STRANGERS ON THE BEACH
Next day passed in labour, another two feet being added to the depth.
At ten o’clock on the morning after as the Tommie-Chink-Bud shift were
taking on digging, Hank, shaking sand from his clothes, called out to
the others to look.
Down from the southern defile in the cliffs a small procession was
coming on to the beach. First came a man in a broad-brimmed hat, then
another leading a mule, and another following after.
“Mexicans,” said George.
“Sure,” said Hank. “Look! they’ve seen us, they’ve stopped, now they’re
going on, right down to the sea edge. Wonder what they’re after?”
The Mexicans, having reached the sea edge, began to wander along it
coming in the direction of the tents. Every now and then they stopped
to gather something.
“Seaweed,” said Hank. “Look, they are shoving it into a sack on the
mule.”
“Well, come on,” said Tommie. She jumped into the sand pit and began to
dig, Bud and the Chink following her. Hank rolling a cigarette, sat
down and watched the seaweed gatherers.
The tide was half out and they were following it, walking along the
extreme edge of the water. Then he saw them stop and take something
from the mule’s back.
“Shovels,” said Hank to himself. As chief engineer of the business,
Hank, from the first, had been impressed by the fact that the deeper
they went the harder the work would be, simply because the sand had
to be flung out of the pit. The first few feet in depth it was easy
enough, but the depth already gained was beginning to tell, and the
banks of excavated stuff to north and south made matters worse by
increasing the height over which the sand had to be flung.
“B. C.!” suddenly cried Hank, springing to his feet. “Shovels!”
Candon, who was lying on his back with his hat over his face, resting
for a moment, sat up.
Hank was gone, running full speed and whooping as he ran.
He reached the sea edge and caught up with the beach-combers who were
digging for huge clams just when a bank of sand and mud touched the
true sand. Close to them now, they showed up as three tanned, lean,
hard-bitten individuals, carrying big satisfactory heart-shaped Mexican
shovels, and looking all nerves and sinews, with faces expressionless
as the face of the mule that stood by with its two sacks bulging, one
evidently with provender, the other with gathered sea-weed.
“Hi, you jossers,” cried Hank, “want a job, hey? Mucho plenty dollars,
dig for Americanos.” He made movements as of digging and pointed
towards the sand hole.
“No intende,” replied the tallest of the three.
“Come on,” said Hank, taking the long man by the arm and leading the
way. He had remembered that Candon said he could talk Spanish.
The others were all out of the sand hole watching, and halfway up
Candon and George joined Hank.
“Here’s your dredging machine,” cried Hank. “Look at the shovels, ain’t
they lovely? Get at them, B. C., and ask their terms.”
Candon spoke with the long man, seeming to explain matters.
“Five dollars a day each,” said Candon. “They say they’ll work all day
for that.”
“Fifteen dollars,” said Hank. “Take’em on, it’s cheap. We can get rid
of them before we strike the stuff, take’em on for one day, anyhow.”
Candon concluded the bargain. Then he led the beach-combers to the hole
and explained matters. They understood, then, having consulted together
like experts, they took the matter into their own hands, asking only
that the others should set to work and remove the banks of refuse to
north and south of the hole.
“Well,” said Hank as they sat at dinner that day, “give me Mexicans for
work. A raft of niggers couldn’t have moved the dirt quicker’n those
chaps. Why, we’ll be down to bed rock by to-night.”
“I gingered them up,” said Candon, “told them if they got down to what
I wanted to find by tonight, I’d give them ten dollars extra apiece.
But they won’t do it.”
By six o’clock that evening, however, the job was nearly done. Candon
reckoned that only a few hours more work would find the stuff, unless a
heavy wind blew up in the night and spoiled things.
He paid the hired men off with dollars supplied by George and then
they sat down to supper, the beach-combers camping near by and having
the time of their lives with canned salmon, ship’s bread and peaches
supplied for nothing.
Tommie had fallen in love with the mule. It had eaten half a Chicago
_Tribune_ blowing about on the sands and she was feeding it now with
wafers, which the brute took in a gingerly and delicate manner, as
though chicken and asparagus had been its up-bringing, instead of old
gasoline cans and esparto grass.
“She’s made friends with that mule,” said George.
“She’s made friends with Satan,” said Hank. “Look at her talking to
those greasers as if she knew their lingo.”
“She’s making them laugh,” said Candon.
* * * * *
An hour after supper the beach was at peace. Even the mule had fallen
into the frame of the picture.
It was lying down by its sleeping masters. Away out across the water,
the amber light of the _Wear Jack_ showed beneath the stars.
An hour passed. Then things changed. The mule was lying dreaming,
maybe, of more wafers, and in the starlight, like shadows, the forms of
the three Mexicans, each with a shovel over its shoulder, were passing
towards the sand-hole.