolf?" She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him with a soft, childlike expression, as if longing for his praise.

"I guess you know it," he said adoringly, stroking her shining black hair, "but if you weren't, if you were as ugly as sin, it wouldn't make any difference, you'd get us all just the same. All women like you got to do is to look at a man and he'll follow you like a sheep. I don't know what it is, magnetism or something."

"But I'm glad I'm not as ugly as sin," she murmured, in smiling content. "And I'm glad you're not, too." She reached up her arm and touched his hair caressingly. "I love that little touch of reddish gold in your hair, and, yes, just that sprinkling of gray, and I love your blue eyes. I can't bear dark men. I am so dark myself."

"You sure are, Pearl, thank the Lord! I never was very poetic, but I never see one of these desert nights sparkling with their big stars, twice as big as natural, that I don't think of you."

She smiled, delighted at his praise.

"But, goodness!" he went on, "when ain't I thinking of you? I tell you, you been on my mind steady these last few days. Your Pop was so dead sure when I talked to him that you'd have nothing more to do with me that it got to worrying me, and I thought maybe you'd hold it against me that I hadn't told you about—about my being already tied up." He scanned her face as if fearful of seeing it cloud and change.

It did. The laughter faded from her eyes, her brow darkened. "I wish you had told me," she said, "then I'd been a little better prepared for Pop and Bob; but I guess they got as good as they gave."

"I know I ought to have told you, Pearl," he said miserably, "and I meant to, honey, but"—gathering her more closely in his arms—"I just couldn't spoil those first few days; and, anyway, you drove everything but you out of my head. I just determined every time it came into my mind to tell you, that I wasn't going to spoil Paradise with any recollections of hell. Maybe I was all wrong, but that was the way I felt."

"No, you were all right, Rudolf," she wound her arms about his neck. "When the storm came it broke swift and sudden like the sand storm, and we didn't live it all over beforehand, getting ready for it, and deciding how we'd meet it when it came, and all that. We just enjoyed ourselves. Lived and loved up to the moment when it broke, and that was the best way."

"Gee! was there ever a woman like you!" lifting his glad, gay gaze to the sky. "Why, Pearl, it most frightens me when I think how happy me and you are going to be together."

"Are we?" nestling closer to him. "How?"

"How?" he repeated. "Why, we're going to be together first and last; ain't that enough? It is for me. But"—with drooping head and affectedly humble and dejected mien—"it couldn't be expected to be enough for you, could it?"

"Hardly," she looked up at him through her long lashes.

"Well, since that ain't enough for you," still with affected resignation, "let me tell you this: You're going to dance to bigger crowds and higher class ones than you ever saw before, because you're going to be advertised proper, see?" And then, sketching out plans with his former bold, optimistic confidence, "We're going to travel on the other side and travel in style, too, a big touring automobile. I guess you can show those foreign managers something new in the dancing line. How would you like to see your name all over London and Paris? The Black Pearl! Eh?"

She slipped away from him and took a few buoyant dancing steps. "Fine!" she laughed. "It sure sounds good to me." Floating nearer to him, she pinched his arm. "Ain't you the spellbinder!"

He caught her with one arm. "Oh, Pearl," his voice falling to seriousness, "you don't know how happy you make me. Honest, I've been so plum scared these last few days, I been almost crazy. I didn't know, you see, just how much influence your Pop and Flick might have over you, and I got locoed for fear you wouldn't see me and give me a chance to explain."

"Pop and Bob Flick kindly took the bother of explaining things off your shoulders, didn't they?" with a short, vindictive laugh.

"Darn 'em," bitterly. "I don't want to say anything about your Pop, but Flick's a sneaking coyote, and sooner or later he'll pay for snooping into my business. Oh, I've cursed myself more than once for letting him tell you, but I never loved a woman before, Pearl, and I couldn't take the chances, honest I couldn't. I hadn't the nerve." There was a passionate sincerity in his voice.

"They've been telling me you've loved many a woman." Her eyes gloomed and she slashed her skirt savagely with the riding crop she held.

"You know," he whispered, "you know. I've been a fool. There have been many others, Pearl, I ain't going to deceive you, but—there's never been but one."

She softened and smiled at him, then her face darkened again. "But there's one that stands in the way—yet," she said gloomily.

"In the way? What do you mean?" uncomprehendingly.

"Why, that woman up in Colina? Don't she stand between you and me, now, for a while?"

"Not much, she don't," emphatically, "not her!"

A light flared in Pearl's eyes. "I knew Pop and Bob were up to some of their tricks! They been doing their best to ram it home that she'll die before she lets you get a divorce."

"You bet she will," muttered Hanson, with concentrated bitterness, and stifled some maledictions under his breath. "I've tried every way, turned every trick known to sharp lawyers for the last six years, trying to get free; but she's got money, you see, and she can keep her eye on me, so, in one way or another, she's balked me every time."

Pearl threw herself from him and looked at him with wild eyes. "Then how are you going to get free now?" she cried. "What are your plans? Why is she going to come around now, if she never has before?"

"She ain't, honey, the devil take her!" He caught her back in his arms and held her as if he would never release her. "But what difference does that make to us?" he pleaded ardently. "We're going to let the whole lot of them go hang and live our lives as we choose."

"Then Pop and Bob were right; and I never believed them, not for a moment. I thought you were too smart to stay caught in a trap like that. I thought you were so quick and keen to plan and were so full of ideas that you could get around any situation." Again she flung herself away from him and, with her face turned from him, stood looking out over the desert.

He bent toward her and, throwing his arms about her, again endeavored to draw her back into his embrace, but she resisted.

"Pearl," he cried roughly, "what do you mean? You don't mean to say that you got any foolish ideas about it making any difference whether a preacher says a few words over us or not? Why, you can't feel that way. You've seen too much of life, and your folks have always been show people. They didn't hold any such ideas. Anyway, you got brains to think for yourself. What joke you playing on me, honey? Oh, don't hold me off like that, lift your head and look at me. I know you're going to laugh in about a minute and then I'll know it's all a joke." Again he tried to put his arm about her and again she threw him off.

"Let me alone," she cried harshly. "I'm thinking. Let me alone."

"Pearl," he besought wildly; his face had suddenly grown flabby and white, his voice was broken with his desperate pleading. "Honey, you don't want time to think. Why, there's nothing to think about. We're going off on the train this afternoon to be happy together, and we don't give a cent for anything else. We'd be married if we could. My Lord! I should say so! But since we can't, we'll make the best of it."

He paused and looked at her, but there was something inflexible in her attitude, some almost threatening aloofness that made him hesitate to clasp her as he longed to do for fear he should meet another and final rebuff. He waited a moment or two, but, as she did not speak, he began again.

"I know you're joking, Pearl, but it's awful hard on me"—he wiped the sweat from his brow. "You haven't got any such fool ideas. Of course you haven't. They're for dead ones, old maid country school teachers, and preachers and things like that, hypocrites that have got to make their living by playing the respectable game. But we're not that kind, Pearl, we're alive, and we're not afraid. We're going to be happier than two people ever were in this world. Pearl, speak to me. I don't wonder that your mother complains about the way you shut yourself up and never say a word. Speak to me. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking a lot of things," she answered, but without turning her head to look at him, "and I ain't through yet. Now I've got to studying on this matter, I'm a-going to think it out here and now."

"But what is there to think about?" in a sort of exasperated despair. "Oh, Pearl, how can you be so cruel! I know you ain't got any of the fool ideas of the dead ones I was talking about. You couldn't have; not with Isobel Montmorenci for a grandmother, and Queenie Madrew for a mother, and the same kind on your Pop's side of the house. You didn't have any Sunday-school bringing up and I know it. Then what you playing with me like a cat does with a mouse for? It ain't fair, Pearl, it ain't fair."

She turned and faced him now with an impatient gesture of the hands. Some expression on her face, the set of her mouth, the horse-shoe frown on her forehead gave her a fleeting resemblance to her father, a resemblance that momentarily chilled his blood.

"For goodness' sake keep quiet a minute," she cried irritably. "You gave me a jolt a while ago, telling me you couldn't get free, and I want a minute or two to take it in."

"But you don't think hard of me for that," he implored. "Oh, Pearl—" but she had again turned to her contemplation of the desert, and realizing that further speech might bring her swift anger upon him he walked hastily away.

Several yards from her he paused and again wiped his brow. "Oh, God!" he muttered, lifting his face to the sky, "what does a man know about women, anyway?"

As for Pearl, she scarcely knew that he had ceased to speak to her. She had been thinking, as she averred, thinking back over the years. She had been dancing professionally ever since she had been a child. As a slim, tall, young girl, still in skirts to her shoe tops, her mother had traveled with her, and, although this evidence of chaperonage irked her, she had with her quick intelligence early seen its value. All about her she saw the struggling flotsam of feminine youth, living easily, luxuriously to-day, careless of any less prosperous morrows, and, when those swift, inevitable morrows came, she had seen the girlish, exotic queens of an hour, haggard, stripped of their transient splendor, uncomprehending, almost helpless.

She saw readily enough that it was not only her superior talents and training, the hard work and hard study which she gave to her profession which set her above the butterflies and apart from them, but her mother's constant presence during those early years was of almost equal value.

All this she realized at an age when strong impressions are indelibly retained. Her value, the tremendous value of an unsmirched virtue, a woman's greatest asset in a world of desire and barter, became to her a possession she cherished above her jewels, above the money she could earn and save and the greater sums she dreamed of earning or winning by any means—all means but one.

Her observations of the women about her who gave all for so little, her meditations upon them, and the conclusions she drew from their maimed lives only emphasized the resisting force of her nature. She was not born to be a leaf in the current, whirled by the force of waters into a safe haven or an engulfing whirlpool as chance might decide; she must dominate the currents.

And with the temptations of her youth, and her ardent emotional temperament, would also come the remembrance of those haggard girls with their pinched blue lips, the suffering in their eyes, their delicate faces aged and yellowed and lined and spoiled, weeping with shaking sobs, telling her pitiful stories, and begging her for money, for a word with the management. And, when they had gone, she had turned to her looking-glass and gazed at herself with conscious pride and delight. Contempt, not pity, stirred her heart for the draggled butterflies whose gauzy irridescence was but for a moment; and before her mirror she constantly renewed her vows that never would she barter her bloom, her freshness, her exquisite grace for what those girls had to show.

She had seen a great French actress roll across the desert in her private car, to meet in every city the adulation of thousands and it had stimulated her ambition enormously. She was by nature as insatiable as the horse-leech's daughter; she would take all—love, money, jewels in return for her barren coquetries. The fact that she was "straight," as she phrased it, gave her sufficient excuse for her arrogant domination.

Unfortunately for Hanson, there was no particular temptation in what he could offer in the way of professional advancement. She was perfectly cognizant of her own ability, aware that its resources were scarcely developed. Already her field widened continually. She was in perpetual demand with her public, and therefore with her managers.

But she loved Hanson. In all of the love affairs in which she had been involved she had never really cared before, and now only her strong will kept this attraction from proving overmastering. And here came the struggle. The right or the wrong of the matter, the morals of it, did not touch her. It was the clash of differing desires, a clash between passion and this secret, long-cherished pride of virtue.

"Honey, honey," he was back at her side again; his voice was hoarse and ragged, but for that very reason it moved her. All at once the primitive woman, loving, yielding, glad and proud to yield, stirred in her, rose and dominated her hard ambition. She lifted her head a little and, still with it turned from him, looked at the pagan glory of the day. Her eyes closed with the delight of that moment. She felt her resistance breaking down, the weakening and softening of her resolutions. Was she at last to know the splendor of loving and giving?

"Ain't you played with me long enough, Pearl?" his voice was in her ear, a broken, husky whisper. "What's the use? Why, of course," grasping at his usual self-confidence, "I'm a fool to get scared this way. You've showed me that you care, you have, honey; and I guess," with a nervous laugh, "the Black Pearl hasn't got any damn fool scruples such as I've been frightening myself out of my skin by attributing to her."

Imperceptibly, almost, her whole body stiffened. Her soft, relaxed, yielding attitude was gone. But she remained silent, the same ominous, brooding silence that the desert had held before the storm, had Hanson but noticed. He did not. He was still pleading: "Why all the time you been keeping me on the anxious seat, I been telling myself that the Black Pearl—"

"Yes, the Black Pearl," she interrupted him with her low, unpleasant laugh. "Don't you care a little that I got that name, Rudolf?"

"Care!" He wound his arms about her now and buried his face in the great waves of her inky, shining hair, wildly kissing the nape of her neck; but with a deft twist of her lithe body she slipped almost away from him, although his arms still held her. "Care? Of course I care. But what's that got to do with it when I love you like I do? Pearl, if you were a good deal blacker than you're painted it wouldn't make any difference to me."

He strove to draw her nearer to him, but again she slipped away, this time escaping the circle of his eager arms. For the first time her face was turned toward him, but her eyes were cast down, her long lashes sweeping her cheeks. "But I must be pretty bad to get called the Black Pearl," she said in that same low voice; all of its sliding, drawling inflections were gone; it was strangely tense.

"I guess so, damn it!" he cried; "but I'm past caring, Pearl. I got a hunger and thirst for you, honey, such as men die of out there in the desert. Before God, I don't care anything about your past or your present, if you'll only love me for a while."

With that low, harsh laugh of hers that sounded in his ears afterward like the first muttering menace of the sand wind over the desert, the storm broke. Her eyes had an odd green glitter, her face was white, a dusky white, and her upper lip was drawn back from her teeth at each corner of the mouth.

"You fool!" Her voice was a muffled scream. "Oh, you fool! Sweeney could have told you better, any man on the desert could have told you better. The Black Pearl! Why, I've been called the Black Pearl since I was a baby, almost. It's my hair and my skin and my eyes."



He didn't believe her, but he saw his blunder at once; cursed himself for it, and, mad to retrieve himself, began incoherent explanations and excuses. "Of course," he stammered, "of course, I—I—was just fooling, you know. But, well, what does it matter, anyway? Oh, Pearl, girl! Don't look at me like that. Don't!"

"I'll do worse than look at you, if you come any nearer me," she threatened. "Do you think I ride all over the desert where I've a mind to without protection? I guess not." She lifted her skirt with a quick movement and drew a long knife, keen as a stiletto, from her boot.

Hanson went a little whiter, but he was no coward. "Come on then, finish it for me," he said. "Your eyes are doing it anyway. Oh, Pearl!" he fell again to desperate pleading, "you won't turn me down just for a mistake?"

"Me, the Black Pearl, held cheap!" she muttered and raised her stag-like head superbly, "and by you! You that pick up women and drop them when you're tired of them. Me, the Black Pearl." She turned quickly and ran to her waiting horse, loosening the tether with quick, nervous fingers. Hanson followed her.

"Pearl, you ain't going to leave me?"

But she was already in the saddle.

He caught at her bridle and held her so. "Pearl, I made a mistake"—he was talking wildly, rapidly—"but you ain't going to throw me down just for that—you can't. Think how happy we've been this last week—think how we've loved each other. Why, you can't turn me down, just for one break, you can't."

"Can't I?" she said, her teeth still showing in that unpleasant way. "Can't I? Well—if you don't get out of my way I'll show you what I'll do. Slash you across your lying face." Her arm was already uplifted, riding crop in hand. "Let me go!" Her voice was so low that he hardly heard it, but full of a thousand threats. Then, swerving her horse quickly to one side, she jerked the bridle from his slack fingers and was off across the desert.



CHAPTER VII

It was about an hour after Pearl had ridden away to meet Hanson among the palms that Bob Flick joined Mr. Gallito, who sat, as usual, upon the porch of his home, smoking innumerable cigarrettes. He was his composed and imperturbable self, exhibiting outwardly, at least, no trace of anxiety, but Flick looked worn, almost haggard.

Gallito had just told him of Pearl's early departure and also of the fact that she had left no word intimating when she might return or in what direction she was riding; but when Flick expressed regret that this had been permitted, he merely lifted his shaggy brows. "What is done is done," he said. "She slipped away before either Hugh or myself knew that she was gone, and what could we or you, for that matter, have done to prevent her?"

"I wish I'd been here," muttered Flick uneasily. "I'd have done something." But his tone did not bear out the confidence of his words.

"I am too old and, I hope, too wise," returned the Spaniard, "to attempt to tame the whirlwind. But cheer up, my friend. Although she rode off to meet this Hanson, without a doubt, still, the day is not over."

"You know what she is when her head is set," murmured Flick.

"I! Have I not cause?" exclaimed Gallito, a depth of meaning in his tone. "Who so much? But, nevertheless, she has not gone for good. She would not leave without some of her clothes, especially her dancing dresses and slippers, if she went with him. And her jewels, oh, certainly, not without her jewels!" he smiled wisely. "There are, as you know, certain ornaments about which she has her superstitions; she will not dance without her emeralds. Oh, no, console yourself, as I do. She has not gone for good."

But Flick was not so easily reassured. "I almost wish she had," he said gloomily. "If she don't go to-day, she will to-morrow or next day."

"In that case they will not go far," returned Gallito and rubbed his hands. His reply had been quick and sharp as the beat of a hammer on an anvil; but now he spoke more softly: "But will she go at all, my friend? You, like myself, have ever played for high stakes. Then you know and I know that this is a world where a man may never look ahead and calculate and say, 'because there is this combination of circumstances, these results will certainly follow,'" he emphasized his words by tapping on the table with his long, gnarled forefinger. "The wise man never predicts, because he is always aware of that interfering something which we call the unexpected." He blew great wreaths of smoke from his mouth and watched them float out on the sun-gilded air. "We know that my daughter is as obstinate as a pig and as wilful as a burro, therefore we conclude that she will follow her mad heart and go with this fellow. But there we take no account of the unexpected, eh, Lolita!" welcoming the parrot who waddled out of the open door and came clucking and muttering across the porch toward the two men.

Flick stirred uneasily. He was in no mood to stand Gallito's philosophizing, and the Spaniard, seeing it, smiled as he scratched Lolita's head. "Two people can not be thrown much together and not show to each other what is in them," he continued. "You know that my daughter is proud," he lifted his own head haughtily here, "and you know that above everything her pride lies in the fact that no man can scorn her. But this that Hanson does not believe."

This roused Flick to a sudden interest, some light came into his heavy eyes, a dull flush rose on his cheek. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"This: Yesterday morning when that hound sat there and talked to me there was something I said which made him forget himself in anger, and he said: 'Me! The Black Pearl smirched by me!'"

"He said that?" Flick's tones had never been more drawlingly soft, but there was a quality in them, an electric and ominous vibration, which boded ill for Hanson.

Gallito nodded. "It is in his mind. It is his thought about her. If he said it to me when he forgot himself he will surely say it to her."

"And you let him say it, Gallito? You let him go away safe after saying it?" Flick looked at him amazed.

"I think far ahead," replied the older man. "It is the custom of a lifetime. To act on the moment is to continually regret. Do you think I want my daughter's tears and reproaches for the rest of my life? No, I wish to spend my old age free of women and their mischief. This Hanson must talk, talk, talk. Therefore, if you give him rope enough he will hang himself before any woman's eyes."

"But when?" asked Flick, and that vibration still lingered in his voice. "I am not so patient as you, Gallito."

The Spaniard made no reply to this and silence fell between them for a few minutes.

"Oh!" said Flick, as if suddenly remembering something, something in which he was not particularly interested, but which would serve as a topic of conversation during these tense moments of waiting; "Nitschkan is up at Colina, and Mrs. Thomas."

"Nitschkan!" A faintly humorous smile crept from Gallito's mouth up to his eyes.

He was genuinely interested if Flick was not. "What is she doing there?"

"She came up to look after those prospects of hers, nurse them along a little, I guess, and to hunt and fish some, I guess, particularly hunt and fish. She says she's going to take a bear-skin or so back with her."

"She sure will, if she says so," returned Gallito confidently.

"Of course, she got wise to Jose right away." Flick spoke rather anxiously.

"Of course, being Nitschkan." Gallito's tone was quite composed and equable. "Well, she's safe, and she'll keep him in order if anybody can." Again that grimly humorous smile played about his mouth. "Why did she bring Mrs. Thomas?"

Flick laughed. "To keep her in order, too. Mrs. Thomas is big and pretty, with no mind of her own, and she got tangled up in some fool love affair that her friends didn't approve of, so when Nitschkan started off on this last gipsy expedition of hers they sent Mrs. Thomas with her."

Gallito was about to answer and then, suddenly, he seemed to stiffen, his hand, which was conveying a match to his cigarette, remained motionless, the flame of the match flared up and then went out in a gust of wind. "Look, Bob, look," he said, in a low voice. "What do you see out there?"

Flick's eyes, keener even than his, swept the desert. "By George!" he whispered huskily; "it's her, her alone, and coming like the wind."

"I hope," cried Gallito and gnawed his lip, "that she has done nothing that will get us into trouble."

"I hope to God she has," said Flick. "The desert'll take care that she gets into no trouble. It'll be as silent as the grave. Just another case of a reckless tenderfoot getting lost out there in the sand, that's all."

It was indeed Pearl, and, as Flick had said, coming like the wind. She pulled her horse up as she neared the gate and, when she reached it, stopped him abruptly, slipped down from the saddle, threw the bridle over the fence paling and ran toward the two men on the porch. Her face had changed but little since she had left Hanson among the palms. Even her wild ride had failed to bring back its color, and the curl of her upper lip still revealed her teeth.

She stood for a moment before them, slashing her skirt with her riding crop, then she cast it from her and sank down on the porch as if suddenly exhausted. Bob Flick quickly poured out a glass of her father's cognac and held it to her lips. She took a sip of it and it seemed to revive her.

"He thought that I," her voice was hoarse and labored, "he thought that I was like those other women that he has picked up and got tired of and left, Selma Le Grand, and Fanny Estrel, and others. I wonder where he thinks that I've been living that I wouldn't know about them. Fanny Estrel! I went to see her once in vaudeville, and, before I'd hardly got my seat, someone next me began to whisper that she used to be one of Hanson's head-liners and that he was crazy about her once. And there she was, old, and fat and tired, playing in an ingenue sketch in a cheap house!" She laughed harshly. "That's what he was offering me," with a flare of passion, "and I was too green to know it!"

"And he, where is he?" asked her father, speaking more quickly than was his wont and eyeing her closely.

"Out there, I suppose, I don't care. Oh, no," meeting his eye and catching his unspoken question. "He's safe enough; don't worry."

"Shall I make him shoot, Pearl?" asked Flick softly. "He won't have much chance with me, you know. I'll get him in Pete's place and pick a quarrel. He'll understand. You won't be in it."

"No, you won't, Bob, although I can see how you're wanting to," she said decisively. "The Black Pearl!" she broke out presently. "My name's an awful good advertisement. It gives me a reputation for being worse than I am." She laughed cynically. "But he believed it." Her whole face darkened again.

"He needn't go away believing it, Pearl." Once more Flick spoke softly, persuasively, and once more her father looked at her hopefully.

She looked quickly from one to the other as if about to accede, and then, dropping her head on her arms crossed on her knees, she fell into wild and tempestuous weeping. "No," she cried, "no, promise me you won't, Bob. Oh, Oh, Oh!" she wailed and rocked back and forth. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

At last she lifted her heavy eyes and looked at the two men. "I want to go away from here, quick," she said, "quick."

"With Sweeney," said her father, well pleased.

"No." She threw out her hands as if putting the thought from her with abhorrence. "No, I can't dance and I won't. I never want to dance again. I never will dance again," passionately.

"But that is a feeling which will soon pass away, my daughter," urged her father.

"No, no," she wailed. "And anyway, I would never be safe from Ru—from him, that way. He would follow me about and try to meet me. He would. I know he would."

Gallito drew back and looked at her with uplifted head. "Afraid! You?" he asked in surprise.

"No," she flashed at him scornfully, lifting her head, but again she dropped it brokenly on her arms. "I'm afraid of myself," she cried, suffering causing her to break down those barriers of self-repression which she usually erected between herself and everyone about her. "I'm afraid of myself, because I love him. Yes, I do. I love him just as much as ever—and I hate him, hate him, hate him." She hissed the words. Once more she sobbed wildly and then she broke into speech again. "Oh, I want to go somewhere and hide; somewhere where he'll never find me, where I'll be safe from him."

"What's the matter with Colina?" said Bob Flick suddenly. "He'll never come there. A good reason why!"

Pearl became perfectly still. It was evident that the suggestion had reached her, and that she was thinking it over. Her father, too, considered the matter. "Excellent," he cried; "excellent."

And Pearl looked up eagerly. "But when can we go, when?" she cried and stretched out an imploring hand to touch his knee. "To-morrow? No, to-day. You said yesterday, father, that you would be going back at once. Oh, to-day! The afternoon train—" She looked eagerly from one man to another.

"Yes, to-day," agreed Bob Flick. "You can go as well to-day as to-morrow, Gallito."

The Spaniard had been thinking with thrust-out jaw and narrowed eyes, now he threw out his hands and lifted his brows. "Have it so, then," he said. "The train leaves this afternoon. Go, Pearl, and pack your things. I promised Hughie that he should go back with me, but he had better wait a few days until his mother can get her sister to stay with her. You had better tell him, Pearl."

After she had gone into the house the two men sat in silence for a few minutes and then Flick lifted his relieved face to the sky. "If there's any God up there," he said, "I'm thanking him for that unexpected you were talking about, Gallito."

"Ah, that unexpected!" returned Gallito. "It is more comforting than many religions. More than once when I have been in a tight place I have relied on it and not vainly. You will go with us this afternoon, Bob?"

Flick hesitated a moment. "I can't," he said. "I've got a lot to do at the mines here, but I can come up soon if you think it will be all right."

The old man smiled in his most saturnine fashion and sighed dismally. "I will make a special offering to the church if you come often," he said. "I can see black days ahead of us. She does not like the mountains."

"Oh, she'll not stay long," Flick consoled him. "The summer, perhaps; but she will be ready to sign up with Sweeney before fall. She can't stay off the stage longer than that. You'll see."

Gallito sighed again and pessimistically shook his head. He was far from anxious to assume the responsibility of restoring his daughter's spirits, and had hoped that Flick would relieve him of that duty, but, since that was not to be, he accepted the situation with what philosophy and fortitude he could muster and hurried the feminine preparations for departure so successfully that he and Pearl actually got away on the afternoon train.

This fact was communicated to Hanson by Jimmy early that evening. Hanson had returned to the San Gorgonio before noon and had remained in his room until nightfall. As the day wore on and he recovered in some measure his self-control, he began to view the situation in a different light from that in which it had first appeared to him, although, in strict adherence to fact, he could not be said to have viewed it in any light at all in that first hour or two. It was all dense darkness to him, a black despair not unmingled with anger and a sense of injury. But as he sat alone in his room with its windows looking out over the desert, his naturally confident and optimistic spirit gradually asserted itself. Again and again, and each time more positively, he assured himself that all was not lost yet by any means. He had been unfortunate enough, yes, and fool enough, to make a bad break; a break that he, with all of his experience, should have known better than to make to any woman. Yet he felt that, even admitting that, he could not justly blame himself. The Pearl had not only surprised but frightened him by the way she had taken a fact which he thought she fully understood—that marriage was out of the question for him. He was so crazy about her that he had lost his head, that was the long and short of the matter, and had made a fool of himself and hash of the situation; but temporarily, only temporarily. For, and to this belief he clung more and more hopefully, the Pearl was too deeply in love with him definitely to close the affair between them for just one break. He would not, could not believe that. It was true enough that he had aroused her passionate and violent anger, but the more violent the anger the sooner it will evaporate, and strange and complex as the Pearl was, she was yet a woman; and no woman on earth could long hold resentment against the man she loved. She had, he was able to convince himself, regretted her mad action in first threatening and then riding away from him long before she had reached home; and, without doubt, it was only that high and haughty pride of hers which kept her from returning to him before she had traversed half the distance. But the course of action he had decided upon was sure to win. He would give her a few hours to get over her anger, to regret it and to reproach herself for causing him pain, and then he would give her a little more time to long and ache for him to return to her. He would wait until evening, and then he would go boldly to the Gallito house and, no matter what efforts were made to frustrate their meeting, he would see her alone. Ah, and she would fly to him, if he knew her aright. All the opposition in the world could not keep them apart, it would only strengthen her determination. And then, how he would beg her forgiveness, how he would plead his love, with passionate and irresistible eloquence; and, if he knew the heart of woman, she would yield.

But when the moment came for acting upon this decision he found that it took a certain amount of courage, considerable, in fact, to face not only a woman who had left him in hot anger that morning, but a gnarled and thorny father and also the soft-spoken Bob Flick; and he decided to stop at Pete's place and brace up his courage with a drink.

Jimmy could hardly wait to serve him. He was like a busy and important bird, hopping about on a bough and, literally, he twittered with excitement.

"Well," he exclaimed, "where you been keeping yourself, and why wasn't you down to see 'em off?"

A cold chill ran over Hanson. His impulse was to cry, "Who? What do you mean?" But with an effort he resisted the inclination. Resolutely, he held himself in check, and, although the hand with which he lifted the glass to his lips trembled a little, he drank off the whisky before he spoke.

"Couldn't make it," he said. "Who went beside—" he paused inviting Jimmy's further confidence.

"Just Pearl and her father," returned Jimmy volubly. "I guess that was the reason Bob went to Colina last week to kind of arrange for Pearl going up to make a visit to the old man. But shucks!" he broke off, "what am I telling you this for, when you know more than I do?" His bright, beady eyes rested on Hanson's with pleased and eager anticipation as he awaited further revelations.

"Nothing more to tell," replied the other disappointedly. "It's all just as you say. Well, I got to go up and see Mrs. Gallito. I'm off myself early to-morrow morning. See you before that though. So long."

He walked away, feeling dazed for the moment and beaten. Not at once did he turn his steps in the direction of the Gallito home, but continued to tramp up and down the road, and presently, as the cool, fresh air restored his spirit, he was able to think clearly again. His world was in chaos, but, even so, he still held some winning cards. He had no intention, he gritted his teeth as he made this vow, of dropping out of the game. He meant to play it to a finish. Those cards! He ran over his hand mentally. There was that commanding trump—his knowledge, his unsuspected knowledge of the whereabouts of Crop-eared Jose. Then his next biggest trump—and here his heart lifted with a thrill—was the fact that Pearl loved him. Yes, in spite of her anger, in spite of the fact that she had rushed off to Colina, where she knew he could not follow her, she loved him; and his desire for her was but increased by the dangers and difficulties with which she surrounded herself. But he must keep in touch with her, and the question as to how this might best be accomplished rose in his mind. Mrs. Gallito was the almost immediate answer, and he determined, no matter what objections might be raised, to communicate with Pearl through that available source. Of one thing was he convinced and that was that not for long would Pearl linger in the gloomy mountains which he knew she abhorred. She belonged to the desert or to the world of men and admiration, the world of light and color and music. He couldn't see her in the mountains, he shivered a little at the thought of her among them; the cold, silent, austere mountains, so alien to this flower of the cactus.

His first poignant disappointment over, and his plan of action decided upon, he wasted no time in seeking Mrs. Gallito. He found her, to his satisfaction, quite alone, Hughie having, as she told him, gone to spend the evening with some friends. She had, before his arrival, been reading the Sunday supplement of an eastern newspaper, gazing with longing eyes at the portraits of the daughters of fashion and intently studying some of the elaborate and intricate coiffures presented, in the hope that she might achieve the same effects.

"Why, Mr. Hanson!" she cried in surprise at the sight of him. "I thought you'd gone sure, and Oh, mercy!" putting her hands to her head, "I ain't on my puffs."

"I wouldn't ever have known it," said Hanson truthfully. "The fact is I'm not noticing anything much, Mrs. Gallito, I got a lot on my mind." He sighed unfeignedly and she noticed that he looked both tired and worried. "And say, I wish you'd sit down and talk to me a little."

She still stood looking at him hesitatingly, a distressed expression on her face. "I—I don't know as I'd better," she faltered. "Gallito, he said, the very last thing he said, was that if you come around—Oh, Mr. Hanson," she sat down weakly in her chair and began to cry. "I thought you was just about the nicest man I'd met for many a day, and here I find you're a dreadful scamp. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I guess all men are alike!"

Hanson bent forward earnestly. He had an end to gain and he meant to gain it. "Now look here, Mrs. Gallito," he said. "You don't want to condemn me unheard. You're not that kind of a lady. I knew that the first minute I set eyes on you. Now understand I'm not trying to persuade you that I'm any better than I am, but I just want you to believe that I'm not quite so black as I'm painted, not as black as your husband and Bob Flick want to paint me, anyway."

She twisted a fold of her dress, already half-persuaded and yet still a little doubtful. "But you never gave us a hint that you were married," she ventured timidly.

"Honest to God, I forget it myself," he asserted devoutly. "How can a man be always thinking to tell everyone he meets that he's still in a legal tie-up, when the only way he can remember it himself is by coming across his marriage certificate, now and then? Why, it's a good ten years since me and that woman parted. You don't call that married?"

His positive personality exerted its usual influence over Mrs. Gallito. "'Course not," she agreed, although she still sat with downcast eyes and pleated her dress.

"I'm a pretty lonely man," pathos in his voice, "and I'd kind of gotten into the way of putting home and happiness and all like that away from me; and then I came here and saw Pearl," he was sincere enough now, "and honest, Mrs. Gallito, it was all up with me then, right from the first minute, and I was so plumb crazy about her that I guess I lost my head. I knew all the time that I ought to tell you and her just how I was fixed, I knew it, but, someways, try as I would, I couldn't. I didn't have the nerve, so I just waited and let the cards fall as they would. Maybe I was a fool and a coward. The way things have turned out, it sure looks like I was, but I just couldn't help it."

"I guess you ain't any different from most men," she answered, weakly sympathetic, "but you see Pearl has her notions, and they're mighty strong ones. It's the way she's been brought up," this with some pride. "You see, me and her pop started out with the idea that we wasn't going to have the Pearl live one of those hand to mouth lives that we'd seen girls in the circus that didn't have much training or much ability live. We saw right from the first that she was awful smart and awful pretty, and her Pop he had the knack of making money and holding on to it. Well, when he saw that she had her head set on the stage and we couldn't keep her off it, it's in her blood, you see, why her Pop says: 'Well, there's one thing, till she's of age, legal, on or off the stage, she's going to have a mother's care and a father showing up every now and then unexpected.' He's got awful Spanish ideas, you know. 'I don't want her kept innocent,' he says. 'My Lord, no. It's the innocent ones that have got to pay, and pay big in a world of bad knowledge where ignorance is not forgave and is punished worse than any crime. Let her see the seamy side,' he says, 'she's no fool. Let her see what those who thinks to live easy and gives themselves away easy gets.'

"And Pearl saw right off. You see, she ain't so soft-hearted like me," again she wiped the furtive tear from her eye. "Pearl's hard. She ain't no conscience about some things. She'll lead a man on and on, when she don't care beans for him, and take all he'll give her, not money, you know, but awful handsome presents. I've seen her let some poor boy that was crazy about her blow in all the dust that he'd saved for a year. Oh, yes, she's like her father in more'n one way, both awful ambitious and terrible fond of making money. Why," she added naively, "I've seen Pearl look at a bank note like I never saw her look at a love letter."

"Well, she won't make much money up in those mountains, not dancing, anyway," he laughed briefly and unmirthfully.

"It surprised me a lot, her going," admitted Mrs. Gallito; "she hates the mountains."

"Then she won't stay long," put in Hanson quickly.

Mrs. Gallito was uncertain about this. "But," she confided presently, "she took on awful to her father and Bob Flick. I didn't dare come out, but I heard her through the door there. 'Where can I go,' she cried, 'where he won't come?' And she kept on saying she'd got to go somewhere where you would never find her, because she didn't dare trust herself, and she cried right out: 'I love him, I love him.'"

With these words, the confirmation of his hope, Hanson's blithe self-confidence returned. He threw back his head and straightened his shoulders, the light of an exultant purpose flashing in the steel of his eye. "Pleasant for Bob!" he remarked in vindictive satisfaction; but as he had still an end to gain, he did not permit his mind to gloat long upon the agreeable picture Mrs. Gallito's words had suggested.

"Now, just let me talk a minute, Mrs. Gallito," leaning forward and speaking in his most persuasive manner. "This whole thing is a misunderstanding, that's all. Pearl didn't understand what I was trying to say to her, and she lost her temper and wouldn't let me finish. Now taking all the blame to myself for everything, admitting that I haven't acted right in any particular, still I haven't had a square deal. You've got the sand and the fairness to admit that, Mrs. Gallito, and I may say in passing that you're the only one that has, and you've got to admit that I haven't had a square deal; not from the Pearl, God bless her, and certainly not from her Pop and that Flick," his eyes flashed viciously.

Mrs. Gallito filled up his waiting pause with a murmur of confused but sympathetic assent.

"I'm telling you now what I'd told them if they'd given me a chance, and it's this," emphasizing his words by striking the palm of one hand with the forefinger of the other, "I'm going back to Los Angeles and I'm going to move heaven and earth to get free; but in the meantime, Mrs. Gallito, I got to hear from her, I've got to keep in touch with her, and I believe you've got too much heart and too much common sense not to help me."

She drew back with feeble, inarticulate murmurs of fright and protest. "I wouldn't dare," she began.

"Wait a moment," said Hanson soothingly. "I'm not suggesting anything that could get you into trouble. Mercy, no! All I want you to do is this, just write me now and then and let me know how things are going, and maybe, once in a while, slip a letter of mine in one of yours to Pearl; but," as she gasped a little and opened her eyes widely, "not till you're sure it's quite safe."

"Well," she agreed, still in evident perturbation of mind, "maybe—"

"Oh, Mrs. Gallito," pleadingly, "can't you see that me and Pearl are born for one another? You know that she can't live away from the footlights. She just can't. And you know that I can put her where she belongs. You know that our hearts are better guides than all Bob Flick and her Pop can plan for her."

His efforts were not wasted. As he had foreseen, his arguments were of a nature to appeal to Mrs. Gallito, and it required only a little more persuasion to win her promise of assistance. He further flattered her self-esteem by interlarding his profuse thanks with vague hints of the extreme lengths to which his despair might have led him had it not been for the saving power of her sympathy and understanding.

He had already risen and was halfway to the door before he appeared to remember something. "Oh," halting, his hand on the latch, "where is that—that Jose? Pearl could not go up there with him about."

Mrs. Gallito, all timorousness again, beat her hands lightly together, in a distressful flurry. "No, he's there," she whispered, and glanced anxiously about her. Then she came nearer. "I heard Gallito and Bob talking about him only yesterday and Bob said there was some mischief brewing among Jose's pals down on the coast, and Gallito said, yes, and if he let Jose leave the mountain he'd be right back there again and in the thick of it and sure to be taken and that he, Gallito, meant to keep Jose in Colina all year, if necessary."

So great was Hanson's satisfaction at this news that he had difficulty in concealing it, but Mrs. Gallito was not an observant person, fortunately, and, hastily changing the subject, he again expressed his thanks and departed.

He left the next morning for Los Angeles to the regret of his benefactress, Jimmy and the station agent.



CHAPTER VIII

The train which bore Pearl and her father to Colina had already completed its smooth progress through smiling foot hills and had begun a steep and winding ascent among wild gorges and great overhanging rocks before she noticed the change.

For the greater part of the journey she had sat motionless, huddled in a corner of the seat, a thick veil covering her face; but now she began to observe the physical changes in the landscape with a somber satisfaction, and, for the first time, accepted the mountains listlessly, almost gratefully, instead of rebelliously. In truth any change was grateful to her; she did not want to think of the desert or be reminded of it, and this transition, so marked, so sharply defined as to make the brief railway journey from the plains below seem the passage to another world, was especially welcome.

The human desire for change is rooted in the conviction, a vain and deceptive one, that an entirely different environment must include or create a new world of thought and emotion. So for once the Pearl's desire was for the hills. She who had ever exulted in the wide, free spaces of the desert, who had found the echo of her own heart in its eternal mutation, its luring illusions, its mystery and its beauty, now turned to the austere, shadowed, silent mountains as if begging them to enfold her and hold her and hide her.

It was dark when they reached Colina, but a station wagon awaited them and in this they drove through the village, a straggling settlement, the narrow plateau permitting only two streets, both of them continuations of the mountain roads, and surrounded by high mountains. Scattering lights showed here and there from lamps shining through cabin windows, but the silence, differing in kind if not in degree from the desert silence, was only broken at this hour of the night by the desolate, mocking bark of the coyotes.

Clear of the village, the horses turned and began to mount the hill which led to Gallito's isolated cabin. Their progress was necessarily slow, for the road was rough and full of deep ruts. The velvety blackness of a mountain night was all about them and even the late spring air seemed icy cold. Pearl had begun to shiver in spite of her wraps when the light from a cabin window gleamed across the road and the driver pulled up his horses.

"Somebody's waiting for you," said the driver.

"Yes, Saint Harry," answered Gallito. "He's getting supper for us."

The door, however, was not opened for them and it was not until the driver had turned his horses down the hill that they heard a bolt withdrawn. Then Gallito pushed in and Pearl followed, stepping wearily across the threshold.

The room, a large one for a mountain cabin, was warm and clean; some logs burned brightly on the hearth; a table set for supper was placed within the radius of that glow and a man was bending over a stove at one side of the fireplace, while two women, who had evidently been seated on the other side of the fire, rose and stood smiling a welcome. The air was full of appetizing odors mingled with the fragrance of coffee.

As they entered the man turned with a quick movement. He was an odd-looking creature, brown as a nut, with glinting, changing, glancing eyes which can see what seem to be immeasurable distances to those possessed of ordinary sight. He had a curiously crooked face, one eye was higher than the other and his nose was not in the middle, but set on one side; its sharp, inquisitive point almost at right angles with the bridge. He had the wide, mobile mouth of the born comedian, and his chin was as much to the right as his nose was to the left. He was extremely light and slender in figure and his movements were like quicksilver. His hair was black and straight and long, especially over the ears, and he had long, slender, delicate hands, which one noticed at once for their uncommon flexibility and deftness.

"Supper ready?" asked Gallito, without other greeting.

"Now," replied the other man. He began lifting the food he had been preparing from the pans, arranging it on various dishes and slipping them upon the table with a rapidity and noiselessness which suggested sleight of hand.

Gallito gave a brief nod and advanced toward the two women, bowing low with Spanish courtesy. A smile, a blending of pleasure and amusement, softened his grim mouth and keen eyes as he shook hands with one, whom he introduced to his daughter as Mrs. Nitschkan. About medium height, she was a powerfully built creature, her open flannel shirt disclosing the great muscles of her neck and chest. Rings of short, curly brown hair covered her round head; and small, twinkling blue eyes shone oddly bright in her deeply tanned face, while her frequent smile displayed small, milk-white teeth. A short, weather-stained skirt showed her miner's boots and a man's coat was thrown over her shoulders. A bold, freebooting Amazon she appeared, standing there in the fire-glow, and one to whom hardihood was a birth-right.