"Bah!" she said. "Wind, wind. You can't frighten me with threats. Stay and watch me dance all you please. That's the only way you'll ever see me again—from the audience." Without any appearance of haste, she lifted her scarf from the pine branch on which she had thrown it and twisted it slowly about her head, then picking up her crimson cape from the ground, she shook the pine needles from it, wrapped it about her, and without another word to him, without even a look, took her way down the trail.

She did not believe that he meant what he said, she did not believe that he meant to stay and see her dance that evening. The thought that he would do so had annoyed her at first, but as she walked downward through the wine-like amber air, she realized that she did not particularly care. Her whole being seemed absorbed in the revelation which had come to her in the first moment of her meeting with Hanson—her love for Seagreave. In this new, exclusive emotion, the recent interview and all that had led up to it became to her a mere unpleasant episode, upon which her indifferent imagination refused to dwell. She wanted to be alone, that she might fully realize this stupendous change in her feelings and in her entire outlook upon life. As she thought upon it she saw that it was no sudden miracle, wrought in the twinkling of an eye, but an alteration of standards and emotion so gradual that she had not been aware of it.

Back in the cabin she luxuriated, exulted in the fact that she would be alone all day. She piled high the fire with logs, and threw herself in an easy chair. Thus she could dream undisturbed, could lie watching the leaping flames and vision for herself again that fair, regular, serene face, that tall, strong, slender figure. She counted the hours until she should see him again, until she should dance for him, for it was for him, him alone, that she would dance.

Thus she passed the greater part of the day, and even resented the intrusion upon her thoughts when her father returned a little earlier than usual from the mine.

"I got a telegram from Bob to-day," he said. "All that was in it was, 'Coming up to see Pearl dance to-night.'"

"What!" she cried, showing her dismay. "What is he doing that for?"

"What he says, I suppose," returned Gallito, "to see you dance."

She frowned vexedly, but said nothing.

Her father spoke again. "How are you going down? You will not walk with Bob and Hugh, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas?"

"No," she answered carelessly, although a deeper crimson showed in her cheek. "Mr. Seagreave said last night that he would take me down in his cart."

Gallito nodded, apparently satisfied, and as Jose came in then to prepare supper, the matter was dropped.

As for Pearl, her vexation of the moment was gone; it could have no place in her mood of exaltation, and when, a few minutes later, she greeted Bob Flick, he thought that he had never seen her more gay. All through supper, too, her mood of gayety continued, but immediately after that meal she drew Flick aside.

"Bob, I want to tell you something," she said. "No use Hughie, nor Pop, nor any of the rest of them knowing anything about it," she hesitated a moment, "but Hanson came up to-day."

There was no change in his impassive face, only a leap of hard light in his eyes, and yet she knew that he was on guard in a moment. "Hanson?"

"Yes, and I saw him for a few moments," she lifted candid eyes to his, "and, honest, Bob, it's all over. I never expect to see him again, and I never want to."

He looked at her, as if trying to read her soul. "Say, Pearl, what is this," he asked, "straight?"

"It's what I'm telling you," she looked back at him, nodding emphatically, and then her face broke into a smile, her sweetest, her most alluring smile. "Say, Bob, I got to thank you for a good many things, not to speak of these," she touched the emeralds under her gown; "but the biggest thing you've ever done for me yet was to keep me from running away with Hanson."

Her sincerity was undoubted, and a flush of pleasure rose on his cheek, and a light came into his eyes which only she could bring there. He pressed her hands warmly, looking embarrassed and yet delighted. "You never said anything in all your life, Pearl, that ever pleased me like that."

She patted his arm lightly and caressingly, and smiled at him again, under her lashes. She couldn't help that with any man. "You're awful good to me, Bob; I guess you're the best and onliest friend I've got."

"I'm what you want me to be," he spoke a little sadly but very tenderly. "It'll never make any difference to me what you do or what you don't do; there'll never be any change in me."

She let her fingers lie in his clasp, but her glance was absent now, her thoughts had flown again to Seagreave. "Goodness!" she exclaimed, rousing suddenly and glancing at the clock, "I've got to make a hustle for it."

She was ready half an hour later when Seagreave stopped at the door. Hugh and Bob Flick had already gone, her father and Jose had settled themselves for the evening over the cards, and Pearl stood before the fire, a long, dark cloak covering her from head to foot and a black mantilla over her head. Jose's eyes were full of longing.

"Oh, that I might go, too," he cried. "The Black Pearl may dance, dance, after the spirit that is in her; may express her art, but I, although I grow mad to express mine, must stay mewed up in these mountains with nothing to do but cook and play cards and talk to a half saint and a stale, old sinner. If Nitschkan and the petite Thomas had not come, I should have died. Look at those!" he twinkled his long, delicate fingers in the air, "there is not such another pair of hands on a combination lock in all this world."

Seagreave and Gallito laughed, but paid no further heed to him, and Harry turned to Pearl with a pretense of disappointment.

"I thought I should see a butterfly," he said, "a butterfly that had flown up from the land of eternal summer, and you're only a chrysalis."

"It's too cold for butterflies up here," she laughed. "Wait until I get down to the warm hall." But although she returned his banter, she did not look at him, her eyes were downcast, and on the drive down the hill she scarcely spoke. Seagreave was one of those rare persons who respect another's mood of silence, and consequently he did not notice this new constraint which had overfallen her.

The hall, lighted with bull's-eye lanterns, was crowded with people, every one of the chairs taken and every inch of standing room occupied. There was no platform, but the space upon which Pearl was to dance was screened off by red curtains.

But even before she entered the little dressing booth prepared for her, she hastened to peep through the curtains, scanning the audience with an eager eye. Her face fell as she saw that Hanson, true to his promise, was there, and on one of the front seats, not far from Seagreave and Bob Flick, who were sitting together. His eyes were dull, his face flushed, and he lurched flaccidly in his chair; he had been drinking heavily all day.

He was wondering dully as he sat there if she would enter in the same indifferent manner that she had adopted the first night he had seen her down in the desert. Probably she would; it had been very effective.

But the time for conjecture was over. The curtains were drawn aside, and Hugh sat down at the piano and began to play a seductive, sensuous accompaniment. Then through a crimson curtain at the rear Pearl flashed in as if blown by the mountain wind. The chrysalis had cast aside its shell and this tropical butterfly had emerged. Her skirts were of yellow satin, and from a black bodice her beautiful bare shoulders rose half revealed and half concealed by her rose-wreathed, white manton de Manila. In her black, shining hair, just over one ear, was a bunch of scarlet, artificial blossoms.

She floated about the floor for a moment or two like a thistle-down blown hither and thither by the caprice of the wind, scarcely seeming to touch the ground, upborne by the music-tide. Throughout her career she was always at her best when she took those first few moments about the stage and waited for her inspiration.

Then she drifted nearer to Hughie and murmured, "The Tango." He changed his tempo immediately, and almost without a pause of transition she began that provocative measure—the dance of desire. Thrilling with the joy of expressing her love, her beautiful new love for Seagreave, through her art, she danced with a verve, an abandon, a more spontaneous impulse than she had ever shown before. The Tango! She made it a thing of alluring advances, of stinging repulses, of sudden, fascinating withdrawals and exquisite ardors.

When the applause had finally died down, the hall was still noisy with a babel of voices; those who could, moved about in the crowded space, and little groups formed and broke up. Bob Flick, speaking to this or that acquaintance, felt some one touch him lightly on the arm, and turned suddenly to see Hanson standing beside him.

"Hello, Flick," with a sort of swaggering bravado, "our old friend, the Black Pearl, is going some to-night, ain't she?"

"I don't know you," drawled Flick, the liquid Southern intonations of his voice softened until they were almost silky, "and," his hand shot back to his hip with an almost unbelievable rapidity, "I'll give you just three minutes to apologize for mentioning Miss Gallito's name, for speaking to me, and for being here at all."

Hanson's face had turned a sickly white, more with anger than fear. "Considering the argument you stand ready to offer," he said, "there's nothing to do but to apologize my humblest on all three counts. I had hoped that you'd remember me and be willing to introduce me to your friend." He turned a cynical and evil glance upon Seagreave, who was talking to some one a few feet away. "But since you won't, I'll go, just adding that you and your friend, there, are likely to meet me soon again."

There was a touch of scorn in Flick's faint smile. "The three minutes are up," he said, and without a word Hanson turned and sought his seat.

The curtains parted now and Hugh again sat down to the piano, but his music had changed; it was no longer sensuous and provocative, but strange, and curiously disturbing, with a peculiar, recurring, monotonous beat.

It was the voice of the desert full of a savage exultation in its own loneliness and forsaken isolation, and through it rang a cry of deep, disdainful triumph, as if it said: "All puny races of men, come to me; embroider my vast surfaces with the green of your fields and gardens, build your houses upon my quiescent sand and dream that you have conquered and tamed me. And I abide, I abide. Silent, brooding, unwitting of your noisy incursions, I lie absorbed in my dream under my own illimitable skies. But soon or late, when the moment comes, I wake, I rouse, I see my inviolate desolations invaded. Then I gather my strength, I drown you with my torrential rivers, I torture you with my burning sun, I obliterate you with my flying sand. So shall my cactus bloom once more, my jeweled lizards crawl unmolested and the cry of the coyote echo again through the vast, soundless spaces of my desolation. Then to my looms, to my looms and out of emptiness and silence and space and light to weave all mysteries of color and all illusions of beauty."

"Lord!" cried Bob Flick to Seagreave, "he's playing the desert. I've seen her look just like the music sounds. That's a sand storm; there's no other sound in the world like it." He turned his eyes full of a puzzled wonder on Seagreave. "How can he play all that so that you and I can see it, when he can't see it himself?"

"But he does see it," insisted Seagreave; "never think that he doesn't, and sees it through finer avenues of sight than mere material organs of vision. He sees the mountains, too. Why, he can play the very shadows on the snow for me."

During the Spanish dances Seagreave had not shared the excitement of the audience, and thus had maintained his usual serenity. He had been intensely interested and appreciative and admiring; but emotionally unmoved; but now, as this troubling music of Hughie's seemed to express the dominion of unsuspected but potent earth-forces, primitive, savage and forever irreclaimable, his calm became strangely disturbed. Dimly he realized that should every desert on the globe finally be subdued by the plow, the irrigating ditches and the pruning hook, they would still remain as realities in the mind of man, forever clouding his aspirations toward the mountain peaks and the stars. For the desert must ever remain an unsolved enigma, never to be reduced to a formula, never to be explained by any human standards; now whispering to man of the mysteries of the soul and revealing to him more of the infinite than his finite senses may grasp; and now mocking him with illusions, her beautiful mirages wrought of airbeams and sunlight, and transforming him into a beast of greed with her haunting intimations of hidden and inexhaustible treasure.

Thus Hughie's music; and presently Pearl floated out. She had changed her Spanish costume for the one of scarlet crepe in which Hanson had first seen her, a crown of scarlet flowers on her dark hair. Her very expression, too, had changed, her eyes were elongated, her features seemed delicately Egyptian; the brooding sphynx look was on her face.

"She's great, ain't she?" asked Bob Flick.

Seagreave nodded. He had never seen her superior in technique. It took character, he appreciated that, to have endured the years of tiresome, mechanical practice, and to have undertaken it so intelligently that she had achieved her marvelous results; and she had, beside, youth and beauty and magnetism. All this alone would have made her a great dancer, but as he recognized, she had more, much more to bring to her art; a complex nature which, in its unsounded depths ever held a vision of beauty, and a sense of this vision which amounted to unity with it, and therefore gave her the power of expressing it. Her mind, too, was plastic to all primitive impulses and to Nature; she blended with it. She was but little influenced by persons, her will was too dominating, her intelligence too quick, and—but here his analysis ceased.

The Pearl was dancing to Hugh's strange music, she was dancing the desert for him—Seagreave. He knew it was for him, although she never glanced in his direction. And as she danced, he grew to realize that this feat was not an intellectual one. She was not portraying the spirit of the desert as gleaned from study and observation and melted in the crucible of her poetic imagination and molded by her fancy until it was a thing of form in her thought. The Black Pearl danced the desert because in her was the power to be one with it and live in its life through every cell of her being. It was a matter of feeling with her, one phase of her affinity with the forces of earth; but because she had the artist's constructive imagination, she could put it into form and dance it, and by projecting her own feeling into it, convey it to others.

The world with its round of outworn, hackneyed appeals, its wearisome repetitions of crude and commonplace joys, its tawdry and limited temptations, had long ago fallen away from Seagreave—and left him nothing, but to-night a voice that he had long ignored, the voice of life, commanded him.

"If the desert seems forever to claim her own, what is that to you! Your work is to reclaim and in the face of a thousand defeats and desolations still to reclaim, with the eternal faith that for you the wastes shall blossom like the rose. Work, no matter how brokenly, how futilely. To build houses of sand is better than to sit in profitless dreams and live in an animal content."

When later he drove Pearl up the mountainside, almost in silence, as they had come, after his few words of admiration and appreciation of her dancing, there was a shadow for the first time in Harry's clear eyes, a shadow which did not pass.



CHAPTER XI

Had Gallito but known it, his theory of the unexpected was never more perfectly demonstrated than it was upon the night Pearl danced and in the days which followed. Hanson had left early the next morning with the firm determination of returning almost immediately accompanied by one or more detectives and of securing that much coveted prize, Jose. Also, he gloated over the prospect of seeing Gallito, Bob Flick and Seagreave arrested for conniving at Jose's escape and for harboring him during all these months.

But the unexpected did occur. As Seagreave had predicted, the snow began to fall, and began the very night that Pearl danced in the town hall; and fell so steadily and uninterruptedly that the progress of the train which bore Hanson down the mountains was considerably impeded. Thus, the very forces of the air conspired for Jose, and ably were they seconded by other invisible and unknown agencies. Even before Hanson had reached the coast he found himself powerless "in the fell clutch of circumstance." He had taken cold in the mountains and for several weeks was too seriously ill even to contemplate with much interest his plan of revenge. And by the time that he had recovered sufficiently to give consideration to the matter again, a very little investigation convinced him of the necessity for patience. So thoroughly had the season and the elements conspired, that Colina was effectually cut off from the outer world, a camp beleaguered by snow, and Jose, for several months at least, would be the prisoner of the mountains and not of man.

But Colina was used to this experience. It was one which she had regularly undergone every winter of her existence. Therefore, her inhabitants prepared for it and bore it with what equanimity they could summon. It was but a small camp so far up in the mountains that the mines were practically only worked during the late spring, the summer and the early autumn months, for the water which ran the concentrating and stamp mills was frozen early in the winter and the mines were practically closed down. One or two, like the Mont d'Or, were kept open, and worked a few hours a day, but no milling was done and the ore dumps increased to vast size.

The railroad, a steep and tortuous way, was not, per se a passenger line, but existed to carry the ore down to the smelters, therefore, when there was no ore to carry, it was a matter of indifference to the mine owners who controlled the line whether trains ran or not; in fact, they preferred not from a strictly business standpoint, and truly they had an excellent excuse in the heavy drifts which completely obliterated the narrow, shining, steel path which led to the world beyond the mountains.

The police officials whom Hanson consulted as soon as his returning health permitted him to do so, realized that in spite of their anxiety to secure the famous and slippery Crop-eared Jose, he was quite as safely imprisoned by the mountains as if they themselves had secured him. There was no possible escape for him. All trails were blocked long before the railroad was, so there he was, caught as securely as a bird in a cage, and they, his potential captors, might sit down to a comfortable period of pleasant anticipation and await that thaw which was bound to come sooner or later. So much for Gallito's unexpected.

As for those who would have been interested had they but known—the little group held in compulsory inaction by those white, encircling hills—they accepted it as a part of the year's toll, no more to be murmured at than the changing seasons, and as inevitable as were they. But it was an experience which Pearl had never known, and Seagreave looked to see it wear upon her spirit, and daily experienced a new surprise that there was no evidence of its doing so. Instead, she seemed to glow hourly with a richer and fuller life, a softer beauty. But although an intimacy greater than he and she had yet known, would seem to be enforced by this winter of isolation and leisure, she did not, for a time, see as much of him as before. A constraint, almost like a blight upon their friendship, seemed to have fallen between them ever since the night that she had danced. Seagreave did not come down to Gallito's cabin quite so frequently in the evenings, and, according to Jose, spent much time by his own fireside absorbed in reading and meditation; and when he did come it was usually late and, instead of talking to Pearl, he would listen in silence to Hugh's playing or else engage him in conversation.

But this attitude on his part failed to cloud Pearl's spirits. She had seen men taken with this not inexplicable shyness before, and she made no effort to rouse Harry from his abstraction or to lure him from his meditations; femininely, intuitively wise, she left that to time.

But even in her moods of gayety the Black Pearl was never voluble, and her habit of silence was a factor in maintaining the mystery with which Seagreave's imagination was now beginning to invest her, and during those winter evenings when she would often sit absolutely motionless for an hour at a time, her narrow eyes dreaming on the fire, the sphynx look on her face, more than once he felt impelled to murmur:

"'The Sphinx is drowsy, Her wings are furled: Her ear is heavy, She broods on the world. Who'll tell me my secret, The ages have kept?— I awaited the seer, While they slumbered and slept.'"

Thus, more and more, he saw her as the image of beauty and of mystery, and ever more frequently he pondered on the nature of the message of the desert. But had he come down to Gallito's cabin earlier in the evening he would not have found her brooding on the firelight. Usually, she danced, keeping well in practice. She and Hughie would discuss by the hour new movements and effects, and not only discuss, but try them, and she and Jose, who had a light foot, often gave Gallito the benefit of seeing them in many of the old Spanish dances.

But one evening when Seagreave came down, Pearl was not resting after her exertions, but ran forward to greet him with unwonted vivacity, and drew him toward a window in a dim corner of the room, out of earshot of her father and Jose.

"Oh!" she cried. "Look, look at what they have sent me from the camp for dancing for them. I had no idea it would be so much." She took a roll of bills from her bosom and showed it to him. Her cheek was flushed, her eyes were like stars. "Why, even here, even up here," she cried, "I can make money."

"You look as if you enjoyed making money," he smiled.

She looked up at him as if surprised, and then laughed. "Of course, of course I do. Who doesn't?" Her touch on the bills was a caress. She seemed to find a joy in the very texture of them. He never dreamed for a moment that she took a delight in those rather crumpled and dirty bills. He merely took it for granted that she exulted in the visible expression of appreciation of her art.

"And what will you do with it?" he asked.

"I will send it to my bank when I can get any letters through, and then when this snowball is big enough I will invest it."

"In mines?" still idly interested and smiling.

She shook her head. "I leave that to my father, he is a good judge and he is lucky at it, and my mother is always buying patches of land and trading them off, usually to good advantage. But my specialty is unset stones. I have some very good ones, really, I have. Oh," with a little glance over her shoulder toward her father and Jose, "I will show them to you some day when Jose is not around. If he knew I had them he would steal them just for the pleasure of keeping himself in practice."

"How you love beauty," he said.

"But they are valuable," she said. "Oh, yes, I love them, too. I love to let them fall through my fingers, to pour them from one hand to another. Sometimes, when I am all alone here in the cabin, I sit and I open my little black leather bag and take them out and hold them in the palm of my hand, and I turn them this way and that way just to catch the light, and there is nothing so beautiful; in all the world there is nothing so beautiful as jewels, except," she caught herself quickly, "the desert, of course."

He sighed a little and stirred restlessly, the very mention of the desert made him vaguely uneasy. He had listened to the call of the mountains and obeyed it, and from that moment the desert, like the world, had no place in his thoughts; but since the night that Pearl had danced it had remained in his mind, and had become to him as a far horizon. The desert has ever been a factor in the consciousness of man, not to be excluded, and although Seagreave did not realize it, the moment had come in which he must reckon with it. He felt the fascination and repulsion of its impenetrable mystery, of its stark and desolate wastes, whose spell is yet so potent in the imagination of man, that many have found in its barren horror the very heart of beauty. He wondered if the uncontaminated winds which blew from out the ages across the vast, empty spaces murmured a message of greater import than that whispered to him among the mountain tops, if the wings of light which beat unceasingly above its shifting sands lifted the soul to some undreamed of realm of eternal morning. Something that slept deep within him stirred faintly; the old passion to adventure, to explore rose in his heart, his restless, reckless heart, which had, so he believed, found peace.

The shadow deepened in his eyes, but he suddenly roused from this momentary abstraction to find that Pearl was still speaking.

"Yes, I love them because they are so beautiful, but I love them, too, because they are valuable."

"Well, there is no question about your making all the money you wish," he said, a slight weariness in his tone, "thousands and thousands. The world will fling it at you. It will cover you with jewels."

She smiled, a faint, secretive smile of triumph. Ah, so he recognized that. She had made him feel and admit that she was one of the few great dancers.

Then, she, too, sighed. "If only," she said, forgetful of him and following out her train of thought aloud, "if only when I get what I want, I wouldn't always want something else! Did you ever feel if you could just be free, really free, you wouldn't want anything else in the world?"

"How could any one be more free than you are?" he laughed down at her.

"I know, I know," she agreed, still speaking wistfully, "but I'd like to be free of myself; myself is so strange, and there's so many of me." Then the veil of her instinctive reticence fell over her again and she began to talk of her recent attempts to get about on snow-shoes, Jose and Hugh having been her instructors, so far. Harry immediately offered his services, and she accepted them, agreeing to go out with him the next morning.

And as they talked Jose glanced at them from time to time, a touch of malicious laughter in his odd glancing eyes; there were few things that escaped Jose.

That evening, after Seagreave had gone home, when Jose and Gallito and Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Nitschkan had sat late over their cards, Gallito had risen after a final game, mended the fire, poured himself a glass of cognac, lighted another cigarette and, stretching himself in an easy-chair, entered into one of those confidential talks which he occasionally permitted himself with his chosen cronies. The earlier part of the evening Jose and Pearl had danced for a time together, and then Pearl had danced for a time alone and in a manner to please even her father's critical taste. Now, in commenting on this, he remarked:

"You see the change in my daughter. She is now cheerful, obedient and industrious. When she came she was none of those things. She is, you see, a good girl at heart, but her mother had almost ruined her. If men but had the time they should always bring up the children of the family. It is only in that way that they can ever be a credit to one."

Mrs. Thomas, who had been bending over the stove brewing a pot of coffee which she and Mrs. Nitschkan drank at all hours of the day and night, raised herself at the utterance of these revolutionary sentiments and looked at Gallito in grieved and bewildered surprise; but Mrs. Nitschkan, who had been pouring cream into the cup of steaming coffee which Jose had just handed to her, first took a long draught and then remarked with cool impartiality:

"The trouble with you, Gallito, is that you can't bear for nobody, man, woman, child or devil, to get ahead of you. I guess I know somep'n' about the bringin' up of young ones myself."

Here Mrs. Thomas sighed and shook her head with that exasperated incomprehension which all women displayed when the subject of Mrs. Nitschkan's children came up for discussion. Educators discourse much upon the proper environment and training of the young of the human species, but theories aside, practical results seem rather in favor of casting the bantling on the rocks. For, in spite of Mrs. Nitschkan's joyous lack of responsibility, her daughters had grown up the antitheses of herself, thoroughly feminine little creatures, already famous for those womanly accomplishments for which their mother had ever shown a marked distaste, while the sons were steady, hard-working, reputable young fellows, always to be depended upon by their employers.

"It's nothing but your pizen luck, Sadie," murmured Mrs. Thomas.

"We must allow that Providence has been kinder to you than most," remarked Gallito sardonically.

"It's a reward," said Mrs. Nitschkan with calm assurance, refilling her pipe with more care than she had ever bestowed upon her children. "It's 'cause I ain't ever shirked an' left the Lord to do all my work for me."

At this Mrs. Thomas, too overcome to speak, tottered feebly back from the stove and fell weakly into a chair.

"No, sir," continued the gypsy with arrogant virtue, "the trouble with all the parents I know, includin' present company, is that they're too easy. I don't work no claim expectin' to get nothin' out of it, do I? And I don't bring a lot of kids into the world and spend years teachin' 'em manners—"

She was interrupted here by a brief and scornful laugh from Mrs. Thomas, who, on observing that her friend was gazing at her earnestly and ominously, hastily converted it into a fit of coughing.

"Spend years teachin' 'em manners an' sacrifice myself to stay at home and punish 'em when I might be jantin' 'round myself, not to have 'em turn out a credit to me."

There was a finality about the statements which seemed to admit of no further discussion, but after Jose had escorted the two women to their cabin, he had returned for one of those midnight conferences with Gallito over which they loved to linger, and the Spaniard had again expressed his satisfaction in Pearl's changed demeanor.

Jose's laughter pealed to the roof. "You have eyes but for mines and cards, Gallito. Though the world changes under your nose, you do not see it. The moles of the earth—they are funny!"

"Bah!" casting at him a scornful glance from under his beetling brows, "your eyes see so far, Jose, that you see all manner of things which do not exist."

"I have far sight and near sight and the sight which comes to the seventh child," returned Jose with pride. "Therefore, seeing what I see, I say my prayers each day, now."

A bleak smile wrinkled Gallito's parchment-like cheeks. "And to whom do you pray, Jose, your patron saint, or rather sinner, the Devil?"

Jose looked shocked. "You are a blasphemer, Gallito," he reproved, and then added piously, "I say my prayers each day that I may, by example, help Saint Harry."

"And why is Harry in need of your example?" said Gallito, holding up his glass between himself and the fire and watching the deep reflections of ruby light in the amber liquid.

"It goes against me to see an unequal struggle," sighed Jose. "He is hanging on desperately to his ice-peak, but the Devil has almost succeeded in clawing him off."

Gallito frowned. "This talk of yours is nonsense, Jose; but if there is anything in it, Harry may understand that any interest he may have in my daughter can lead to nothing. She is a dancer before she is anything else, it is in her blood. Harry does not and never can understand her; only one of her own kind can do that. He is by nature a religious; his cabin is the cell of a monk."

Again Jose's eerie, malicious laughter echoed through the room.

"Aye, laugh," growled Gallito; "but you see my daughter for the first time. You think because she smiles at Harry that she loves him; you think because she is the only woman he talks to that he loves her; you do not know her. She is young, she is beautiful and a dancer. She has had many lovers ever since she put her hair up, and learned how she could make a fool of a man with her eyes and her smile, and she has made them pay toll. She always did that from the first." There was a note of fierce pride in his harsh, brief laughter. "Yes, she would smile and promise anything with her eyes, but she gave nothing. It is strange"—the old Spaniard, his austere spirit mellowed by his excellent cognac, fell into a mood of confidential musing, an indulgence which he rarely permitted himself—"that Hugh, the child of a woman I never saw, reaches my heart more than my own daughter does. But Pearl is a study to me. I say to myself, 'She cares for nothing but money, applause, admiration,' and yet, even while I say it, I am not sure; I do not know, I do not know."

Again he admired the glints of firelight reflected in his cognac glass. "But this I do know, Jose, she is an actress before she is anything else."

Jose leered knowingly. "You think only of your daughter," he said. "What about Saint Harry? He has mad blood in him, too. It is only a few years that he has been a saint; before that the Devil held full sway over him. And," he added pensively, after a moment's cogitation, "there are many lessons one learns from the Devil."

"You should know," returned Gallito, with his twisting, sardonic smile.

"Ah, the Devil is not all bad," said Jose defensively. "One can learn from him the lesson of perseverance, and perseverance is a virtue."

Gallito waved his hand with a polite gesture. "You know more of him and his lessons than I, Jose. I am always ready to grant that." He took another sip of cognac, blew a succession of smoke wreaths toward the ceiling, and again resumed his midnight philosophizings. "What puzzles me, Jose, is what is going to become of us in Heaven. We shall never be content. Content is a lesson that no one has ever learned. Look at Saint Harry. He has Heaven right here. His time to himself, enough to live on without working, no women to bother him, your cooking; and it may be on that that you will win an entrance to Heaven; it will certainly be on nothing else. But, if, as you say, he is interested in my daughter, he is throwing away all chance of keeping Paradise."

"Do we not all do that?" said Jose dismally. "It is because a man cannot conceive of a Heaven without a woman in it. He thinks in spite of all experience to the contrary that she is what makes it Heaven."

"Yes, experience counts for nothing," Gallito sighed for himself and his brothers.

But if Seagreave sat silent and absorbed when he came to Gallito's cabin in the evening, it did not bother Pearl. She was an expert in such symptoms. Sometimes he talked to her in a rather constrained fashion, but for the most part he sat on the other side of the room, listening to Hugh's music.

One evening when he sat listening he suddenly lifted his eyes and gazed at the Pearl, who sat almost the length of the room away from him. The cabin was lighted only by the great log fire, and the leaping, ardent flames of the pine, mingled with the soft, glowing radiance of burning birch, invested the room and its occupants with that atmosphere of mystery and glamour, essential in flame-illumined shadow. And Hugh was playing the music the masters dreamed in the twilight hours when silence and shadow permitted them, even wooed them to a more intimate revelation of the heart than the definite splendors of daylight inspired.

Beyond the zone of the firelight, the room was all in a warm gloom, rich and dim. Pearl and Hugh had gathered fir branches, even some young trees, and had placed them about the walls, and in the warmth their aromatic, delicious odor permeated and pervaded the cabin, and one discerning those half-defined branches might easily imagine that the walls stretched away into the dim forest.

Pearl lay back in an easy chair, her narrow, half-closed eyes on the leaping flames. The wind, low to-night, the wind of eternity which blows ever in the mountains, sang about the cabin and blended with Hugh's music like a faint violin obligato. But even in this soft twilight of blending and mingling and harmonizing, with pine branches above and beyond her and shadowed gloom about her, Pearl never for a moment seemed the spirit of the forest.

With its dim depths for a background, she shone on it, as brilliant and distinct from it as a flashing jewel on the breast of a nun. Her crimson frock caught a deeper warmth from the firelight, her black hair shone like a bird's wing, the jewels on her fingers sent out sparkles of light and flame. As Saint Harry continued to gaze at her the forest with all its haunting, dreaming witchery vanished, the high invitation of the mountains, "Come ye apart," ceased to echo in his ears. The world environed, encompassed her; he seemed to discern the yearning of her spirit for it, the airy rush of her winged feet toward it; and yet her eyes, those eyes which sometimes held the look of having gazed for ages on time's mutations, were turned toward the desert. Then Seagreave's moment of vision passed and he turned to Hugh with an odd sinking of the heart.

Hugh had ceased to play and sat silent now on his piano stool with that motionless, concentrated air of his, as if listening to something afar.

"Hughie," said Seagreave softly, "what are you and your sister, anyway?"

Hugh laughed and, leaning his elbow on the keys, rested his cheek on his palm. "I am a little brother of the wind," he said. "I was just listening to it singing to me out there; and Pearl, well, Pearl is a daughter of fire."

"What is it that you hear that I don't?" asked Harry. "I listen to the wind, too, sometimes for hours, up there in my cabin; but it's only a falling, sighing thing to me, sometimes a rising, shrieking one. What is this gift of music?"

"I don't know," said Hugh simply, "but if you will wait a moment, I will play you the song the wind is singing through the pines to-night. It is just a little, sad one."

Again he sat immobile, listening for a while and then began to play so plaintive and wistful a melody that Harry felt the old sorrow wake and stir within his heart and demand a reckoning of the forgetful years. Not realizing that he did so, he arose and began to pace up and down the room, nor remembered where he was until he looked up to see Pearl watching him, surprise and even a slight curiosity upon her face.

"Forgive me," he said, stopping before her, "for walking up and down that way as if I were in my own cabin, but something in Hugh's music set me to dreaming."

"You didn't look as if they were happy dreams," she said.

"Didn't I?" he spoke as lightly as he could; then he changed the subject. "Do you know that the crust on the snow is thicker than it has been yet? How would you like to go out on your snow-shoes to-morrow morning?"

She looked her pleasure. "That will be fine," she cried eagerly.

She was up betimes the next day, anxious to see whether more snow had fallen during the night; but none had. To her joy, it was one of those brilliant mornings when the sky seems a dome of sapphire sparkles, and the crust of the snow with the sun on it is like white star-dust overlaid with gold. The radiance would have been unbearable had not the bare, black trees veiled the sky with their network of branches and twigs and the pines softened the snow with their shadows.

Pearl had rapidly acquired proficiency in her new accomplishment, and she and Seagreave had covered several miles when, on their return, they paused to rest a bit in the little bower of stunted pines. Here Seagreave cut some branches from the trees for them to sit on and, gathering some dry, fallen boughs and cones, built a fire.

They enjoyed this a few moments in silence and then Pearl spoke. "Why," she asked with her usual directness, "why did you get up and walk up and down the room last night when Hughie was playing? What was it in his music that made you forget all of us and even, as you said, forget that you were not in your own cabin?"

"That was stupid of me and rude, too," he said compunctiously. "Something that he was playing called up so vivid a memory that I forgot everything."

There was a quick gleam in her eyes; she was resentful of memories that could make him forget her very presence, hers. "What was it you were thinking of?" she asked. Her voice was low.

He looked out over the snow before he answered. "A girl," he said, and cast another handful of pine cones upon the fire.

She did not speak nor move, and yet her whole being was instinct with a sudden tense attention. "Yes, a girl," she said insistently. "What was she like?" the words leaped from her, voicing themselves almost without her volition.

He sighed and appeared to speak with some effort. "It was long ago," he said. "She was like violets or white English roses."

"And did you love her?" she asked, that soft tenseness still in her voice, "and did she love you?"

"I suppose every man has his ideal of woman, perhaps unconsciously to himself, and she was mine."

He sighed again and she glanced quickly at him from the corners of her eyes with a half scornful smile upon her lips. She knew that she did not suggest violets, shy and fragrant and hidden under their own green leaves; neither was there anything in the mountains to suggest the gardens in which roses grew. But he had left the violets and English roses long ago, because of that spirit of restlessness within him, and finally he had come to these wild, savage mountains and was content here, where it was difficult even to picture the calm and repose of the gardens he had left. He had said that he did not know why he had come, but Pearl did. She never doubted it. It was the call of her heart across the world to him, seeking him, reaching him, drawing him to her.

"And does it make you unhappy to think of her now?" she asked still softly.

"No," he said, "no, not now. But last night something in the music caused the years to drop away and I was back there again and she rose before me. Really, I felt her very presence. I saw her as plainly as I see you now."

Pearl rose and shook the snow from her cloak. "Forget it," she said scornfully. The little horse-shoe frown showed between her brows, and her eyes as she looked at him were full of a sparkling disdain. "That girl wasn't worth that," she snapped her fingers. "And here you've been loping over the globe for years, because she turned you down. I should think you'd feel like a fool." She spoke quite fearlessly, although Seagreave had thrown up his head and stood looking at her with a white face and compressed lips. "But that ain't the reason," she went on shrewdly. "I know men. You like to think you quit things because of the girl," she laughed that low, harsh, unpleasant laugh of hers. "You quit 'em because you got lazy, and anything like a responsibility was a bore. That's straight."

Without another glance at him, she sped down the hill, like an arrow shot from a bow.



CHAPTER XII

As that long, white winter slowly wore away there were many in the camp who, although they had endured the strain of a wearing monotony through many previous seasons, nevertheless suffered greatly from it; and, in consequence, as the clock of the year began to indicate spring an almost riotous joy was felt and expressed when it was announced through the camp that the Black Pearl had again consented to dance for them.

It was considered a truly fitting celebration of the fact that there had already been one great thaw, and, although there was every possibility of things freezing up again, yet nevertheless spring had at last loosed her hounds and they were hard on winter's traces. In fact, one belated train, after hours spent on the road, had succeeded in pushing through, an evidence that they all would soon be running with their accustomed, if rather erratic regularity, and there was naturally a tremendous excitement and jollification in the camp at this arrival of the first mail bearing news from the outside world.

The messages for Pearl included a letter from her mother and one from Bob Flick, but none from Hanson. Bob Flick announced that his patience was worn thin and that he would be up on the first train bearing passengers. Mrs. Gallito's letter was full of commiserations for her daughter on her enforced detention, and she evidently regarded the nature of that durance as particularly vile.

"Pearl, how you been standing it up in that God-forsaken hole where you can't even keep warm is what beats me. Seems to me I went to church once, oh, just for a lark, and the preacher talked about some plagues of Egypt, all different kinds, you know. It was real interesting. I always remembered it. But in looking back over plagues I've seen, the very worst of all was snow. I'm afraid, when I see you again, you'll be all skin and bone and shadow. I do hope you won't be sick like poor Hanson. I had an awful sad letter from him; seems he took cold and's been at death's door."

Pearl rustled the paper impatiently. She was not interested in this news. Hanson occupied her thoughts so little that she did not even pause to wonder how he was. The very sight of his name in the letter stirred a vague irritation in her. Absorbed in her love for Seagreave, Hanson had become to her as a forgotten episode.

However, her mother dropped the subject and took up the more interesting one of Lolita. "That bird certainly has mourned for you, Pearl. I guess she'd have just about pined away if it hadn't been for Bob Flick."

But Pearl was not the only recipient of letters from the outside world; all of the little group, with the exception of Jose, had received their quota, even Mrs. Nitschkan. But the bulk of the mail, which Gallito brought up from the village postoffice and gravely distributed, fell to Mrs. Thomas. Almost without exception, these envelopes were addressed in straggling, masculine characters which suggested painful effort and seemed to indicate that the writers were more used to the pick and shovel than to the pen. But although Mrs. Thomas had to spell out the contents of each missive with more or less difficulty, her giggles, blushes and occasional exclamations showed how much pleasure they afforded her.

Mrs. Nitschkan, however, after glancing carelessly at the large, yellow envelope which was addressed to her in a clerkly hand, cast it carelessly aside and went on assiduously cleaning and oiling her gun. But the sight of it aroused Mrs. Thomas's curiosity, and after glancing at it once or twice over the top of her own letters, she could not forbear to ask:

"Ain't you going to read your letter, Sadie?"

"Mebbe. Sometime. By an' by. When I get good an' ready," returned the gypsy indifferently and abstractedly, squinting with one eye down the barrel of her gun. "What do I want with letters? I got two bear an' a mountain lion before the snow flew."

Mrs. Thomas laid aside her letters for the moment, and, lifting a large pot of coffee from the stove, poured out a cupful for her friend and then one for herself. "Here, Sadie," she coaxed, "rest yourself with a cup of coffee. I'll set down the sugar and cream an' whilst you're drinking it, open your letter. Come now, do. Maybe it's from a gentleman."

"It sure is," replied Mrs. Nitschkan, laying her gun carefully across her knee, wiping her hands on the cloth with which she had been polishing it, and then dropping several lumps of sugar into the cup, she poured herself a liberal allowance of cream. "It's a bill for that double-j'inted, patent, electrical fishin' rod that I sent East for, clean to New York City, for a weddin' present for Celia."

Mrs. Thomas gave a faint, scornful laugh at the thought of this most incongruous gift for Mrs. Nitschkan's pretty, feminine daughter. "A fishin' rod for Celia!" she exclaimed, "when all she ever thinks about is cookin' an' sweepin' an' sewin' all day."

"That's it," Mrs. Nitschkan radiated self-approbation and satisfaction. "It made a nice show at the weddin', didn't it? And it has sure been useful to me since."

But Mrs. Thomas had again absorbed herself in her correspondence, and it is doubtful if she heard these last words. "Say, Sadie," she cried presently, a ripple of joyous excitement in her voice, "listen here to what Willie Barker says, 'If you don't come back soon, I'm a-going to lay right down an' die, or maybe take my own life.'"

"Then you'll stay right on here," said Mrs. Nitschkan shortly but emphatically. "Such a chanst as that's not to be missed."

Mrs. Thomas pouted, "But, honest, can't we pretty soon leave these old prospects that you're a-nursin' along to salt an' get ready to palm off on some poor Easterner?"

The gypsy took a long draught of coffee, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "Your ungratefulness'll strike in and probably kill you, Marthy Thomas. Here I burdened myself with you to save your life insurance and the nice little property Seth left you from a pack of wolves in the camp that's after them, an' not you, an' what thanks do I get? All these months I been workin' like the devil to convert you an' Jose, an' as far as either of you's concerned, I might a darned sight better have put in my time tryin' to save the soul of a flea. You couldn't even let a poor, God-forsaken robber like Jose alone. Don't you know that if you get a thousand husbands they'll all treat you as bad or worse'n Seth did?"

"He's an angel in heaven right now an' don't you dare say a word against him, Sadie Nitschkan," cried Mrs. Thomas defensively, "but he was a devil all the same."

"They'll all be devils," returned Mrs. Nitschkan fatalistically. "They's no man can stand seein' a feather pillow around all the time an' not biff it, especially when it can turn on a gallon of tears any time of the day or night."

Mrs. Thomas made no effort to refute this last aspersion. Instead, she began to weep loudly and unrestrainedly. "Bob Martin says in his letter that he hopes I'm havin' a pleasant time," she sobbed. "He don't know the loneliness, not to say the danger, of being snowed up in these mountains with a woman that ain't got no more feelin' than to skin you alive whenever she's a mind to. I ain't afraid of gentlemen, even husbands, but sometimes when you get to jawin' me, Sadie, with a gun in your hand, it makes my poor heart go like that, an' I crawl all over with goose-flesh."

Fortunately, the thaws continued, and if no great quantity of snow fell between now and then, the first passenger train was scheduled to run through on the day that Pearl would dance, but Bob Flick, by some method known to himself, had succeeded in making his journey on the engine, and thus arrived at Gallito's cabin several days before he was expected, looking a little more worn than usual and faintly anxious, an expression which speedily disappeared as he saw the radiant health and spirits of Pearl. As for her, she was unfeignedly glad to see him.

"I sure have worried a lot about you this winter, Pearl," he said to her that evening as they two sat a little apart from the rest, Gallito, Jose, Hugh and Seagreave, who all clustered about the fire, while Pearl, as usual, had drawn her chair within the warm gloom of the pine-scented shadow.

"Ain't you silly!" She looked up at him with her heart-shattering, adorable smile.

"I am always about you," he said. "You're all I think of, Pearl, night and day."

She patted his arm lightly. "I've always got you to depend on anyway, haven't I, Bob?" Her soft, lazy, sliding voice was itself a caress.

"You sure have. Anytime, anywhere. No matter what happens, I can't ever change, Pearl. Lord! You ought to know that by this time."

"Maybe I do, Bob, and maybe I like knowing it."

"I hope you do, but it wouldn't make any difference whether you did or didn't. I got to love you. I guess the cards fell that way for me before I was born and nothing can ever change that layout."

"You've never failed me yet, Bob."

"And never will. Oh, Pearl, don't you, can't you see your way to marrying me?"

She stirred restlessly, a faintly troubled look shadowing her face. "There's so many of me, and I never know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to feel. I'd just be bound to make you miserable."

"It wouldn't be the first time," he said a little sadly. "But you see I know you. I ain't got any mistaken notions about you, and I love you more than any other man in this life'll ever do, Pearl."

Again she moved and looked at him as if his words had roused in her some regret. "I guess that's so; but—it wouldn't be a square deal."

"I'll tend to that," he urged, "and you'll just have to know that I'm always loving you, no matter what's to pay."

"I—" she began, but was interrupted by Jose, who bowed low before her.

"Senorita," grandiosely, "the ladies and your father beg that, unworthy as I am to dance on the same floor as you, that yet, as a compliment to Mr. Flick, we go through some of the Spanish dances together."

Pearl assented and half rose, but Flick laid a detaining hand on her sleeve. "She will in a minute," he said. "Run along now, Jose, me and Miss Gallito's got something to talk over." He bent close to her again. "Pearl," there was the faintest shake in his voice, "what are you going to tell me, now?"

"Oh, Bob," the regret was in her voice now, "I wish, I wish you didn't feel that way. I love you more than 'most anybody in the world—but not that way. And—and I don't want to lose your love for me. I like to know it's there. I sort of lean up against it."

He waited a moment or two before answering her, and then his voice was as steady as ever. "You can always come back to my love for you. The stars can fall out of the sky and the mountains slide down, but my love for you can't change, Pearl. It's fixed and steady and forever."

"Dear old Bob," she touched his cheek as she passed him with a light caress and went on into the room beyond to get her dancing slippers.

It was later that evening that Jose began his unceasing importunities to see Pearl dance in the town hall. A stern and surprised veto of this plan was his immediate answer. But Jose was the most convincing and plausible of pleaders.

"But, Gallito," he cried almost piteously, "since Mrs. Nitschkan has watched my manners I have been like an angel. No more does the camp say that this hill is haunted, you know that."

"I told you what you'd get if you didn't stop hootin' at people who was passin'," remarked Mrs. Nitschkan, knocking the ashes from her pipe out on the hearth and then carefully refilling it. "But you're none so good now that you need brag. I don't know that playin' monkey tricks to frighten folks ain't just as good a way to put in the time as sittin' 'round holdin' hands with Marthy Thomas."

"Sadie!" Mrs. Thomas drew forth her handkerchief and prepared to shed the ready tear. "How you can have the heart to talk so to a woman that ain't buried her husband twelve months! Mr. Jose ain't even thought of takin' the liberties you sit there accusin' him of. If I had a live husband to pertect me, you wouldn't dare treat me like what you do. Whenever you miss a shot, or get fooled on a prospect, or get some money won away from you, you come back to our little cabin an' sit lookin' at me like you was a wolf an' talkin' like you was a she-bear. And—and it's darned hard, that's what it is."

"If you were a man, Nitschkan," Jose drew himself up truculently, "you would indeed answer for such speeches, and you would not have converted me so easily, either. I have no fear of men." This was quite true, he had not, but his eye quailed and drooped before the steady gaze of Mrs. Nitschkan.

"Come, come," said Gallito peremptorily, "I am glad to see you all each evening about my fireside, but I will have no arguing nor quarreling, understand that. A man's house is his castle."

Jose diplomatically dropped the subject, which did not mean that he had abandoned his plan for one moment. He merely waited a more convenient season. His strongest arguments were that it was not an infrequent occurrence for Gallito to entertain guests of his own nationality in his mountain cabin. "And my hair!" cried Jose pathetically. "It would be a crown of glory to Nitschkan if she had it; but it is a shame to me, a man, to have to wear it so long. No one in the camp could possibly know that I have ears."

Gallito at first absolutely refused to listen to him, but so adroitly did Jose bring up the subject every evening that he began to make some impression on his stern jailer. He was careful, though, not to mention his hopes until near midnight, when Gallito's normally harsh mood was greatly softened not only by winning the final game, which Jose invariably permitted now, but also by the mellowing influence of his bland, old cognac. Then Gallito would embark on an argument, determined to convince Jose of the wild folly of his desire.

Their debate continued for several evenings and finally ended, as Jose meant it should, in Gallito giving a reluctant consent, under certain conditions which he insisted should be rigidly carried out.

He admitted that it was unlikely that any suspicion would be aroused in the village. Those who saw the party enter the hall would, if they thought about the matter at all, take it for granted that the stranger was some friend of Bob Flick's who had come up with him on the train. But two conditions Gallito insisted upon: the first, that Jose was to turn the collar of his heavy overcoat high up about his face and draw his hat low over his brows, and the second was that he was only to be permitted to observe the dancing from behind the curtain of the little recess at the end of the hall which served Pearl as a dressing room. He might gaze his fill through the peep-hole there, but under no circumstances was he to be seen in the body of the hall. But these conditions, as Gallito pointed out, were entirely dependent on Pearl. It was a question whether she would tolerate Jose for a whole evening in her dressing room.

At first she flatly refused to do so and turned a persistently deaf ear to Jose's pleading. She had to slip out of one frock and into another at least three times. There would not be room with Jose sitting there.

"But, dear Senorita, I will not be sitting there," he cried. "When the moment comes that you change your frock I will be standing with my face to the wall and my eyes covered with my hands."

"I should hope so," murmured Mrs. Thomas, who was present.

But Pearl had another reason for not wishing to be alone with Jose upon this occasion. She meant to wear her emeralds, and she was not so anxious that the light-fingered bandit should have so near a view of them. When she mentioned this to Bob Flick and her father, however, they laughed at her fears. Not that they trusted Jose, but, as they pointed out, no matter how much he might be tempted by the jewels, there was no possible way for him to escape with them. He was clever enough to realize this, therefore his resistance to temptation under trying circumstances might be taken for granted. So Pearl at last gave her reluctant consent.

Upon the afternoon of the day that Pearl was to dance Hughie brought the news that the first train bearing passengers had arrived, hours late, nearer six o'clock in the evening, than twelve, noon, when it was due; but nevertheless it had made the journey. It brought several people, but no one seemed to know who they were.

"It is a question," said Gallito, squinting his eyes at the sky, "whether they will get back as easily as they came. See, the snow is again beginning to fall."

It was still snowing as the entire party, men and women, drove down the hill to the town hall. As there was not room for all in the mountain wagon, Seagreave again drove Pearl down in his cart.

They arrived early, as Gallito meant they should, and to his satisfaction found almost nobody in the hall, which was yet but dimly lighted.

Pearl immediately vanished into her dressing room, with Jose carrying the case containing her make-up, changes of costume, slippers, etc., close behind her.

Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas, Flick, Gallito and Seagreave selected their seats in the front row and, sitting down, began a discussion of certain mining matters while the house gradually filled. This took but a few moments. The inhabitants of Colina were too keen for a little diversion after the winter famine of amusement to stand upon the order of their coming. They came at once, and almost in a body.

Pearl was equally prompt, ready to begin upon the stroke of the hour, and as the time approached Hughie could be heard running his fingers over the keys, although the curtains had not yet been drawn back. By this time there was no longer standing room in the hall.

Mrs. Nitschkan was still deep in a mining discussion. "Who should I run across yesterday," she was saying, "but the Thompson boys. They just took a lease on the 'Pennyroyal,' you know, and they wanted me to go up and look it over. Well, I know, and you know, Gallito, the history of that mine from 'way back. 'She's got a bad name, boys,' I says, 'a bad name.' Well, I went through some of the new drifts with 'em, and I chipped off some specimens." She pulled two or three of these from her coat pocket and passed them over to the men. "They sure look mighty good to me," she chuckled. "The truth of the matter is that that mine ain't never been worked right. We can knock it so skilful, though, Gallito, that the boys'll be glad to let us have it for 'most nothing. Jus' look 'round the hall, Bob, an' see if you can see 'em here to-night."

To oblige her he turned in his leisurely fashion and began to scan the audience.

Flick had never been known to start; that was a part of his training. If a cannon had been fired off close to his ear, the narrowest observer could not have discerned the twitch of a muscle; neither would he have exhibited the faintest change of expression; training again. Now, his face was quite as impassive as usual. His mild, indifferent glance continued to rove over the house, noting with the accuracy of an adding machine certain men who either stood or sat in different parts of the house. Presently he encountered the gaze of Hanson, who was sitting almost directly opposite to him and who was evidently trying to attract his attention.

Eye held eye. On Hanson's face was unconcealed triumph, a cynical exultation. He nodded with smiling insolence, but Flick regarded him with a blank stare of non-recognition for a moment or so and then turned indifferently away. It was a matter of considerable surprise to those who bent watchful eyes on him from various parts of the hall that he did not, as far as they could see, speak either to Gallito or Seagreave.

In any event, he would have had but little time for consultation with them, for almost immediately the curtains were drawn aside, Hugh began to play, and Pearl made her appearance. That was the signal for applause as prolonged as it was enthusiastic. She was like a vision of the spring so eagerly awaited by these prisoners of winter. Her frock, which fell to her ankles, was of some white, silky, soft material and was deeply bordered with silver; her sleeves were of silver and there was a touch of silver on the bodice. Her emeralds gleamed like green fire against her bare white throat and as she danced a froth of rose-colored petticoat was visible, foaming above her ankles.

To all those eager, watching people Pearl seemed truly the incarnation of May in all its glory and shimmer, and Hughie's music was like the silver, fluting notes of her insistent heralds proclaiming the south wind, and bird calls and murmuring rivulets of melting snow. And when she ceased and they finally permitted her to withdraw before dancing again it was almost with a shock that they realized that the snow was still falling outside.

It was then that Bob Flick turned at last to his two companions. "You've seen?" was his brief, low-voiced comment. Both men nodded.

"Every deputy in the county here," said Seagreave in as low a voice as the one Flick had used. "No exits for us anywhere. The sheriff has them well stationed."

"Thank God, I came," muttered Gallito, "but I wish we knew their plan."

"That's easy," said Flick. "Hanson's so sure that he's won the game before it's played that he's ready to tell any one that will listen to him how it all happened, before it's begun. I guess I'll go over and talk to him a little before Pearl comes on again."

He rose to his tall, languid height and sauntered in his laziest fashion across the floor.

"Say, stranger," he began, resting his elbow on the back of a chair next Hanson, and leaning his head on his hand, "haven't we met before. It seemed to me a few moments ago when I caught your eye that your face was more or less familiar."

"Well, now ain't that strange!" exclaimed Hanson in affected surprise. "But I just had a sort of an idea that you'd recognize me to-night in spite of my disguise. Yes, now you ask me, let me tell you, since your memory is so poor, that we have met once or twice before, but it ain't likely that we ever will again. Sad," he shook his head and sighed heavily, "I hate to disappoint you by telling you so, but, someway, I got that idea firmly fixed in my head."

"Is that so?" said Flick politely. "Well, maybe you're right. It does kind of look so from the layout you've got here. How are you going to play it, anyway? Both ends to the middle, I suppose."

"Correct," returned Hanson blithely. "We lined up outside to watch you when you got out of the wagon. If you hadn't brought him with you we wouldn't have disturbed you during the entertainment; just gone up the hill and got him and then rounded the rest of you up afterward. But you were kind enough to save us that trouble."

"Don't mention it," drawled Flick; "but I don't just sabe why you didn't take us when we drove up. You had the whole bunch of us then."

"We're taking no chances," Hanson winked knowingly. "The boys up here have been having a pretty long, dull winter, and such a move on our part might have given them the idea that we were trying to break up their fun this evening, which they wouldn't have stood for. Then, old Gallito's popular here, God knows why, and if he'd asked the boys to stand by him and they saw a chance of some excitement, why, we'd have had an unnecessary mix-up. See? Not but what we'd have been a good deal more than equal to any scrap they could have put up even if led by you and old Gallito, but the sheriff didn't want any trouble of that kind when it was so easy to avoid it."

"Good sense," commended Flick, "but are you so sure you've entirely side-stepped that danger? There's after-the-ball-is-over still to be considered."

"Trust old uncle wiseacre over there for that," said Hanson vaingloriously, and nodding as he spoke toward the sheriff, who leaned big and calm and watchful against the door at the back of the room. "He's a born general. The plan, son, can't be beat. They know he's in the Pearl's dressing room and they got the building well surrounded on the outside. I guess it's a scheme that even such crafty crooks as Gallito and—" He paused and quailed a little under Flick's steady regard, the "you" he had meant to say died on his lips. From neither victor nor victim did Bob Flick ever permit a familiarity. "Yes, there's no getaway possible," he substituted hastily. "It'd be foolish of you boys to try and put up a fight."

"I guess you're right," agreed Flick. "I guess we're too old and stiff and tired to draw our guns unless there's a chance for us, anyway." Flick rose with his usual languor. "Well, so long Mr.—— your name sure does escape me." He strolled back to his companions, resuming his seat in his usual unhurried and indifferent way. The curtains had not yet parted, so he took occasion to relate to Gallito and Seagreave the result of his conversation with Hanson, careless of the fact that the latter sat watching them, gloating with malicious amusement over the spectacle of the three of them so hopelessly entangled in the net and yet engaging in the futile discussion of methods of escape.

As Bob Flick whispered the scheme to the two men the gloom deepened on Gallito's face. It seemed to him too comprehensive and efficacious to evade. But Harry did not share his depression. As he listened his face changed and set. In his eyes was a flash like sunlight on steel. He was the old Seagreave again whom Jose had once described to Gallito. The Seagreave whose mind worked with lightning rapidity, who ventured anything, as gay and invincible he fought in the last ditch, his back to the wall and all the odds against him.

"I've got an idea," he said. "It may not work, but it's a chance." He bent forward and in a rapid whisper outlined his plan for them. "I wonder," he said, "if they'd nab me if I started to go over and talk to Hughie? Do you suppose they would permit me a word with him?"

Flick laughed. "Any number of them," he said. "If the rats they've caught want to run around in the trap, what's that to them?"

Seagreave had no opportunity to carry out his plan just then, for Hugh began to play and Pearl made her second appearance. The very sight of her, their vision of spring, who seemed to have sped up from the valley far below and transformed the dark and dreary winter, brought the house to its feet and sent a storm of applause ringing to the rafters.

But she was spring no longer. In this dance of the seasons she was giving them she now typified summer, splendid and glowing. Her gown was a vivid green, spangled with gold and wreathed in roses. A festoon of pink and crimson flowers lay about her neck, its long ends falling almost to the foot of her frock, and her hair was crowned with roses. And her dancing had changed. It was no longer the springtime she portrayed, with all her plastic grace of motion, symbolizing its delicate evanescence with arch hesitations and fugitive advances, and all the playful joyousness of youth.

On this second appearance she was dancing the summer and dancing it with a passionate zest and spirit, alternated with enchanting languors. When at last she ceased it seemed as if the encores which drew her back on the stage again and again would never end.

And the sheriff, noting this, stirred uneasily and whispered to a grizzled companion: "I wish this was over, Lord, I do! Things don't look quite so dead sure as they did. Gosh! She's got 'em all right in the hollow of her hand."

"It's her you got to reckon with," returned the companion gloomily. "This blasted long winter's got the boys right on edge. They're jus' spoiling for some deviltry or other, and if she comes out in front of the curtain and makes an appeal to 'em, why, there'll be one of the meanest scraps that's been seen in the mountains for some time."

"You bet," agreed the sheriff. "What do you suppose that Seagreave's chinning Hughie about."

"God knows!" returned his pessimistic companion. "Nothing that's going to help us any, you can stake your bottom dime on that. Here she comes again, and you and me's just as big fools about her as the rest if we'd let ourselves be."

This time Pearl danced the autumn, a vision of crimson and gold, with grape leaves wreathing her black hair. If Hugh had conveyed to her any disturbing news during the intermission, she showed no trace of it in her dancing, and if she had stirred her audience to impassioned enthusiasm before, it was unlimited, almost frantic now. She was the flame of autumn upon the mountain hillsides, a torch burning with the joy of life and flinging her gay, defiant splendor in the menacing face of winter. Before she had finished the house was on its feet, shouting and clapping and refusing to let her leave the stage.

"She's gone to their heads worse'n wine," muttered the sheriff. "I suppose it's now she's goin' to ask 'em to stand by her, an' with leaders like Gallito an' Bob Flick an' Harry Seagreave to line 'em up an' carry things with a rush, where in hell are we?"

But the dramatic appeal he had anticipated was not made. The Pearl, after one recall after another, had thrown a final kiss to her appreciative audience, had retired to her dressing room and positively refused to appear again.

The sheriff sat down limply for a moment. "I'm beat," he said to the man who had shared his fears, "just beat. The Lord is sure on our side to-night. Gosh! They had the whole thing in their own hands and didn't know it. Well, the rest is pie. All we got to do is to take 'em all nice an' quiet now, and probably not a gun drawed." He moved about giving his orders to different men about the hall.

Slowly the good-humored, laughing crowd filed out. The presence of the sheriff and the various deputies aroused no suspicion. It was but natural that any one who could get there from the surrounding camps should be present.

About half of the people had passed through the narrow door when Pearl made her appearance at the back of the hall. She had thrust her arms into a long, fur-lined crimson cloak, but it fell open from the neck down, revealing her crimson and gold frock and gleaming emeralds. A black lace mantilla was thrown over her head and half over her face, showing only her sparkling eyes. She began taking various gay, little steps, still full of that joy of movement which had possessed her all evening.

Those who remained in the hall began to laugh and applaud. She danced a moment in response to it, and then, pausing, suddenly bowed low and shook her head definitely. Then she wrapped her cloak closely about her, turning up its wide, fur-lined collar, and, linking her arm with Hughie's, came down the room with him still taking those irrepressible little steps. Just as she reached the door she whisked a handkerchief from a pocket in her cloak and held it to her nose. A waft of exquisite perfume filled the air, but the eyes of the two deputies who guarded the door were fixed with an almost stunned astonishment upon the jewels which covered her bare hands.

The sheriff had given orders that the Pearl and Hughie, Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Nitschkan were to be allowed to pass, were, in fact, to be got out of the hall just as quickly as possible; but these orders had not been clearly understood and the two deputies at the door halted Pearl, Hughie and Mrs. Thomas, who was close to them.

Before either Pearl or Hughie could protest Seagreave, who had been about ten feet behind them, was at their side. "Let them pass," he said. "Those are your orders."

"I hadn't heard it," said the other man, "and I'm not taking my orders from you."

But the words were scarcely out of his mouth before Seagreave's arm, that "left" which had floored many an opponent in the old days of his middle-weight championship, shot out in a hook, lightning-like, to the right side of the jaw of the nearest deputy. The man reeled under that impact and went crashing over against his companion, bringing them both in a heap to the floor. At the same moment Pearl, grasping Hughie's arm, pulled him about the two who lay half stunned and was out of the door like a flash.

Mrs. Thomas, who had been taken into the confidence of the group only so far as to have it impressed upon her that she uttered the word Jose at her peril, and that the bandit's name was now Pedro, had not been quick enough to follow Pearl and Hugh in their flight through the door and now stood helplessly gazing about her, confused, almost dazed, by the whole situation.

The sheriff, whose attention had meanwhile been occupied by Mrs. Nitschkan, who was creating a lusty disturbance in the middle of the floor, ran forward, shouting orders. "Let 'em go, I tell you!" to those who would have pursued the Pearl. "Where's your heads? I told you that this hall had got to be cleared, and cleared quick, of the women. As for you, Seagreave," catching Harry by the arm, "don't try to wriggle through that door. You're under arrest."

"Look here, sheriff, it's snowing heavily. Hugh's blind, as you know, and can't possibly drive my horse up the hill. I drove Miss Gallito down in my cart and was to drive her back. You know there's no earthly way for me to escape, so if you let me drive those two up the hill, I'll either come back here or you can get me in my cabin."

"So that's your game, son!" the sheriff smiled cynically. "To stir the boys up now. It's too late. They're all safe home, with their boots off, and their wives talkin' to them. Even the girl couldn't make 'em forget the honor of capturing Crop-eared Jose here in Colina, so run along, run along. The girl's too pretty to be hurt with a frisky horse. My Lord!" striding down the hall again, "you fools stop scrapping with that termagant and put her out, put her out, I say."

"Try it yourself," called Nitschkan tauntingly, enjoying to the full her "hour of glorious strife," and resisting with perfect ease the vague and chivalrous efforts of half a dozen deputies to hustle her from the hall. "Any more of you try to mix it up with me and I'll put you all down for the count."

"Oh, Sadie, Sadie," cried Mrs. Thomas, running down the hall toward her friend, "it do beat the dogs how you act. These gentlemen'll think you're no lady. Do behave more refined."

But Mrs. Nitschkan paid no heed to her pleadings. "Who's this Jose you're all talking about?" she cried. "I know Pedro, but no Jose."

Then she wasted no more breath in words, but gave herself strictly to the business of the moment, prolonging the straggle far beyond the patience of the sheriff and his men. But ultimately numbers prevailed, and, although she resisted to the last moment, giving no quarter and asking none, she was finally landed outside and the door locked upon her.

Swearing volubly, the sheriff turned his attention to that far end of the hall where the deputies who had not been engaged in the struggle with Mrs. Nitschkan stood guard over Gallito and Flick, who had ranged themselves before the crimson curtain of Pearl's dressing room. Two men, three, counting Jose behind the curtain, against at least twenty! Hanson, from the back of the hall, yielded to his inclination to laugh.

"They lined up just as I expected," muttered the sheriff as he advanced down the room, "and it's a lot of good it's going to do them. Say," he called to Flick and Gallito, "it ain't no use drawing your guns, boys. I guess you two old hands got sense enough to see that. So all you got to do is to hand over the prisoner. We'll tend to the rest of you later."

"I guess you're all right"—Bob Flick's soft voice had a carrying quality which caused his words to be heard all over the hall—"but we all, Gallito and myself here, feel kind of puzzled. Of course, we see right from the first what the game was and that you were after us, but we ain't wise yet."



"Is that so?" sneered the sheriff. "Well, you soon will be. You step aside from that curtain, and, Bob Flick, my men have orders to wing you and Gallito both the minute you even start to throw your hands back."

Gallito shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands and Flick laughingly waved his in the air.

"I guess you're right there, Bill," he said. "You sure got the argument of numbers. But say, boys, honest, what bug you all got in your heads? You see in this land of the free you can't subject me and my friend Gallito to such indignities as you're a heaping on us. As far as I can make out, you're only laying up trouble for yourself, and also"—here there rang a peculiarly menacing note through his soft, southern voice—"if I'm correct, you're accusing Miss Pearl Gallito of being a suspicious character, and I'm assuring you now, boys, that either in the desert or here in the mountains that that's the sort of thing you've got to answer for."

"Stop your kidding, Bob," said the sheriff, impatiently. He took a rapid stride forward and with one quick sweep of the arm ripped back the curtain.

Then he fell back staring, dumb with surprise. For there stood the Black Pearl alone, a man's coat buttoned across her bare chest, and beneath it the froth of her rose-colored silk petticoats. She stood nonchalantly enough, her head thrown back, her hands on her hips, surveying the group of men with a quick, disdainful smile, and then laughed insolently across them at Hanson.

"My Lord!" cried the sheriff, recovering himself, "how did you get here? Why, you just went out of the door."

"Gee! Jose dressed up in her clothes and made a getaway," called a shrill voice from the rear.

The sheriff swore audibly and violently as he ran to the door. "Here, three of you boys," he ordered, "stay here and hold these prisoners. It ain't ten minutes since the others left and there's no chance on earth for 'em to escape. We'll have 'em before you know it. Come on, the rest of you."



CHAPTER XIII

The morning dawned, but the Sheriff and his aids, their numbers considerably increased by the various masculine inhabitants of Colina who had joyously proffered their assistance—welcoming anything that promised a little excitement after the wearing monotony of the winter—were still seeking Jose, who seemed to have vanished in some manner only to be explained as miraculous.

Gallito, Bob Flick, Pearl and Hugh, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas had all been taken to the village hotel and were there under guard, while Seagreave, also under guard, was permitted to remain temporarily, at least, in his cabin.

The reason for this was that the sheriff was beginning to turn over certain rather vexing questions in his mind. Suppose, for instance, Jose should really have made his escape, impossible as that feat appeared, what definite, tangible proof had he that the crop-eared bandit had really been harbored by Gallito? Only some vague statements made by a woman to Hanson, a woman who thought that she had overheard a conversation or several conversations between Gallito and Bob Flick. There had undoubtedly been some one, some one whose interest it was not to be caught, as the events of the previous night showed, but the explanation they had all given, Flick, Gallito, Hugh, Seagreave and the women, had struck the sheriff as extremely plausible, far more plausible, in fact, than Hanson's story that Crop-eared Jose had been secreted for months at a time in Gallito's cabin.

The explanation which Gallito and all of his group had given was this. A younger brother of Gallito, Pedro by name, had been visiting him for some time. This youth had led a somewhat irregular life both in Spain and in this country, and had become involved in several more or less serious affairs; more, so Gallito averred, from a certain wildness and recklessness of nature than from any criminal instincts. Several of his companions had been arrested and, fearing that he would be also, he had fled to Colina and begged Gallito to shelter him until it was safe for him to go to work in one of the mines.

The night before he had been very anxious to see Pearl dance in public, and, not daring to sit in the audience for fear of being recognized by some chance wayfarer, he had gained Pearl's consent to watch the entertainment from the safe seclusion of her dressing room.