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Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
The original text deliberately leaves a space after a dash (a spaced
mdash) in some dialog, and capitalizes the following word, when it
describes a disjointed thought. For example ‘isn’t it-- Is this all’,
in contrast to ‘Is--is the place’. This spaced mdash is retained in
the etext.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
JUST A GIRL
By CHARLES GARVICE
[Illustration: (decorative emblem)]
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS . . . NEW YORK
Copyright 1895, by George Munro’s Sons.
JUST A GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
There was really a lovely row on at Dan MacGrath’s Eldorado Saloon
in Three Star Camp.
The saloon, a long and narrow room, built of rough, feather-edged
boards and decorated with scraps of turkey-red cotton and cheap
calico lining, with occasional portraits of local celebrities
rudely drawn in charcoal, was well filled with the crew of miners
and camp followers which made up the population of Three Star
Camp--Three Star, it is needless to explain, after the well-known
legend on the brandy bottles.
At one end of the saloon was a drinking-bar, at the other a
card-table; in the center a billiard-table, spotted with candle
grease and stained with the rims and bottoms of wet glasses. Men
were lounging at the bar or playing a noisy game at pool, or
gathered round the faro-table, over which presided Mr. Varley
Howard, the professional gambler of Three Star and other camps.
Whether the really lovely row commenced at the bar, began at the
billiard-table or originated at the faro, it would be difficult to
say; rows sprung up very quickly at Three Star Camp at all times,
but especially at this season, when the weather was disgustingly
hot and everybody feverish and overstrained.
Rows not only began with great facility, but spread with marvelous
ease and rapidity. You had only to refuse a drink; to take up
somebody’s glass; to push against a man accidentally; to observe
that it was cooler than yesterday, when the man you addressed
happened to be particularly hot; or to wear a tall hat--an article
of attire held in special detestation by the whole of Three Star,
and only permitted to Mr. Varley Howard as a special recognition
of his peculiar qualities as a gambler, a man of fashion, and the
promptest and deadliest shot in the district--to raise a shindy
directly. On this night the row was generally welcomed, for
everybody felt _blasé_ and bored and thirsting for any excitement
to relieve the dull monotony of an existence in which bad luck and
the perpetual heat fought for predominance.
So it was with cheerful alacrity that the men gathered round the
two who were credited with starting the shindy, and pulled out
revolvers and bowie-knives for the free fight which everybody knew
would set in with the usual severity.
Varley Howard was the only man who did not rise. He leaned back
in his chair and passed his white hand over his pale, unwrinkled
brow and smoothed his black, gray-streaked hair with a gesture
and manner of languid indifference. His revolver lay on the table
beside a new pack of cards and ready to his hand if he should need
it; but it would not amuse him to kill any one, and it was not very
likely that any one of the desperadoes, however excited, would
desire to kill him. As he leaned back and turned the diamond ring
on his finger, he hummed an air from “Olivette” and looked on at
the rowdy scene through half-closed eyes.
Shots were fired, knives gleamed in the light of the hanging
paraffine-lamp, two or three men were carried out, several others
leaned against the wall stanching more or less serious wounds;
Dan MacGrath himself stood behind the bar, revolver in one hand,
a bottle of his famous--some called it “infamous”--whisky in the
other. Every now and then, as a stray bullet came his way, he
ducked his head, but always clung to the revolver and the bottle,
as if they were the emblems of defense and conciliation: if the
fight continued he might want the one, if it continued, or ended,
his customers would certainly want the other.
When the row was at its height, a man came in at the door--an
oldish man, with a grizzled beard and a face scarred and seamed by
weather and a long series of conflicts with man and beast. He held
a bundle in his arms, and as he entered he put it under his coat
and turned sideways, as if to protect it from the various missiles
which were hurtling through the tobacco-laden air.
“Stop it, boys!” he shouted in a leather-lunged voice. “Stop it, or
some of you will be plugging Her Majesty’s mail.”
He was the Three Star postman.
At the sound of his voice the row ceased as if by magic. Men stuck
their revolvers and knives in their belts and turned toward him, as
if there had never been any fight going on at all.
He strode up to the faro-table, and still with his bundle under
his arm, took a leather wallet from a side-pocket and flung it on
the table.
The men flocked around with cries of “Got anything for me, Bill?”
“Hand out that check I’ve been waiting for!” “Got a message for
me, Willyum?” and so on; most of them in accents of simulated
indifference or burlesque anxiety.
He dealt out the letters with a remark more or less facetious
accompanying each; then, when the distribution was complete, placed
the bundle gingerly on the table in front of Varley Howard.
“What have you got there, William?” asked that gentleman in the
soft and low and musical voice which was one of his most dangerous
fascinations.
The other men looked up from their letters and stared at the
bundle, a soft something wrapped in an old mail-bag.
“Who have you been robbing now, Bill?” inquired one.
“It’s a new dress he lifted from the store at Dog’s Ear Camp for
his missis,” suggested a humorist.
Bill twisted his huge mouth into a smile.
“Guess again,” he said, “though you wouldn’t hit it if you tried
all night. Hands off!” he added, as one of them made for the
bundle. “What do _you_ say, Varley?”
Varley Howard shrugged his shoulders and took up a pack of cards.
“Take the child home to its mother,” he said.
Bill smacked the table noiselessly, and eyed Varley Howard with
admiration.
“Right the first time, Mr. Howard!” he said. “There’s no getting a
rise out of you.”
He opened the old mail-sack as he spoke, and disclosed to the gaze
of the astonished crowd a little child. It was asleep, and as
peacefully and soundly as if it were in a satin-lined cradle.
“Why, it _is_ a kid!” exclaimed one, as the men pressed round
closer and stared at the sleeping child.
Questions were hurled at Bill’s head from every direction.
“Where did you get it?” “Is it a boy or a girl?” “How old is it?”
“Can it walk?” “Can it talk?” “What’s the color of its eyes?” “Just
take it out of that darned old bag and let’s have a look at it!”
But though the questions were numerous and graphic, the tones
in which they were uttered were subdued and hushed; for a child
of tender years was a novelty at Three Star Camp, and produced
a curious effect upon the rough men. Some of them had not seen
a child for years; some of them had left just such a baby in
England; some of them had stood beside a grave about the size of
this bundle. Their faces softened and grew serious as they looked
down at it.
Bill the postman glanced round with an air of triumph and
satisfaction.
“If any of yer had got a spark of human kindness inside yer hides,
you’d offer a man a drink,” he remarked in a voice of suggestive
huskiness.
A dozen men started for the bar, and one secured some whisky and
thrust it into Bill’s hand.
“Drink it and start on your tale, you blank old fraud!” he said.
“Where did you get the kid?”
Bill drank his whisky with aggravating slowness, and, stooping
down, wiped his mouth on a corner of the mail-sack with still more
exasperating elaboration.
“It’s this way,” he said at last. “I was about three mile from
Dog’s Ear when I see something lying in the road. I was near lying
in the road myself, for that darned mare of mine shied as if she
had seen the ghost of a hay-stack. I got down, and ther’ was a
woman lying full length, with her face turned up as if she was
asleep. She was as dead as a herring. Underneath her shawl, and
lyin’ as snug as could be, was this here young ’un.”
He paused and looked round to enjoy the effect of his story.
“How the woman come there, and what she’s died of, I’m blamed if I
know; but there she was, and there she is now. I wrapped the kid
in this yere old sack and brought it on. It’s true there ain’t no
direction on it, and I suppose it’s my duty to return it to the
Dead-Letter office, till it’s claimed by the rightful owner.”
He smiled at the feeble joke, and one or two of the men laughed,
but in a subdued way. Even their rough natures were touched by the
presence of the motherless child lying so placidly, so unconscious
of its loss, on the stained and battered gambling-table.
One of the men cursed the Dead-Letter office.
“It’s yours, Bill,” he said; “leastways, till somebody up and
claims it.”
“What’s the good of it to me?” demanded Bill. “I ain’t got no
missis to look after it, and I’d look pretty carrying a live infant
in front of me on the mare! I’d best take her back to Dog’s Ear,
for I reckon that’s where her mother’d come from.”
“Oh, it’s a ‘her’?” said one.
“It are,” said Bill, sententiously.
“You’ve no evidence to prove that the woman came from Dog’s Ear,”
remarked, with a judicial air, the lawyer of the camp. “Did you
find any papers on her?”
“I didn’t find anything but this,” replied Bill, nodding at the
child. “I didn’t look. I was late a’ready. There may be papers, or
there mayn’t be.”
There was a pause, then Varley Howard said in his slow, languid
voice:
“Let three or four of the men go and bring the woman here.”
His leadership was never disputed, and four men started to obey
him, carrying for a bier the top of a table from which they had
knocked off the rickety legs.
“Meanwhile,” said Dan MacGrath, “what’s to be done with the kid?”
The question, though addressed generally, was answered by Varley
Howard.
“Send for one of the women,” he said.
The female sex were in a minority at Three Star; there were only
three women in the camp. After a conference, conducted in eager
but hushed tones, an old woman, who went by the name of Mother
Melinda--though why “Mother” and why “Melinda” no one knew--was
chosen and sent for.
She arrived, and at once took possession of the child, and by her
gentle handling of it, and the tender smile with which she viewed
it as she pressed it against her battered old heart, proved her
right to the maternal title. When she had disappeared with the
orphan, the saloon resumed its business; but the men drank and
played in a half-hearted way and with an air of expectancy, and
when the four men returned, the crowd collected round them with
eager curiosity. They had taken the woman to Mother Melinda’s hut,
and the spokesman of the four announced that not only were there
no papers upon the body, but nothing of any kind--no mark upon the
linen either of the mother or the child--by which to identify them.
“What’s to be done?” asked Bill, as the person chiefly responsible
for the embarrassing situation.
“Bury the woman and keep the child here,” said a man. “We’ve as
much right to her as that blamed Dog’s Ear. What do they want with
an orphan? They can’t keep themselves, the blanked one-hoss place!”
“That’s all very well,” said Bill, shaking his head gravely; “but
who’s to take the responsibility? She can’t belong to all of yer!”
“I’ll take her!” said one.
“Let me have her!” cried another.
A babel of voices arose. At first shamefacedly, and then openly,
not to say defiantly, a score of men offered to adopt the nameless
child.
Varley Howard alone remained silent. He leaned back in his chair,
shuffling the cards with his white, womanish hand. At last, when
the hubbub had somewhat subsided, he said in his most languid and
indifferent manner:
“You can’t all have her. Some of you wouldn’t know what to do with
her if you got her. Let six of you come round the table here; the
man who gets the highest cards in the pack takes her.”
He looked round the group and selected six men by name.
No one had a better proposal to make; the thing looked fair and
square. They were accustomed to follow his lead.
The six men advanced to the table. The others gathered round and
gazed excitedly over their shoulders.
Varley Howard commenced to deal with his famous grace and facility.
He dealt to himself at last.
“Oh, you stand in, Varley?” said MacGrath.
“I do,” said Varley Howard in his slow way. “Does any one object?”
No one objected, and he proceeded with the dealing until the pack
was exhausted.
“Turn up your cards and count,” he said, and his quick eye checked
each man’s hand.
Then he turned up his own cards and remarked, quietly:
“I have won by an ace. The child’s mine.”
No one questioned his decision; no one murmured. He collected the
cards as listlessly as usual.
“Does any one play any more to-night?” he asked.
But no one wanted any more faro. Playing for a live child had
exhausted even their capacity for excitement.
Varley Howard put on the tall silk hat which distinguished him, and
sauntered out of the saloon. He paused outside to light a cigar
and look up at the starlit sky, then he sauntered down to Mother
Melinda’s hut.
Stretched upon the rude bed was the dead woman, covered decently
and reverently by a blanket. Mother Melinda had undressed the
child, and it was lying asleep in an empty biscuit box. Varley
Howard uncovered its face and looked at it thoughtfully. It was a
pretty child, with thick, reddish-brown hair, and the lashes that
lay upon its cheek were dark and long.
“How old do you think it is?” he asked.
“About three, I reckon,” said Mother Melinda. “It’s a pretty little
thing, ain’t it, Mr. Howard? I wonder who its mother was? Judging
by the looks of her, I should say she was no common kind of woman;
she looks delicate and fine like. I wonder who the child belongs
to.”
“She belongs to me,” said Varley Howard.
“To you!” exclaimed Mother Melinda.
“Yes,” he said, impassively. “I have just won her.”
“What are you going to do with her?” she asked, after a pause of
astonishment.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Leave her in your charge for the
present.”
He took some gold from his pocket and dropped it on the pile of
baby’s clothes lying on the woman’s lap.
“You take care of her for me, will you? Some one may turn up and
claim her. Until they do, she belongs to me.”
He went and looked at the child again and then went out.
They buried the nameless woman two days later. It was an imposing
ceremony. The doctor read the service with so excellent an
imitation of the clerical drawl that he was called the Parson ever
afterward.
Every soul in the camp followed the corpse, and every man put on
a clean shirt and brushed his hair as a mark of respect to the
deceased. Mother Melinda walked next to the coffin with the child
in her arms, and it sat up and crowed with delight at the long
procession; and its laughter and childish unconsciousness were more
pathetic than any tears could have been.
Mr. Varley Howard, in his tall hat and black suit of such
unexceptionable fit as to fill Three Star Camp with honest pride,
walked beside Mother Melinda, and occasionally took the child’s
hand and touched its soft little cheek.
The funeral over, the men returned to the Eldorado saloon to
assuage their thirst with Dan MacGrath’s infamous brand and to
discuss the function. The child, dressed in a white frock, with a
huge black sash constructed out of the remnants of an old black
silk which had been purchased from Dog’s Ear at a fabulous cost,
was brought in and exhibited very much as an extraordinary large
nugget would have been.
Varley Howard took it from Mother Melinda. It went to him
quite readily, as if it acknowledged his right of possession;
and, crowing and chortling, played fearlessly with his diamond
scarf-pin. The men gathered round, and looked on admiringly.
“Seems to know you already, Varley,” said one. “Plays his new
character first-rate, doesn’t he?”
Varley Howard’s pallid face did not move a muscle, not even when
the child caught hold of the carefully trained mustache, which, in
conjunction with the dark eyes and soft, languid voice and graceful
figure of the gambler, had worked so much havoc in the female
hearts of many a rough camp and civilized town.
“By the way,” said the lawyer, “the child hasn’t got a name that we
know of. What are you going to call her, Varley?”
Before he could speak, a torrent of suggestions was showered upon
him.
“Call her Polly!” shouted one.
“Polly be blowed!” said another. “That ain’t half good enough; call
her Mary Anne!”
A string of names was shouted. Varley looked from one to the other;
the child laughed at the noise.
“Give her a name yourself, Varley,” said Dan MacGrath, “and don’t
let it be a slouch of a one. Three Star can afford to run to three
syllables, at any rate. None of your Pollies or Sallies; it ain’t
good enough! You can’t tell who she may be. P’r’aps she’s the
daughter of an earl, like you read of in them blamed story-books.”
“Call her Esmeralda,” said the doctor. “I seem to remember some
swell with that name.”
The suggestion proved acceptable.
“It’s a good name,” said one. “A bit long, perhaps; but you can
call her Esmie or Ralda, if you’re in a hurry.”
“Esmeralda Howard,” said another. “Of course, she takes Varley’s
name.”
“‘Esmeralda Howard’ be it,” said Varley, as impassively as ever.
“Fill up all round, boys.”
The men stood round, and lifted their glasses, and shouted:
“Esmeralda! Esmeralda! And luck to her!”
And Esmeralda the child was christened by general consent.