A GRINGO CINDERELLA
"Whether you're here for health, pleasure, or business there ain't a
more up-and-comin' town this side o' the Rio than Limasito," Jim
Baggott remarked with the air of publicity-promoter as he "set 'em up"
for a plump, white-mustached stranger, who had drawn up to the hotel an
hour before in an impressive car, and whose equally impressive array of
luggage was even then distributed about the best suite the
establishment afforded.
"I'm here on business, Mr. Baggott," the stranger replied promptly to
his host's tactfully implied question. "Did you ever hear of a gambler
known as 'Gentleman Geoff'? I understand he located somewhere about
here ten years ago."
"Hear of him?" Jim repeated gruffly, and turned his head away. "He was
one of our most prom'nent citizens; ran the Blue Chip over yonder."
"Indeed?" The stranger tasted his liquor and replaced the glass with a
fastidious shudder upon the bar. "He is not here now?"
Baggott shook his head.
"You may have heard that Alvarez--El Negrito, they call him--paid us a
little visit a few days ago." He added a profane and heartfelt
abjuration of the bandit. "Most of us were corraled in the Blue Chip,
and Geoff, he was shot down along with a lot of others."
"Dead! How unfortunate! Can you tell me if he left any family; a
daughter, for instance?"
"Sa-ay!" Jim folded his arms on the bar and gazed levelly at his
guest. "What's it to you if he did? I happen to be Geoff's
executor----"
"Ah, that simplifies matters." The stranger drew a card-case from his
pocket. "I am Mason North, of the firm of North, Manning and
Gilchrist, attorneys. We are looking for a young woman known as the
daughter of this Gentleman Geoff, to notify her of something to her
advantage. Can you tell me where she may be found?"
"Known as his daughter?" Jim stammered. "Billie _is_ his daughter,
damn it! There ain't no other young woman----"
"'Billie'?" repeated North sharply. "A derivative, no doubt. That is
significant. I should like very much to see this Miss 'Billie'----"
"Then you've only got to turn your head!" A clear young voice sounded
from the doorway, and the attorney wheeled to confront the object of
his quest.
"Lord, Billie, where'd you vamoose to? The whole town's been askin'
for you for the last three days!" Jim remembered his manners. "This
is Mr. North. He's a lawyer and he says he's got some news for you."
Billie shook hands gravely.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. North."
"And I to meet you, my dear young lady. I have had a long search for
you."
"Do you mean----" her eyes were wide--"that you've come all the way
down here just to see me?"
He smiled.
"I have been searching for you for more than two years. There are some
questions I must ask you. Can we talk here privately without
interruption, Mr. Baggott?--No, don't go!" as Jim started for the door.
"As the chief executor of--ah, Gentleman Geoff, you are presumably this
young lady's de-facto guardian and your presence is imperative."
Considerably impressed, Jim turned a chair around and seated himself
astride it, folding his arms across the back.
"Fire away. I'm listening," he said briefly.
"Has this news anything to do with Dad?" asked Billie.
"Partly, my dear. It concerns you, principally; you, and your
antecedents." North took a sheaf of papers from his pocket, and
produced a fountain pen. "Did you ever hear of a place called Topaz
Gulch?"
"Yes. Dad and I were there when I was a little girl. There was a big
fire; I can just remember seeing it. We left soon after, I think."
"And then where did you go?" The lawyer made rapid notes as he quizzed
her, and Billie stared in growing wonder.
"Oh, we just traveled. I can recall a lot of places, but not their
names; mining camps, and cattle towns and farming centers. Then we
came here, when the boom first started, and Dad built the Blue Chip----"
The lawyer nodded as she faltered.
"That will do, I think. We can go into the details more exhaustively
later, but I am convinced that you are indeed the young woman in the
case. But first, can you tell me anything of your mother?"
"Dad said she died a long time ago." Billie's voice was very low. "I
don't remember her at all, unless----"
"Unless what?" North urged her, not unkindly. "Think, please."
"It seems to me there was someone, when I was very little, who sang
always. There was one song; I should know it again if I heard it, but
it won't come to me now."
"Aha!" The lawyer cleared his throat. "That confirms it. I am going
to tell you, and your good friend here, a story. It goes rather far
back, but I shall ask you to be patient for it concerns you vitally.
Some twenty years ago there lived in New York City a noted financier,
Giles Murdaugh. You do not recall having heard the name?"
Billie shook her head mutely and North went on:
"Giles Murdaugh was a very wealthy man, a power in the world of
finance. He was a widower and his only living relatives were his son,
Ralph, and a niece. At the time I mention, Ralph was a young man, just
out of college. He fell in love with a--a young person who was not his
equal socially; in fact, she earned her living by singing and dancing
upon the stage of a music-hall. She was a most respectable, most
exemplary young woman," he added hastily, "but Giles Murdaugh was
violently opposed to the union. Her name was Violet Ashton."
He paused, but the girl before him made no sign.
"Young Ralph Murdaugh married her, and his father disowned him. The
boy had no income of his own, no profession, and his father's influence
prevented his obtaining any remunerative position. He was very bitter,
and hoped to starve his son into submission and force an annulment of
what he considered a disgraceful marriage, but Ralph was as determined
as his father.
"The young couple left New York finally and went out West to make their
way, but it was a most disheartening experience. Giles Murdaugh's
influence was far-reaching and all doors were closed to them. They
changed their name and went on, but Ralph had been a student rather
than an athlete; he was not strong enough to attempt the rough work
which was all that presented itself, and their resources were gone.
"They drifted at last into Topaz Gulch, Nevada, where Ralph obtained a
position as time-keeper at the Yellow Streak gold mine, and where a
little daughter was born to them, whom they named 'Willa'."
Billie started, and her lips opened, but no words came. Jim Baggott,
too, was silent, his jaw agape and honest eyes almost popping from
their sockets.
"When the baby was two years old, Ralph Murdaugh died, after a long
illness which ate up the little they had been able to save. His wife,
destitute and unable to support the child in any other fashion, turned
to her old profession; she became what was known as a song-and-dance
artiste at a hall named for its owner, 'Jake's'.
"Two years later, the dance-hall burned and Violet Ashton, as she
called herself once more, was lost in the holocaust. As a thoroughly
good woman, she had always been held in the utmost esteem by the
community, rough as it was, and the child, Willa, had become a great
favorite, but on her mother's death the problem of caring for her
arose. There were no women in the town of the proper character to be
trusted with her future, and the camp was in a quandary.
"Among what might be called the shifting population, was a
peripatetic--ah, gambler, who traveled under the sobriquet of
'Gentleman Geoff'. He had set up a shack where he operated a
roulette-wheel and faro-bank, and was very much attached to the child.
Can you not surmise the rest? He adopted her, without legal form, and
took her with him on his wanderings."
"Then I--I----" Billie stammered, aghast. "I am not----"
"You are Willa Murdaugh."
"Holy Christopher!" Jim Baggott passed his hand across his dazed
forehead, and then all three were silent for a space.
The girl sat as if in a dream, her face flushed, her eyes vacant and
fixed, and North forebore to intrude upon her reverie. At length she
roused herself and turned to him with quick decision.
"If I am what you say, you must know my age. How old am I?"
"Nineteen. You will be twenty on the sixth of January, next."
"And now," she drew a deep breath, "will you tell me, please, why you
have taken the trouble to find me?"
"I was about to explain. Your grandfather, Giles Murdaugh, nursed his
resentment for a long time, but at last, finding himself in failing
health and alone, remorse came to him, and the desire for a
reconciliation with his son and daughter-in-law. This change in his
sentiments took place about five years ago. We had been Mr. Murdaugh's
attorneys for ten years or more and he instructed us to institute the
search.
"It was a very difficult one, after the lapse of so long a period of
time. In three years, however, we were able to establish the fact of
Ralph Murdaugh's death, the supposition of his wife's and the fact that
the child had been taken away by the gambler known only as Gentleman
Geoff.
"We were inaugurating a new investigation, when Mr. Murdaugh died very
suddenly. His will, which we had drawn up, directed that a large
reward be offered for trace of his granddaughter, but not through the
medium of the press. The entire search was conducted in a most
discreet manner, I can assure you, and none of your future associates
save the immediate family need know the details of this later episode,
my dear young lady. I refer, of course, to the--ah, adoption.
"In the event of your being found, your late grandfather has made you
his chief beneficiary, but with an absolutely irrevocable condition;
that you make your home with your father's cousin--the niece whom I
mentioned previously--Mrs. Ripley Halstead, and submit to being
educated and trained befitting your station. A generous bequest is
made also to Mrs. Halstead, providing that she agrees to undertake this
charge. I may add that she has been most anxious for the conclusion of
our search, and will welcome you with all her heart. I must
congratulate you, my dear, on your great good fortune."
The erstwhile Billie eyed him steadily.
"Thank you, Mr. North. You were very kind to spend all that time
searching for me, and to have come this long journey to tell me the
truth about myself----"
"Not at all, my dear Miss Murdaugh!" The lawyer beamed. "It was a
matter of business, you know, and I am gratified to have brought it to
a successful conclusion, but aside from that I assure you that I am
delighted to be of service."
"I can't just believe it yet; it seems as if it must be someone else
that all this has happened to." She glanced at the still dumfounded
Jim in an instinctive appeal. "Mr. North, if I really am awake and
this is all true----"
"Yes?" he encouraged her, smiling.
"Then--" her little teeth snapped together, and a cold light flashed in
her eyes--"I am sorry you have had your journey for nothing."
"You--I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Please go back, Mr. North, and tell them that Gentleman Geoff's Billie
refuses to become Miss Willa Murdaugh. I don't want that wicked old
man's money, I don't want anything to do with any of that breed! If
those two poor young folks you tell me about were really my father and
mother, he was as guilty of their deaths as if he'd shot them down in
cold blood! Of course, he did not need to help them if they defied his
wishes, but to starve them, to drive them from pillar to post and deny
them the right to earn the money with which to live, to force other
people to close their doors--oh, he wasn't square!"
"But, my dear young lady! All that was long ago, and he is dead. He
regretted the past, he tried to make restitution. As an evidence of
that he has made you his heiress----"
"Not if I refuse." Her tone was still quiet, but her breast rose and
fell convulsively. "You said awhile ago that no one need know about my
being adopted. You meant no one need know about Dad, didn't you? That
I'd been brought up by a gambler in an oil-boom town? You thought I'd
be ashamed of Dad among all those fine people? Why, I'm proud of him!
Proud that I was known as his girl! He took me when nobody else cared
whether I lived or died, and he's loved me and been everything to me
ever since I can remember. And he was square! It's my own grandfather
that I'm ashamed of for his crookedness! He stacked the cards, and
that's all I need to know about him. Give that Mrs. Halstead what she
was going to get for making me over into a lady, and tell her she
needn't bother. I was raised Gentleman Geoff's Billie and that's good
enough for me. I'm going to stay right here."
"You cannot realize what you are saying!" Mr. North betrayed symptoms
of imminent apoplexy. "You can have no conception now of what this
will mean to you in the future. Millions are involved, I tell you,
millions!"
"I don't want them," she reiterated doggedly. "I don't want even the
name. If I've got to have another, I'll take my mother's--Ashton,
wasn't it?"
The rotund little lawyer bounced from his chair and strode up and down
before the bar, his hands clenched behind his back and his mustache
bristling. The girl watched him curiously, after a brief glance at
Jim, who was sitting very straight, obviously fighting back the words
which choked him.
There was a pause, and then North halted before her.
"I trust that you will not complicate matters by adhering to this hasty
resolution, Miss Murdaugh. It is perhaps natural that you should
resent the treatment accorded your parents, but the past is dead and I
am convinced that when you will have had time for calm, sober
reflection you will realize the absurdity of attempting to maintain
your present attitude. Fortunately the decision does not rest with
you. You cannot know your own mind, you are still a minor----"
"Yes." Billie acquiesced. "That was why I asked you, first off, just
how old I am. You'll have a tough time trying to get me out of Mexico
if I don't want to go, Mr. North. I've seen some law fights over oil
leases down here and I know how cases can be strung out. I'll be of
age in a year and four months and I reckon I can bluff you till then.
I don't know why you should be so anxious to force that money on me and
make me acknowledge myself the granddaughter of a man who didn't play
fair!"
"It is entirely for your own benefit. Surely you can see that?" The
lawyer spoke almost pleadingly. "It would be idiocy, madness to throw
away such a fortune for a quixotic idea! You have never come into
contact with young people of the class to which you really belong or
you would realize all that circumstances have deprived you of
heretofore."
"Oh, I've met one or two." The girl's lip curled. "There's a rich
young New Yorker down here now, named Wiley----"
"Indeed? Starr Wiley?" Mr. North bit his mustache. "H'm! That is
awkward, for you will inevitably encounter him again in the circle to
which your cousins belong. I had hoped--ah, that you would not be
hampered by associations or reminders of your former circumstances, but
Mr. Wiley is a friend and I will see him----"
"Not here, you won't!" growled Jim. "He's gone."
The girl wheeled upon him, her face darkening.
"Gone where?" she demanded. "What do you mean, Jim?"
"How should I know where?" The hotel-keeper shrugged. "His hacienda
is shut up tight, except for the caretaker. Reckon he's gone home for
good. It wasn't none too healthy for him around here."
Billie rose and stumbled to the window. Across the plaza beyond the
flower-market, the Blue Chip could be discerned in an unfamiliar aspect
of transformation. Scaffolding had been erected against its walls and
their cerulean expanse was being rapidly hidden beneath a coating of
brick red. Her eyes blurred for a moment, then a swift hardness came
into them and her small fists clenched at her sides.
"We will not discuss the matter of your inheritance, further, for the
moment." The lawyer's voice, smooth as oil, came from just behind her.
"You will listen to reason, I know, when you have had time for
consideration. Mr. Baggott, here, will agree with me that you must
accept the conditions of your grandfather's will----"
"Mr. Baggott will do nothing of the kind," vociferated that gentleman,
suddenly. "I've listened to all you had to say, and kept my mouth
shet, but since you're bringing me into this, you might as well know
where I stand. Billie's going to do just what she damn' pleases about
this. She don't need the old scoundrel's money--she's got plenty of
her own, and she's not going to be shanghaied across the border while
I'm here to prevent it!"
"Sir----!"
"Never mind, Jim." The girl wheeled quickly. "I've changed my mind.
Mr. North, I'll go with you. I'll accept the conditions and whatever
goes with them. When do we start?"
The lawyer gasped.
"Why--ah, as soon as you can arrange your affairs here. Allow me to
say, my dear Miss Murdaugh, that I am delighted----"
"That's all right, Mr. North," she cut him short with a weary little
gesture. "I--I guess I was kind of hasty. I've got a lot to learn,
and a lot to do, and I may as well begin right away. If you don't
mind, I'll ride back to the Casa de Limas now, and I'll be ready to
start to-morrow morning. So long, Jim."
Avoiding the bewildered reproach in Jim Baggott's honest eyes, and
unmindful of the lawyer's congratulatory hand, Gentleman Geoff's Billie
turned and went out of the door. A moment later, the wild scramble of
her pinto's hoofs echoed back to them from the hard-packed road.
"Women, my dear Baggott!" North shrugged expressively. "They are the
curse of the law courts; they never know their own minds."
"Don't you believe it." Jim awoke from his stupor. "Billie knows
her'n, all right. She's got something up her sleeve, you can bank on
that, and its an ace card in whatever game she's playing. But what in
tarnation the stakes are that she's after is more'n I know. I don't
envy you, Mr. North, you and that lady that's going to make our Billie
over. You'd better take off your coat and spit on your hands, for
you've got the stiffest job ahead of you that you ever tackled.
There's a joker wild, somewhere, and she's playing to win!"