|PRIOR to leaving New Orleans, Webster had cabled Billy Geary that he
was taking passage on _La Estrellita_ and stating the approximate date
of his arrival at San Buenaventura--which information descended upon
that young man with something of the charm of a gentle rainfall over a
hitherto arid district. He had been seeing Dolores Ruey at least once
a day ever since her return to Sobrante; indeed, only the fear that he
might wear out his welcome prevented him from seeing her twice a day. He
was quick, therefore, to seize upon Webster's cablegram as an excuse
to call upon Dolores and explain the mystery surrounding his friend's
nonappearance.
“Well, Dolores,” he began, in his excitement calling her by her first
name for the first time, “they say it's a long lane that hasn't got a
saloon at the end of it. I've heard from Jack Webster.”
“What's the news, Bill?” Dolores inquired. From the first day of their
acquaintance she had been growing increasingly fond of Geary; for nearly
a week she had been desirous of calling him Bill, which is a comfortable
name and, to Dolores's way of thinking, a peculiarly appropriate
cognomen for such a distinctly American young man. At mention of the
beloved word he glanced down at her pleasurably.
“Thank you,” he said. “I'm glad you got around to it finally. Those that
love me always call me Bill.”
“You called me Dolores.”
“I move we make it unanimous. I'm a foe to formality.”
“Second the motion, Bill. So am I--when I care to be--and in our case
your formality is spoiling our comradeship. And now, with reference to
the extraordinary Senor Webster----”
“Why, the poor old horse has been down with ptomaine poisoning. They
carried him off the train at St. Louis and stood him on his head
and pumped him out and just did manage to cancel his order for a new
tombstone. He says he's feeding regularly again and has booked
passage on _La Estrellita_, so we can look for him on the next steamer
arriving.”
“Oh, the poor fellow!” Dolores murmured--so fervently that Billy was on
the point of hurling his heart at her feet on the instant.
The thousand dollars Webster had cabled Billy “for a road-stake” had
been dwindling rapidly under the stimulus of one continous opportunity
to spend the same in a quarter where it was calculated to bring the
most joy. The pleasures of the Sobrantean capital were not such that the
average Yankee citizen might be inspired to prefer them with any degree
of enthusiasm, but such as they were, Dolores Ruey had them all. In a
country where the line between pure blood and mixed is drawn so
strictly as it is in Sobrante, Billy Geary was, of course, a social
impossibility. He was a Caucasian who would shake hands and have a drink
with a gentleman whose nails showed blue at the bases, for all his white
skin--and in the limited upper-class circles of Buenaventura, where none
but pure-bred descendants of purebred Castilians intermingled, the man
or woman who failed, however slightly, to remember at all times that he
was white, was distinctly _persona non grata_.
The first time Billy appeared in public riding in the same victoria with
Mother Jenks and Dolores, therefore, he was fully aware that for the
future Dolores Ruey was like himself, socially defunct in Sobrante.
However, he did not care, for he had a sneaking suspicion Dolores was
as indifferent as he; in fact, he took a savage delight in the knowledge
that the girl would be proscribed, for with Dolores cut off from all
other society she must, of necessity, turn to him throughout her visit.
So, up to the night _La Estrellita_, with John Stuart Webster on board,
dropped anchor on the quarantine-ground, Mr. Geary was the unflagging
ballyhoo for a personally conducted tour of Dolores Ruey's native land
within a radius of fifteen miles about Buenaventura. He was absolutely
bogged in the quagmire of his first love affair, but until his mining
concession should amply justify an avowal of his passion, an instinctive
sense of the eternal fitness of things reminded Billy of the old proverb
that a closed mouth catches no flies. And in the meantime (such is the
optimism of youth) he decided there was no need for worry, for when a
girl calls a fellow Bill, when she tells him he's a scout and doesn't
care a whoop for any society except his--_caramba!_ it's great!
A wireless from Webster warned Billy of the former's imminent arrival.
Just before sunset Billy and Dolores, riding along the Malecon, sighted
a blur of smoke far out to sea--a blur that grew and grew until they
could make out the graceful white hull of _La Estrellita_, before
the swift tropic night descended and the lights of the great vessel
shimmered across the harbour.
“Too late to clear quarantine to-night,” Billy mourned, as he and
Dolores rode back to her hotel. “All the same, I'm going to borrow the
launch of my good friend Leber and his _protégé_ Don Juan Cafetéro, and
go out to the steamer to-night. I can heave to a little way from the
steamer and welcome the old rascal, anyhow; he'll be expecting me to do
that, and I wouldn't disappoint him for a farm.”
Fortunately, good little Leber consented to Billy's request, and Don
Juan Cafetéro was sober enough to turn the engine over and run the
launch. From the deck of the steamer Webster, smoking his postprandial
cigar, caught sight of the launch's red and green sidelights chugging
through the inky blackness; as the little craft slid up to within a
cable's-length of the steamer and hove to, something told Webster that
Billy Geary would soon be paging him. He edged over to the rail.
“That you, Bill?” he shouted.
“Hey! Jack, old pal!” Billy's delighted voice answered him.
“I knew you'd come, Billy boy.”
“I knew you'd know it, Johnny. Can't come aboard, you know, until the
ship clears, but I can lie off here and say hello. How is your internal
mechanism?”
“Grand. I've got the world by the tail on a down-hill haul once more,
son. However, your query reminds me I haven't taken the medicine the
doctor warned me to take after meals for a couple of weeks. Wait a
minute, Bill, until I go to my stateroom and do my duty by my stomach.”
For ten minutes Billy and Don Juan Cafetéro bobbed about in the launch;
then a stentorian voice shouted from the steamer. “Hey, you! In the
launch, there. Not so close. Back off.”
Don Juan kicked the launch back fifty feet. “That will do!” the voice
called again.
“Hello!” Billy soliloquized. “That's Jack Webster's voice. I've heard
him bossing a gang of miners too often not to recognize that
note of command. Wonder what he's up to. I thought he acted
strangely--preferring medicine to me the minute I hailed him!”
While he was considering the matter, a voice behind him said very softly
and indistinctly, like a man with a harelip:
“Mr. Geary, will you be good enough to back your launch a couple of
hundred feet? When I'm certain I can't be seen from the steamer, I'll
come aboard.” Billy turned, and in the dim light of his binnacle lamp
observed a beautiful pair of white hands grasping the gunwale on the
starboard quarter. He peered over and made out the head and shoulders of
a man.
“All right,” he replied in a low voice. “Hang where you are, and you'll
be clear of the propeller.”
He signalled Don Juan, who backed swiftly away, while Billy doused the
binnacle lamp.
“That'll do,” the thick voice said presently. “Bear a hand, friend, and
I'll climb over.”
He came, as naked as Mercury, sprawled on his belly in the cockpit,
opened his mouth, spat out a compact little roll of tinfoil, opened it
and drew out a ball of paper which he flattened out on the floor of the
cockpit and handed up to Billy.
“Thank you,” he said, very courteously and distinctly now. “My
credentials, Mr. Geary, if you please.”
Billy re-lighted the lamp and read:
Dear Billy:
I do not know the bearer from Adam's off ox; all I know about him is
that he has all the outward marks of a gentleman, the courage of a
bear-cat, a sense of humor and a head for which the Présidente of
Sobrante will gladly pay a considerable number of _pesos oro_. Don't
give up the head, because I like it and we do not need the money--yet.
Take him ashore without anybody knowing it; hide him, clothe him, feed
him--then forget all about him.
Ever thine,
J. S. Webster.
“Kick the boat ahead again, Cafferty,” Billy ordered quietly. He turned
to the late arrival.
“Mr. Man, your credentials are all in apple-pie order. Do you happen to
know this bay is swarming with man-eating sharks?”
The man raised a fine, strong, youthful face and grinned at him.
“Hobson's choice, Mr. Geary,” he replied. “Afloat or ashore, the sharks
are after me. Sir, I am your debtor.” He crawled into the cabin and
stretched out on the settee as John Stuart Webster's voice came floating
across the dark waters. “Hey, Billy!”
“Hey, yourself!”
“Everything well with you, Billy?”
“All is lovely, Jack, and the goose honks high. By the way, that friend
of yours called with his letter of introduction. I took care of him.”
“Thanks. I suppose you'll call for me in that launch to-morrow morning?”
“Surest thing you know, Jack. Good-night, old top.”
“Good-night, Billy. See you in the morning.” Don Juan Cafetéra swung
the launch and headed back for the city. At Leber's little dock Billy
stepped ashore, while Don Juan backed out into the dark bay again in
order to avoid inquisitive visitors. Billy hastened to El Buen Amigo
and returned presently with a bundle of clothes; at an agreed signal Don
Juan kicked the launch into the dock again and Billy went aboard.
“Hat, shirt, necktie, duck suit, white socks, and shoes,” he whispered.
“Climb into them, stranger.” Once more the launch backed out in the bay,
where Webster's _protégé_ dressed at his leisure, and Billy handed Don
Juan a couple of pesos.
“Remember, John,” he cautioned the bibulous one as they tied up for the
night, “nothing unusual happened to-night.”
“Divil a thing, Misther Geary. Thank you, sor,” the Gaelic wreck replied
blithely and disappeared in the darkness, leaving Billy to guide the
stranger to El Buen Amigo, where he was taken into the confidence of
Mother Jenks and, on Billy's guarantee of the board bill, furnished with
a room and left to his own devices.
*****
John Stuart Webster came down the gangplank into Leber's launch hard on
the heels of the port doctor.
“You young horse-thief,” he cried affectionately. “I believe it's the
custom down this way for men to kiss each other. We'll dispense with
that, but by----” He folded Billy in a paternal embrace, then held him
at arm's length and looked him over.
“Lord, son,” he said, “you're as thin as a snake. I'll have to feed you
up.”
As they sped toward the landing, he looked Billy over once more. “I
have it,” he declared. “You need a change of climate to get rid of that
malaria. Just show me this little old mining claim of yours, Bill, and
then hike for God's country. Three months up there will put you right
again, and by the time you get back, we'll be about ready to weigh the
first cleanup.”
Billy shook his head. “I'd like to mighty well, Jack,” he replied, “but
I just can't.”
“Huh! I suppose you don't think I'm equal to the task of straightening
out this concession of yours and making a hummer out of it, eh?”
The young fellow looked across at him sheepishly. “Mine?” he jeered.
“Who's talking about a mine. I'm thinking of a girl!”
“Oh!”
“Some girl, Johnny.”
“I hope she's not some parrakeet,” Webster bantered. “Have you looked up
her pedigree?”
“Ah-h-h!” Billy spat over the side in sheer disgust. “This is an
American girl--born here, but white--raised in the U. S. A. I've only
known her three weeks, but--ah!” And Billy kissed his hand into space.
“Well, I'm glad I find you so happy, boy. I suppose you're going to
let your old Jack-partner give her the once-over and render his report
before you make the fatal leap--eh?”
“Sure! I want you to meet her. I've been telling her all about you, and
she's crazy to meet you.”
“Good news! I had a good friend once--twice--three times--and lost him
every time. Wives get so suspicious of their husband's single friends,
you know, so Ï hope I make a hit with your heart's desire, Billy. When
do you pull off the wedding?”
“Oh,” said Billy, “that's premature, Jack. I haven't asked her. How
could I until I'm able to support her?”
“Look here, son,” Webster replied, “don't you go to work and be the kind
of fool I was. You get married and take a chance. If you do, you'll have
a son sprouting into manhood when you're as old as I. A man ought to
marry young, Bill. Hang the odds. I know what's good for you.”
At the hotel, while Webster shaved and arrayed himself in an immaculate
white duck suit, with a broad black silk belt, buck shoes, and a Panama
hat. Billy sent a note to Dolores, apprising her that John Stuart
Webster had arrived--and would she be good enough to receive them?
Miss Ruey would be that gracious. She was waiting for them in the
veranda just off the _patio_, outwardly calm, but inwardly a foment of
conflicting emotions. As they approached she affected not to see them
and turning, glanced in the opposite direction; nor did she move her
head until Billy's voice, speaking at her elbow, said:
“Well, Dolores, here's my old Jack-partner waiting to be introduced.
Jack, permit me to present Miss Dolores Ruey.”
She turned her face and rose graciously, marking with secret triumph
the light of recognition that; leaped to his eyes, hovered there the
hundredth part of a second and departed, leaving those keen, quizzical
blue orbs appraising her in the most natural manner imaginable. Webster
bowed..
“It is a great happiness to meet you, Miss Ruey,” he said gravely.
Dolores gave him her hand. “You have doubtless forgotten, Mr. Webster,
but I think we have met before.”
“Indeed!” John Stuart Webster murmured interestedly. “So stupid of me
not to remember. Where did we meet?”
“He has a profound sense of humour,” she soliloquized. “He's going to
force me into the open. Oh, dear, I'm helpless.” Aloud she said: “On
the train in Death Valley last month, Mr. Webster. You came aboard with
whiskers.”
Webster shook his head slowly, as if mystified. “I fear you're mistaken,
Miss Ruey. I cannot recall the meeting, and if I ever wore whiskers, no
human being would ever be able to recognize me without them. Besides, I
wasn't on the train in Death Valley last month. I was in Denver--so you
must have met some other Mr. Webster.”
She flushed furiously. “I didn't think I could be mistaken,” she
answered a trifle coldly.
“It is my misfortune that you were,” he replied graciously. “Certainly,
had we met at that time, I should not have failed to recognize you now.
Somehow, Miss Ruey, I never have any luck.”
She was completely outgeneralled, and having the good sense to realize
it, submitted gracefully. “He's perfectly horrible,” she told herself,
“but at least he can lie like a gentleman--and I always did like that
kind of man.”
So they chatted on the veranda until luncheon was announced and Dolores
left them to go to her room.
“Well?” Billy queried the moment she was out of earshot. “What do you
think, Johnny?”
“I think,” said John Stuart Webster slowly, “that you're a good picker,
Bill. She's my ideal of a fine young woman, and my advice to you is to
marry her. I'll grub-stake you. Bill, this stiff collar is choking me; I
wish you'd wait here while I go to my room and rustle up a soft one.”
In the privacy of his room John Stuart Webster sat down on his bed and
held his head in his hands, for he had just received a blow in the solar
plexus and was still groggy; there was an ache in his head, and the
quizzical light had faded from his eyes. Presently, however, he
pulled himself together and approaching the mirror looked long at his
weather-beaten countenance.
“Too old,” he murmured, “too old to be dreaming dreams.”
He changed to a soft collar, and when he descended to the _patio_ to
join Billy once more he was, to all outward appearances, his usual
unperturbed self, for his was one of those rare natures that can derive
a certain comfort from the misery of self-sacrifice--and in that five
minutes alone in his room John Stuart Webster had wrestled with the
tragedy of his life and won.
He had resolved to give Billy the right of way on the highway to
happiness.