The long, parched summer had drawn to its dusty close. Much of it was
already blown abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, or crackled
in harsh, unelastic fibres on hillside and meadow. Some of it had
disappeared in the palpable smoke by day and fiery crests by night of
burning forests. The besieging fogs on the Coast Range daily thinned
their hosts, and at last vanished. The wind changed from northwest to
southwest. The salt breath of the sea was on the summit. And then
one day the staring, unchanged sky was faintly touched with remote
mysterious clouds, and grew tremulous in expression. The next morning
dawned upon a newer face in the heavens, on changed woods, on altered
outlines, on vanished crests, on forgotten distances. It was raining!
Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intense
blue aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pines
and redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed
to be held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharp
waves on the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenly
overflowed the trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from
the storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken by the
impetuous rush of waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's
retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became a cascade.
The storm drove Fairley from his couch early. The falling of a large
tree across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small stream beside
it, hastened his steps. But he was doomed to encounter what was to him a
more disagreeable object--a human figure. By the bedraggled drapery that
flapped and fluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid
the face and eyes, and by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man
recognized one of his old trespassers,--an Indian squaw.
“Clear out 'er that! Come, make tracks, will ye?” the old man screamed;
but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him against a hazel bush.
“Me heap sick,” answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy shawl.
“I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch,” continued
Fairley, advancing.
“Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl give me heap grub,” said the squaw,
without moving.
“You bet your life,” groaned the old man to himself. Nevertheless
an idea struck him. “Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?” he asked
cautiously. “Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee girl?” he
continued, insinuatingly.
“Me got heap cache nuts and berries,” said the squaw.
“Oh, in course! in course! That's just it,” screamed Fairley; “you've
got 'em cached only two mile from yer, and you'll go and get 'em for a
half dollar, cash down.”
“Me bring Wangee girl to cache,” replied the Indian, pointing to the
wood. “Honest Injin.”
Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley. But it required some
elaboration. Hurrying the squaw with him through the pelting rain, he
reached the shelter of the corral. Vainly the shivering aborigine drew
her tightly bandaged papoose closer to her square, flat breast, and
looked longingly toward the cabin; the old man backed her against the
palisade. Here he cautiously imparted his dark intentions to employ her
to keep watch and ward over the ranch, and especially over its young
mistress--“clear out all the tramps 'ceptin' yourself, and I'll keep
ye in grub and rum.” Many and deliberate repetitions of this offer in
various forms at last seemed to affect the squaw; she nodded violently,
and echoed the last word “rum.” “Now,” she added. The old man hesitated;
she was in possession of his secret; he groaned, and, promising an
immediate installment of liquor, led her to the cabin.
The door was so securely fastened against the impact of the storm that
some moments elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old man had
become impatient and profane. When it was partly opened by Flip he
hastily slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and cast one
single suspicious glance around the rude apartment which served as a
sitting-room. Flip had apparently been writing. A small inkstand was
still on the board table, but her paper had evidently been concealed
before she allowed them to enter. The squaw instantly squatted before
the adobe hearth, warmed her bundled baby, and left the ceremony
of introduction to her companion. Flip regarded the two with calm
preoccupation and indifference. The only thing that touched her interest
was the old squaw's draggled skirt and limp neckerchief. They were
Flip's own, long since abandoned and cast off in the Gin and Ginger
Woods. “Secrets again,” whined Fairley, still eying Flip furtively.
“Secrets again, in course--in course--jiss so. Secrets that must be kep
from the ole man. Dark doin's by one's own flesh and blood. Go on! go
on! Don't mind me.” Flip did not reply. She had even lost the interest
in her old dress. Perhaps it had only touched some note in unison with
her revery.
“Can't ye get the poor critter some whiskey?” he queried, fretfully. “Ye
used to be peart enuff before.” As Flip turned to the corner to lift
the demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with his foot, and
indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not to be alluded
to before the girl. Flip poured out some whiskey in a tin cup, and,
approaching the squaw, handed it to her. “It's like ez not,” continued
Fairley to his daughter, but looking at the squaw, “that she'll be
huntin' the woods off and on, and kinder looking after the last pit near
the Madronos; ye'll give her grub and licker ez she likes. Well, d'ye
hear, Flip? Are ye moonin' agin with yer secrets? What's gone with ye?”
If the child were dreaming, it was a delicious dream. Her magnetic eyes
were suffused by a strange light, as though the eye itself had blushed;
her full pulse showed itself more in the rounding outline of her cheek
than in any deepening of color; indeed, if there was any heightening of
tint, it was in her freckles, which fairly glistened like tiny spangles.
Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders slightly bent, but her voice was
low and clear and thoughtful as ever.
“One o' the big pines above the Madrono pit has blown over into the
run,” she said. “It's choked up the water, and it's risin' fast. Like ez
not it's pourin' over into the pit by this time.”
The old man rose with a fretful cry. “And why in blames didn't you say
so first?” he screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to the door.
“Ye didn't give me a chance,” said Flip, raising her eyes for the first
time. With an impatient imprecation, Fairley darted by her and rushed
into the wood. In an instant she had shut the door and bolted it. In
the same instant the squaw arose, dashed the long hair not only from her
eyes, but from her head, tore away her shawl and blanket, and revealed
the square shoulders of Lance Harriott! Flip remained leaning against
the door; but the young man in rising dropped the bandaged papoose,
which rolled from his lap into the fire. Flip, with a cry, sprang toward
it; but Lance caught her by the waist with one arm, as with the other he
dragged the bundle from the flames.
“Don't be alarmed,” he said, gayly, “it's only--”
“What?” said Flip, trying to disengage herself.
“My coat and trousers.”
Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to another attempt to kiss her. She
evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and saying, “There's
father.”
“But he's gone to clear away that tree?” suggested Lance.
One of Flip's significant silences followed.
“Oh, I see,” he laughed. “That was a plan to get him away! Ah!” She had
released herself.
“Why did you come like that?” she said, pointing to his wig and blanket.
“To see if you'd know me,” he responded.
“No,” said Flip, dropping her eyes. “It's to keep other people from
knowing you. You're hidin' agin.”
“I am,” returned Lance; “but,” he interrupted, “it's only the same old
thing.”
“But you wrote from Monterey that it was all over,” she persisted.
“So it would have been,” he said gloomily, “but for some dog down here
who is hunting up an old scent. I'll spot him yet, and--” He stopped
suddenly, with such utter abstraction of hatred in his fixed and
glittering eyes that she almost feared him. She laid her hand quite
unconsciously on his arm. He grasped it; his face changed.
“I couldn't wait any longer to see you, Flip, so I came here anyway,”
he went on. “I thought to hang round and get a chance to speak to you
first, when I fell afoul of the old man. He didn't know me, and tumbled
right in my little game. Why, do you believe he wants to hire me for my
grub and liquor, to act as a sort of sentry over you and the ranch?”
And here he related with great gusto the substance of his interview. “I
reckon as he's that suspicious,” he concluded, “I'd better play it out
now as I've begun, only it's mighty hard I can't see you here before the
fire in your fancy toggery, Flip, but must dodge in and out of the wet
underbrush in these yer duds of yours that I picked up in the old place
in the Gin and Ginger Woods.”
“Then you came here just to see me?” asked Flip.
“I did.”
“For only that?”
“Only that.”
Flip dropped her eyes. Lance had got his other arm around her waist, but
her resisting little hand was still potent.
“Listen,” she said at last without looking up, but apparently talking to
the intruding arm, “when Dad comes I'll get him to send you to watch the
diamond pit. It isn't far; it's warm, and”--
“What?”
“I'll come, after a bit, and see you. Quit foolin' now. If you'd only
have come here like yourself--like--like--a white man.”
“The old man,” interrupted Lance, “would have just passed me on to the
summit. I couldn't have played the lost fisherman on him at this time of
year.”
“Ye could have been stopped at the Crossing by high water, you silly,”
said the girl. “It was.” This grammatical obscurity referred to the
stage coach.
“Yes, but I might have been tracked to this cabin. And look here, Flip,”
he said, suddenly straightening himself, and lifting the girl's face to
a level with his own, “I don't want you to lie any more for me. It ain't
right.”
“All right. Ye needn't go to the pit, then, and I won't come.”
“Flip!”
“And here's Dad coming. Quick!”
Lance chose to put his own interpretation on this last adjuration. The
resisting little hand was now lying quite limp on his shoulder, He drew
her brown, bright face near his own, felt her spiced breath on his lips,
his cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, kissed her, hurriedly
replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the fire with the
tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion. Flip had withdrawn
to the window, and was looking out upon the rocking pines.
“He don't seem to be coming,” said Lance, with a half-shy laugh.
“No,” responded Flip demurely, pressing her hot oval cheek against the
wet panes; “I reckon I was mistaken. You're sure,” she added, looking
resolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic needle
toward Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, “you're SURE you'd
like me to come to you?”
“Sure, Flip?”
“Hush!” said Flip, as this reassuring query of reproachful astonishment
appeared about to be emphasized by a forward amatory dash of Lance's;
“hush! he's coming this time, sure.”
It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, exceedingly bedraggled,
exceedingly sponged out as to color, and exceedingly profane. It
appeared that there was, indeed, a tree that had fallen in the
“run,” but that, far from diverting the overflow into the pit, it had
established “back water,” which had forced another outlet. All this
might have been detected at once by any human intellect not distracted
by correspondence with strangers, and enfeebled by habitually scorning
the intellect of its own progenitor. This reckless selfishness had
further only resulted in giving “rheumatics” to that progenitor, who now
required the external administration of opodeldoc to his limbs, and the
internal administration of whiskey. Having thus spoken, Mr. Fairley,
with great promptitude and infantine simplicity, at once bared two legs
of entirely different colors and mutely waited for his daughter to
rub them. If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with the mechanical
dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did not quite understand
the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in his encompassing wig
and blanket, and because it helped her to voice her thought.
“Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night,
Dad,” she said; “and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw there
instead. I can show her what to do.”
But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected.
“Mebbee I've got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbee I may have my
secrets, too--eh?” he said, with dark significance, at the same time
administering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the young
man's exasperation. “No, she'll rest yer a bit just now. I'll set her to
watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want her.” Flip fell into one
of her suggestive silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mollified by a
single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashed against
the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in the hearth of the
broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged by the
internal administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious. The genius of
incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled his conduct came
out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of spirit. “On an
evening like this,” he began, comfortably settling himself on the floor
beside the chimney, “ye might rig yerself out in them new duds and fancy
fixin's that that Sacramento shrimp sent ye, and let your own flesh and
blood see ye. If that's too much to do for your old dad, ye might do it
to please that digger squaw as a Christian act.” Whether in the hidden
depths of the old man's consciousness there was a feeling of paternal
vanity in showing this wretched aborigine the value and importance
of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an
interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quiet assent, and she flew
into the inner room. She did not linger on the details of her toilet,
but reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery; buttoning the
neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at the
window to characteristically pull up her stocking. The peculiarity of
her situation increased her usual shyness; she played with the black and
gold beads of a handsome necklace,--Lance's last gift,--as the merest
child might; her unbuckled shoe gave the squaw a natural opportunity of
showing her admiration and devotion by insisting upon buckling it, and
gave Lance, under that disguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing
the little foot and ankle in the shadow of the chimney; an event which
provoked slight hysterical symptoms in Flip, and caused her to sit
suddenly down in spite of the remonstrances of her parent. “Ef you can't
quit gigglin' and squirmin' like an Injin baby yourself, ye'd better git
rid o' them duds,” he ejaculated with peevish scorn.
Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not be hidden,
and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature whom he believed to
be half-witted and degraded all the more keenly because it did not make
him jealous. She could not take Flip from him. Rendered garrulous by
liquor, he went to voice his contempt for those who might attempt
it. Taking advantage of his daughter's absence to resume her homely
garments, he whispered confidentially to Lance,--
“Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents. Pr'aps
Flip lets on they are? Pr'aps she don't know any better. But they ain't
presents. They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry that a vain,
conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to get
customers for. In course I'm to pay for 'em. In course he reckons I'm
to do it. In course I calkilate to do it; but he needn't try to play 'em
off as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down here, sportin' hisself
off on Flip as a fancy buck! Not ez long ez the old man's here, you
bet.” Thoroughly carried away by his fancied wrongs, it was perhaps
fortunate that he did not observe the flashing eyes of Lance behind his
lank and lustreless wig; but seeing only the figure of Lance, as he had
conjured him, he went on: “That's why I want you to hang around her.
Hang around her ontil my boy,--him that's comin' home on a visit,--gets
here, and I reckon he'll clear out that yar Sacramento counter-jumper.
Only let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does, eh? D'ye hear? Dog my
skin if I don't believe the d----d Injin's drunk.” It was fortunate that
at that moment Flip reappeared, and, dropping on the hearth between her
father and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in his with a warning
pressure. The light touch momentarily recalled him to himself and her,
but not until the quick-witted girl had had revealed to her in one
startled wave of consciousness the full extent of Lance's infirmity
of temper. With the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of
responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger. The coy blossom
of her heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching
shadows. Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. Every moment of
Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from
his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicions his sudden
withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she was dimly conscious
of some mysterious terror without that awaited him. She listened to the
furious onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores beside their cabin, and
thought she heard it there; she listened to the sharp fusillade of rain
upon roof and pane, and the turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain
torrents at their very feet, and fancied it was there. She suddenly
sprang to the window, and, pressing her eyes to the pane, saw
through the misty turmoil of tossing boughs and swaying branches the
scintillating intermittent flames of torches moving on the trail above,
and KNEW it was there!
In an instant she was collected and calm. “Dad,” she said, in her
ordinary indifferent tone, “there's torches movin' up toward the diamond
pit. Likely it's tramps. I'll take the squaw and see.” And before the
old man could stagger to his feet she had dragged Lance with her into
the road.