That afternoon when Adam returned to camp sore in body and spent in
force, yet with strangely tranquil soul, there was an old Indian
waiting for him. Genie had gone back long before Adam, and she sat on
the sand, evidently having difficult but enjoyable conversation with
the visitor.
At sight of his hard, craggy, bronze face, serried and seamed with
the lines of years, it seemed that a bolt shot back in Adam’s heart,
opening a long-closed door.
“Charley Jim!” he ejaculated, in startled gladness.
“How, Eagle!” His deep voice, the familiar yet forgotten name, the lean
brown hand, confirmed Adam’s sight.
“Chief, the white man has not forgotten his Indian friend,” replied
Adam.
“Eagle no same boy like mescal stalk. Heap big! Many moon! Snows on
the mountain!” said Charley Jim, with a gleam of a smile breaking the
bronze face. His fingers touched the white hair over Adam’s temples.
Pathos and dignity marked the action.
“Boy no more, Charley Jim,” returned Adam. “Eagle has his white
feathers now!”
Genie burst into a trill of laughter.
“You funny old people! You make me feel old, too,” she protested, and
she ran away.
Charley Jim’s somber eyes followed her, then returned to question Adam.
“She same girl here--long time--sick man’s girl?” And he made signs to
show the height of a child and the weakness of a man’s lungs.
“Yes, chief. He her father. Dead. Mother dead, too,” replied Adam, and
he pointed to the two green graves across the stream.
“Ugh! No live good. No get well.... Eagle, sick man have brother--him
dead. Jim find ’um. Him dig gold--no water--dead.... Jim find ’um heap
bones.”
It was thus Adam heard the story of the tragedy of Genie’s uncle.
Charley Jim told it more clearly, though just as briefly, in his own
tongue. Moons before he had found a prospector’s pack and then a pile
of rags and bones half buried in the sand over in a valley beyond the
Cottonwood Mountains. He recognized the man’s pack as belonging to the
brother of the sick man, Linwood, both of whom he knew. Adam could
trust an Indian’s memory. Genie’s uncle had come to the not rare end
of a wandering prospector’s life. The old desert tragedy--thirst! All
at once Adam’s eyes seemed to burn blind with a red dim veil, and his
tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and through his body passed a
cold shudder, and he had strange vision of himself staggering blindly
in a circle, plunging madly for the false mirage. The haunting plague
passed away. Adam turned to examine the few pack articles Charley Jim
had brought for possible identification of the dead. One of these,
a silver belt buckle of odd design, oxidized and tarnished, might
possibly be remembered by Genie. Adam called her, placed it in her
hands.
“Genie, did you ever see that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, with a start of recognition. “It was my father’s.
He gave it to my uncle.”
Adam nodded to the Indian. “Chief, you were right.”
“Oh, Wanny--it means he’s found my uncle--dead!” exclaimed Genie, in
awe.
“Yes, Genie,” replied Adam, with a hand of sympathy upon her shoulder.
“We know now. He’ll never come back.”
With the buckle in her hands the girl slowly walked toward the graves
of her parents.
Charley Jim mounted his pony to ride away.
“Chief--tell me of Oella,” said Adam.
The Indian gazed down upon Adam with somber eyes. Then his lean, sinewy
hand swept up with stately and eloquent gesture to be pressed over his
heart.
“Oella dead,” he replied, sonorously, and then he looked beyond Adam,
out across the lonesome land, beyond the ranges, perhaps to the realm
of his red gods. Adam read the Indian gesture. Oella had died of a
broken heart.
* * * * *
He stood there at the edge of the oasis, stricken mute, as his old
Indian friend turned to go back across the valley to the Coahuila
encampment. A broken heart! That superb Indian maiden, so lithe and
tall and strong, so tranquil, so sure--serene of soul as the steady
light of her midnight eyes--dead of a broken heart! She had loved
him--a man alien to her race--a wanderer and a stranger within her
gates, and when he had gone away life became unendurable. Another
mystery of the lonely, gray, melancholy wastelands! Adam quivered there
in the grip of it all.
* * * * *
Later when he returned to Genie it was to say, simply, “My dear, as
soon as I can find my burros we pack for the long trail.”
“No!” she exclaimed, with lighting eyes.
“Yes. I shall take you out to find you a home.”
“Honest Injun?” she blazed at him, springing erect.
“Genie, I would not tease about that. We know your uncle is dead. The
time to go has come. We’ll start at sunrise.”
Forgotten were Genie’s dreams of yesterday! A day at her time of
life meant change, growth, oblivion for what had been. With a cry of
wondering delight she flung herself upon Adam, leaped and climbed to
the great height of his face, and there, like a bird, she pecked at him
with cool, sweet lips, and clung to him in an ecstasy.
“Don’t!... Still a child, Genie,” he said, huskily, as he disengaged
himself from her wild embrace. He meant that she was not still a child.
It amazed him and hurt him to see her radiance at the thought of
leaving the desert oasis which had been home for so long. Fickleness
of youth! Yesterday she had wanted to live there forever; to-day the
enchantments of new life, people, places, called alluringly. It was
what Adam had expected. It was what he wanted for her. How clear had
been his vision of the future! How truly, the moment he had fought down
his selfish desires, had he read her innocent heart! His own swelled
with gladness, numbing out the pang. For him, some little meed of
praise! Not little was it to have conquered self--not little was it to
have builded the happiness of an orphan!
Adam’s burros had grown gray in their years of idle, contented life at
the oasis. Like the road runners, they enjoyed the proximity of camp;
and he found them shaggy and fat, half asleep while they grazed. He
drove them back to the shade of the cottonwoods, where Genie, seeing
this last and immutable proof of forthcoming departure, began to dance
over the sand in wild glee.
“Genie, you’ll do well to save some of your nimbleness,” admonished
Adam. “We’ll have a load. You’ve got to climb the mountain and walk
till I can buy another burro.”
“Oh, Wanny, I’ll fly!” she cried.
“Humph! I rather think you will fly the very first time a young fellow
sees you--a big girl in those ragged boy’s clothes.”
Then Adam thrilled anew with the sweetness, the wonder of her. His cold
heart warmed to the core. How he would live in the hope and happiness
and love that surely must be awaiting this girl! His mention of a young
fellow suddenly rendered Genie amazed, shy, bewildered.
“But--but--Wanny--you--you won’t let any yo-young fellow see me _this_
way!” she pleaded.
“How can I help it? You just wouldn’t sew and make dresses. Now you’re
in for it. We’ll meet a lot of lads.... And, Genie, just the other day
you didn’t care how _I_ saw you.”
“Oh, but you’re different! You’re my dad, my brother, old Taquitch, and
everything.”
“Thank you. That makes me feel a little better.”
Suddenly she turned her dark eyes upon him, piercing now and dilating
with thought.
“Wanny! Are you _sorry_ to leave?”
“Yes,” he replied, sadly.
“Then I’ll stay, if you want me--ever--always,” she said, very low. The
golden flush paled on her cheek. She was a child, yet on the verge of
womanhood.
“Genie, I’m sorry, but I’m glad, too. What I want most is to see you
settled in a happy home, with a guardian, young friends about you--all
you want.”
She appeared sober now, and Adam gathered that she had thought more
seriously than he had given her credit for.
“Wanny, you’re good, and your goodness makes you see all that for me.
But a guardian--a happy home--all I want!... I’ll be poor. I’ll have to
work for a living. I won’t have _you_!”
Then suddenly she seemed about to weep. Her beautiful eyes dimmed. But
Adam startled her out of her weakness.
“Poor! Well, Genie Linwood, you’ve got a surprise in store for you.”
Wherewith he led her to the door of the hut and, tearing up the old
wagon boards that had served as a floor, he dug in the sand underneath
and dragged forth bag after bag, which he dropped at her feet with
sodden, heavy thumps.
“Gold, Genie! Gold! Yours!... You’ll be rich.... All this was dug by
your father. I don’t know how much, but it’s a fortune.... Now what do
you say?”
The rapture Adam had anticipated did not manifest itself. Genie seemed
glad, certainly, but the significance of the gold did not really strike
her.
“And you never told me!... Well, by the great horn spoon, I’m rich!...
Wanny, will _you_ be my guardian?”
“I will, till I can find you one,” he replied, stoutly.
“Oh, never look for one--then I _will_ have all I want!”
* * * * *
The last sunlight, the last starlight night, the last sunrise for Adam
and Genie at the oasis, were beautiful memories of the past.
Adam, driving the burros along the dim old Indian trail, meditated on
the inevitableness of the end of all things. For nearly three years he
had seen that trail every few days and always he had speculated on the
distant time when he would climb it with Genie. That hour had struck.
Genie, with the light feet of an Indian, was behind him, now chattering
like a magpie and then significantly silent. She had her bright face
turned to the enchanting adventures of the calling future; she was
turning her back upon the only home she could remember.
“Look, Genie, how gray and dry the canyon is,” said Adam, hoping to
divert her. “Just a little water in that white wash, and you know it
never reaches the valley. It sinks in the sand.... Now look way above
you--high over the foothills. See those gleams of white--those streaks
of black.... Snow, Genie, and the pines and spruces!”
They camped at the edge of the spruces and pines. How sweet and cool
and damp the air to desert dwellers! The wind sang through the trees
with different tone. Adam, unpacking the burros, turned them loose,
sure of their delight in the rich green grass. Genie, tired out with
the long climb, fell upon one of the open packs to rest.
With his rifle Adam strode away among the scattered pines and clumps
of spruce. The smell of this forest almost choked him, yet it seemed
he could not smell and breathe enough. The dark-green, spear-pointed
spruces and the brown-barked pines, so lofty and spreading, intoxicated
his desert eyes. He looked and reveled, forgetting the gun in his
hands, until his aimless steps frightened deer from right before him.
Then, to shoot was habit, the result of which was regret. These deer
were tame, not like the wary, telescope-eyed mountain sheep; and Adam,
after his first exultant thrill--the old recurrent thrill from out the
past--gazed down with sorrow at the sleek, beautiful deer he had slain.
What dual character he had--what contrast of thrill and pang, of blood
and brain, of desert and civilization, of physical and spiritual, of
nature and--But he did not know what!
He laughed later, and Genie laughed, too, at how ravenous he was at
supper, how delicious the venison tasted, how good it was to eat.
“Guess I’ll give myself up as a bad job,” he told her.
“Wanny, for me you’ll always be Taquitch, giant of the desert and god
of the clouds.”
“Ah! You’ll forget me in ten days after you meet _him_!” replied Adam,
somewhat bitterly.
Genie could only stare her amaze.
“Forgive me, child. I don’t mean that. I know you’ll never forget
me.... But you’ve been my--my little girl so long that it hurts to
think of your being some other man’s.”
Then he was to see the marvel of Genie’s first blush.
* * * * *
It was well that Adam had thought to pack extra blankets for Genie. She
had never felt the nip of frost. And when night settled down black,
with the wind rising, she needed to be warmly wrapped. Adam liked the
keen air, and also the feel of the camp-fire heat upon his outstretched
palms.
Next morning the sky was overcast with broken, scudding clouds, and
a shrill wind tossed the tips of the pines. Genie crawled out of
her blankets to her first experience of winter. When she dipped her
hands into the water she squealed and jerked them out. Then at Adam’s
bantering laughter she bravely dashed into the ordeal of bathing face
and hands with that icy water.
Adam did not have any particular objective point in mind. He felt
strangely content to let circumstances of travel or chance or his old
wandering instinct guide him.
They traveled leisurely through the foothills on the western side of
the Sierra Madres, finding easy trails and good camp sites, and meeting
Indians by the way. Six days out from the desert they reached a wagon
road, and that led down to a beautiful country of soft velvety-green
hills and narrow, pleasant valleys where clumps of live oaks grew, and
here and there nestled a ranch.
So they traveled on. The country grew less rugged and some of it
appeared to belong to great ranches, once the homes of the Spanish
grandees. Late one afternoon travel brought them within sight of
Santa Ysabel. Adam turned off the main road, in search of a place to
camp, and, passing between two beautiful hills, came upon a little
valley, all green with live oaks and brown with tilled ground. He saw
horses, cattle, and finally a farmhouse, low and picturesque, of the
vine-covered adobe style peculiar to a country first inhabited by the
Spanish.
Adam went toward the house, which was mostly concealed by vines and
oaks, and presently happened upon a scene that seldom gladdened the
eyes of a desert wanderer. On a green plot under the trees several
children stopped their play to stare at Adam, and one ran to the open
door. There were white pigeons flying about the roof, and gray rabbits
in the grass, and ducks wading in the brook. Adam heard the cackle of
hens and the bray of a burro. A column of blue smoke lazily rose upward
from a gray, adobe, fire-blackened oven.
Before Adam got to the door a woman appeared there, with the child at
her skirts. She was middle-aged and stout, evidently a hard-working
rancher’s wife. She had a brown face, rather serious, but kind, Adam
thought. And he looked keenly, because he was now getting into the
civilized country that he expected would become Genie’s home.
“Good evening, ma’am!” he said. “Will you let me camp out there by the
oaks?”
“How d’ye do, stranger,” she replied. “Yes, you’re welcome. But you’re
only a mile or so from Santa Ysabel. There’s a good inn.”
“Time enough to go there to-morrow or next day,” replied Adam. “You
see, ma’am, I’m not alone. I’ve a young girl with me. We’re from the
desert. And I want her to have some--some decent clothes before I take
her where there are people.”
The woman laughed pleasantly.
“Your daughter?” she asked, with interest.
“No relation,” replied Adam. “I--I was a friend of her mother, who died
out on the desert.”
“Stranger, you’re welcome to my house overnight.”
“Thank you, but I’d rather not trouble you. We’ll be very comfortable.
It’s a nice place to camp.”
“Come far?” asked the woman, whose honest blue eyes were taking stock
of Adam.
“Yes, far for Genie. We’ve been about ten days coming over the
mountains.”
“Reckon you’d like some milk and eggs for supper?”
“Well, now, ma’am, if you only knew how I would like some,” returned
Adam, heartily. “And poor Genie, who has fared so long on desert grub,
she’d surely appreciate your kindness.”
“I’ll fetch some over, or send it by my boy,” she said.
Adam returned thoughtfully to the little grove where he had elected
to camp. This woman’s kindness, the glint of sympathy in her eyes,
brought him up short with the certitude that they were the very virtues
he was looking for in the person to whom he intended to trust Genie.
It behooved him from now on to go keenly at the task of finding that
person. It would not be easy. For the present he meant to hide any hint
of Genie’s small fortune, and had cautioned her to that end.
Genie appeared tired and glad to sit on the green grassy bank. “I’ll
help--in a little while,” she said. “Isn’t this a pretty place? Oh, the
grass feels so cool and smells so sweet!... Wanny, who’d you see at the
house?”
“Some youngsters and a nice woman,” replied Adam. It was on his tongue
to tell Genie about the milk and eggs for supper, but in the interest
of a surprise he kept silent.
Sunset had passed when Adam got the packs spread, the fire built, and
supper under way.
At length the supper appeared to be about ready, except for the milk
and eggs that had been promised. Adam set the pot and pan aside at the
edge of the fire, and went off in search of some wood that would be
needed later. He packed a big log of dead oak back to camp, bending
under its weight.
When he looked up he saw a handsome, stalwart lad, bareheaded and in
shirt sleeves, standing just beyond the fire, holding out with brown
muscular arms a big pan of milk. The milk was spilling over the edges.
And on one of his fingers hung a small bucket full of eggs. He had to
balance himself carefully while he stooped to deposit the bucket of
eggs on the ground.
“Hey, Johnnie, where’ll I put the milk?” he called, cheerily.
Adam was astounded, and suddenly tickled to see Genie trying to hide
behind one of the packs. She succeeded in hiding all but her head,
which at the moment wore an old cap that made her look more than ever
like a boy.
“My name’s not Johnnie,” she flashed, with spirit.
The lad appeared nonplused, probably more at the tone of voice than the
speech. Then he laughed. Adam liked the sound of that laugh, its ring,
its heartiness.
“Sammy, then.... Come get this milk,” called the boy.
Genie maintained silence, but she glared over the top of the pack.
“Look here, bub,” the lad went on, plaintively, “I can’t stand this way
all night. Mother wants the pan.... Boy, are you deaf?... Say, bub, I
won’t eat you.”
“How dare you call me bub!” cried Genie, hotly.
“Well, I’ll be doggoned!” exclaimed the young fellow. “Listen to the
kid!... I’ll call you worse than bub in a minute. Hurry, bubbie!”
Genie made a quick movement that whirled her around, with her cap
flying off, and then she got to her knees. Thus, with face disclosed
and blazing eyes, and curls no boy ever had, she presented a vastly
different aspect.
“I’m no boy! I--I’m a--a lady!” she declared, with angry, trembling
voice of outraged dignity.
“What!” gasped the lad. Then, in his amaze and horror, he dropped the
pan of milk, that splashed all over, nearly drowning the fire.
“Hello! What’s the trouble?” asked Adam, genially, appearing from the
oaks.
“I--I--spilled the milk--mother sent,” he replied, in confusion.
“That’s too bad! No wonder, such a lot of milk!... What’s your name?”
“It’s Eugene--sir--Eugene Blair.”
“Well, that’s queer--Eugene Blair.... My name’s Wansfell, and I’m
glad to meet you,” said Adam, offering his hand. “Now let me make you
acquainted with Miss Eugenie Linwood.”
The only acknowledgment Genie gave to her first introduction was a slow
sinking down behind the pack. Her expression delighted Adam. As for the
young man--he appeared to be about twenty years old--he was overcome
with embarrassment.
“Glad to--to know you Miss--Miss Linwood,” he gulped. “Please ex-excuse
me. Mother never said--there was a--a girl.... And you looked so--I
took you for a boy.”
“That’s all right, son,” put in Adam, kindly. “Genie did look like a
boy. So I’ve been telling her.”
“Now--if you’ll excuse me I’ll run back after more milk,” said the lad,
hurriedly, and, grasping up the pan, he ran away.
“Well, Miss Know-it-all,” said Adam, banteringly, “_what_ did I tell
you? Didn’t I tell you we’d meet some nice young fellow?”
“He--he didn’t see me--_all_ of me,” replied Genie, tragically.
“What? Why, a fellow with eyes like his could see right through that
pack!” declared Adam.
“He called me bub!” suddenly exclaimed Genie, her tone changing from
one of tragic woe to one of tragic resentment. “_Bub!_... The--the
first boy I ever met in my whole life!”
“Why shouldn’t he call you bub?” queried Adam. “There’s no harm in
that. And when he discovered his mistake he apologized like a little
man.”
“I _hate_ him!” flashed Genie. “I’d starve to death before I’d eat his
eggs and milk.” With that she flounced off into the clump of oaks.
Adam was seeing Genie in a new light. It amused him greatly, yet
he could not help but look ruefully after her, somewhat uncertain.
Feminine reactions were unknown quantities. Genie reminded him
wonderfully of girls he had known when he was seventeen.
Presently young Blair returned with more milk, and also considerably
more self-possession. Not seeing Genie, he evidently took the hint and
quickly left.
“Come over after supper,” called Adam, after him.
“All right,” he replied, and then was gone.
Very shortly then Adam had supper prepared, to which he cheerfully
invited Genie. She came reluctantly, with furtive eyes on the green
beyond camp, and sat down to fold her feet under her, after the manner
of an Indian. Adam, without any comment, served her supper, not
omitting a generous quantity of fragrant fried eggs and a brimming
cupful of creamy milk. Wherewith Genie utterly forgot, or magnificently
disdained, any recollection of what she had said. She even asked for
more. But she was vastly removed from the gay and lightsome Genie.
“What’d you ask him back here for?” she demanded.
“I want to talk to him. Don’t you?” replied Adam, innocently.
“Me!... When he called me bub?”
“Genie, be sensible. They’re nice people. I think I’ll camp here a day
or so. We’ll rest up, and that’ll give me time to look around.”
“Look around!... What’ll become of _me_?” wailed Genie, miserably.
“You can watch camp. I dare say young Blair will forget your rudeness
and be nice to you.”
Then Genie glared with terrible eyes upon Adam, and she seemed between
tears and rage.
“I--I never--never knew--you could be like this.”
“Like what? Genie, I declare, I’m half ashamed of you! Nothing has
happened. Only this lad mistook you for a boy. Anyone would think the
world had come to an end. All because you woke up and found out you
had on boy’s clothes. Well, you’ve got to take your medicine now. You
_would_ wear them. You never minded _me_. You didn’t care _how_ I saw
you!”
“I don’t care how _he_ saw me or sees me, either, so there,” declared
Genie, enigmatically.
“Oh! Well, what’s wrong, then?” queried Adam, more curious than ever.
“I--he--it--it was what he called me,” replied Genie, confusedly.
Adam gazed at her downcast face with speculative eyes, intuitively
feeling that she had not told the whole truth. He had anticipated
trouble with this spirited young wild creature from the desert, once
they got into civilization.
“Genie, I’ve been mostly in fun. Now I’m serious.... I want you to be
perfectly natural and nice with these Blairs, or anyone else we meet.”
Manifestly she took that seriously enough. Without another word she
dragged her blankets and canvas away from the firelight, and at the
edge of the gathering gloom under the oaks she made her bed and crawled
into it.
A little while after dark, young Blair presented himself at Adam’s
fire, and took a seat to which he was invited.
“I suppose you folks are ranching it?” asked Adam, by way of opening
conversation.
“It’s hardly a ranch, though we have hopes,” replied Blair. “Mother
and I run the farm. My father’s not--he’s away.”
“Looks like good soil. Plenty of water and fine grass,” observed Adam.
“Best farming country all around--these valleys,” declared the lad,
warming to enthusiasm. “Ranchers taking it all up. Only a few valleys
left. There’s one just below this--about a hundred acres--if I could
only get that!... But no such luck for me.”
“You can never tell,” replied Adam, in his quiet way. “You say ranchers
are coming in?”
“Yes. San Diego is growing fast. People are buying out the Mexicans and
Indians up in these hills. In a few years any rancher with one of these
valleys will be rich.”
“How much land do you own?”
“My mother bought this little farm here--ten acres--and the valley,
which was about ninety. But my father--we lost the valley. And we
manage to live here.”
Adam’s quick sympathy divined that something pertaining to the lad’s
father was bitter and unhappy. He questioned further about the farm,
what they raised, where they marketed it, how many cattle, horses,
chickens, ducks they had. In half an hour Adam knew the boy and liked
him.
“You’re pretty well educated for a farmer boy,” remarked Adam.
“I went to school till I was sixteen. We’re from Indiana--Vincennes.
Father got the gold fever. We came West. Mother and I took to a surer
way of living.”
“You like ranching, then?”
“Gee! but I’d love to be a real rancher! There’s not only money in
cattle and horses, on a big scale, but it’s such a fine life. Outdoors
all the time!... Oh, well, I _do_ have the outdoors as much as anybody.
But for mother and the kids--I’d like to do better by them.”
“I saw the youngsters and I’d like to get acquainted. Tell me about
them.”
“Nothing much to tell. They’re like little Indians. Tommy’s three,
Betty’s four, Hal’s five. He was a baby when we came West. The trip
was too hard on him. He’s been delicate. But he’s slowly getting
stronger.”
“Well! You’ve a fine family. How are you going to educate them?”
“That’s our problem. Mother and I must do our best--until--maybe we can
send them to school at San Diego.”
“When your ship comes in?”
“Yes; I’m always hoping for that. But first I’d like my ship to start
out, so it can come back loaded.”
The lad laughed. He was imaginative, full of fire and pathos, yet clear
headed and courageous, neither blind to the handicap under which he
labored nor morose at his fetters.
“Yes, if a man _waits_ for his ship to come in--sometimes it never
comes,” said Adam.
“I suppose you’ll be on your way to town early?” asked Blair, as he
rose.
“Guess I’ll not break camp to-morrow. Genie is tired. And I won’t mind
a little rest. Hope we’ll see you again.”
“Thank you. Good night.”
* * * * *
When he was gone, Adam took to pacing along the edge of the oaks. In
the light of the camp fire he saw the gleam of Genie’s wide-open eyes.
She had heard every word of Adam’s conversation with young Blair. He
felt a great sympathy for Genie. Like a child, she was face to face
with new life, new sensations, poignant and bewildering. How might he
best help her?
* * * * *
Next morning, when Adam returned from a look around, he discovered
Genie up, puttering at the camp fire. She greeted him with undue
cheerfulness. She was making a heroic effort to show that this
situation was perfectly natural. She did pretty well, but Adam’s keen
eyes and sense gathered that Genie felt herself on the verge of great
and tremendous events.
After breakfast Adam asked Genie to accompany him to the farmhouse.
She went, but the free, lithe step wanted something of its old grace.
Adam espied the children in the yard, and now he took cognizance of
them. Tommy was a ragged, tousle-headed, chubby little rascal, ruddy
cheeked and blue eyed. Betty resembled the lad, Eugene, having his fine
dark eyes and open countenance. Hal was the largest, a red-headed,
freckle-faced imp if Adam ever saw one. They regarded the newcomers
with considerable interest. Genie approached them and offered to swing
Betty, who was sitting in a clumsy little hammock-like affair made of
barrel staves. And Adam, seeing the children’s mother at the door, went
that way.
“Good morning, Mrs. Blair!” he said. “We’ve come over to chat a bit and
see your youngsters.”
She greeted them smilingly, and came out wiping her hands on her apron.
“Goodness knows we’re glad to have you. Gene has gone to work. Won’t
you sit on the bench here?...”
Then she espied Genie. “For land’s sake! That your girl in the boy’s
clothes? Gene told me what a dunce he’d been.... Oh, she’s pretty! What
shiny hair!”
“That’s Genie. I want you to meet her--and then, Mrs. Blair, perhaps
you can give an old desert codger a little advice,” said Adam.
He called Genie, and she came readily, though not without shyness.
Despite her garb and its rents, Adam could not but feel proud of her.
Mrs. Blair’s kindliness quickly put the girl at ease. After a little
talk, in which Genie’s part augured well for the impression she was to
make upon people, Adam bade her play with the children.
“No wonder Gene spilled the milk!” ejaculated Mrs. Blair.
“Why?” queried Adam.
“The girl’s more than pretty. Never saw such hair. And her eyes!
They’re not the color of hair and eyes I know.”
“That’s the desert’s work, Mrs. Blair. On the desert nature makes
color, as well as life, more vivid, more intense.”
“And this Genie--isn’t it odd--her name is like my boy Gene’s--she’s no
relation of yours?”
Briefly then Adam related Genie’s story and the circumstances of his
association with her.
“Laws-a-me! Poor child!... And now she has no people--no home--not a
friend in the world but you?”
“Not one. It’s pretty sad, Mrs. Blair.”
“Sad? It’s worse than that.... Strikes me, though, Mr. Wansfell, you
must be family and friends and all to that girl.... And let a mother
tell you what a noble thing you’ve done--to give three years of your
life to an orphan!”
“What I did was good for me. Better than anything I ever did before,”
replied Adam, earnestly. “I’d go on if it were possible. But Genie
needs a home, young people, work, to learn and live her life. And I--I
must go back to the desert.”
“Ah! So that’s it!” exclaimed the woman, nodding. “My husband spoke
just like you do. He took to the desert--sold my farm to get money to
work his gold claims. Always he had to go back to the desert.... And
now he’ll never come home again.”
“Yes, the desert claims many men. But I could and would sacrifice
whatever the desert means to me, for Genie’s sake, if it--if there was
not a reason which makes that impossible.”
“And now you’re hunting a home for her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s well educated, you said?”
“Her mother was a school-teacher.”
“Then she could teach children.... Things work out strangely in life,
don’t they? My Betty might be left alone. Any girl may become an
orphan.”
“Now, Mrs. Blair, will you be so kind as to take Genie, or go with us
into town, and help us get some clothes for her? A few simple dresses
and things she needs. I’d be helpless. And Genie knows so little. She
ought to have a woman go with her.”
“Indeed she shall have,” declared Mrs. Blair. “I’ll be only too glad
to go. I need some things----” Then she struck her forehead with a
plump hand. “I’ve a better idea. There’s not much to be bought in the
store at Santa Ysabel. But my neighbor up the valley--his name is
Hunt--he has a granddaughter. They’re city folks. They’ve been somebody
once. This granddaughter is older than Genie--she’s more of a woman’s
figure--and I heard her say only the other day that she brought a lot
of outgrown dresses with her and didn’t know what to do with them. All
her clothes are fine--not like you buy out here.... I’ll take Genie
over there right this minute!”
Mrs. Blair got up and began to untie her apron. Kindliness beamed upon
her countenance and she seemed to have acquired a more thoughtful eye.
“You’re good indeed,” said Adam, gratefully. “I thank you. It will be
so much nicer for Genie. She dreaded this matter of clothes. You can
tell Miss Hunt I’d be glad to pay----”
“Shucks! She wouldn’t take your money. She’s quality, I told you. And
her name’s not Hunt. That’s her grandfather’s name. I don’t know what
hers is--except he calls her Ruth.”
Ruth! The sudden mention of that name seemed to Adam like a stab. What
a queer, inexplicable sensation followed it!
“I’ll be right out,” declared Mrs. Blair, bustling into the house.
Adam called Genie to him and explained what was to happen. She grew
radiant.
“Oh, Wanny, then I won’t have to go into a town--to be laughed at--and
I can get--get dressed like--like a lady--before he sees me again!” she
exclaimed, breathlessly.
“He? Who’s that, Genie?” inquired Adam, dryly, though he knew he could
guess very well.
Genie might have lived on the desert, like a shy, lonely, wild
creature, but she was eternally feminine enough to bite her tongue at
the slip she had made, and to blush charmingly.
Then Mrs. Blair bustled out again, in sunbonnet and shawl, and with the
alacrity of excitement she led Genie away through the grove of oaks
toward the other end of the valley.
Adam returned to camp, much relieved and pleased, yet finding suddenly
that a grave, pondering mood had come upon him. In the still noon hour,
when the sun was hot and the flies buzzed lazily, Adam would surely
have succumbed to drowsiness had he not been vociferously hailed by
some one. He sat up to hear one of the little Blairs call, “Say, my maw
wants you to eat with us.”
Adam lumbered up and, trying to accommodate his giant steps to those
of the urchin, finally reached the house. He heard Mrs. Blair in the
kitchen. Then something swift and white rushed upon Adam from somewhere.
“_Look!_” it cried, in ecstatic tones, and pirouetted before his
dazzled eyes.
Genie! In a white dress, white slippers--all white, even to the rapt,
beautiful, strangely transformed face! It was a Genie he could not
recognize. Yet, however her dark gold-glinting tresses were brushed and
arranged, he would have known their rare, rich color. And the eyes were
Genie’s--vivid like the heart of a magenta cactus flower, unutterably
and terribly expressive of happiness. But all else--the girl’s height
and form and movement--had acquired something subtly feminine. The
essence of woman breathed from her.
“Oh, Wanny, I’ve a whole _bundle_ of dresses!” she cried, rapturously.
“And I put this on to please you.”
“Pleased!... Dear girl, I’m--I’m full of joy for you--overcome for
myself,” exclaimed Adam. How, in that moment, he blessed the nameless
spirit which had come to him the day Genie’s fate and future hung in
the balance! What a victory for him to remember--seen now in the light
of Genie’s lovely face!
Then Mrs. Blair bustled in. Easy indeed was it to see how the
happiness of others affected her. “It’s good we have dinner at noon,”
she said, as she put dish after dish upon the table, “else we’d had to
do with little. Sit at table, folks.... Children, you must wait. We’ve
company.... Gene, come to dinner.”
Adam found himself opposite Genie, who had suddenly seemed to lose
her intensity, though not her glow. She had softened. The fierce joy
had gone. Adam, watching her, received from her presence a thrill of
expectancy, and realized that at least one of her sensations of the
moment was being conveyed to him. Then Eugene entered. His face shone.
He had wet his hair and brushed it and put on a coat. If something new
and strange was happening to Genie, it had already happened to Eugene
Blair.
“Folks, help yourselves and help each other,” said Mrs. Blair.
Adam was ready for that. What a happy dinner! He ate with the relish of
a desert man long used to sour dough and bacon, but he had keen ears
for Mrs. Blair’s chatter and eyes for Genie and Eugene. The mother,
too, had a steady and thoughtful gaze for the young couple, and her
mind was apparently upon weightier matters than her speech indicated.
“Well, folks,” said Mrs. Blair, presently, “if you’ve all had enough,
I’ll call the children.”
Eugene arose with alacrity. “Let’s go outdoors,” he said, stealing
a shy look at Genie. She seemed to move in a trance. Adam went out,
too, and found himself under the oaks. The very air was potent with
the expectancy that Adam had sensed in the house. Something was about
to happen. It puzzled him. Yet he liked the suspense. But he was
nonplused. The young couple did not present a riddle. All the same,
the instant Adam felt convinced of this he looked at them and lost his
conviction. They did present a riddle. He had not seen any other lad
and girl together for many years, but somehow he wagered to himself
that if he had seen a thousand couples, this one would stand out
strikingly.
Then Mrs. Blair appeared. She had the look of a woman to whom decision
had come. The hospitality, the kindly interest in Genie, the happiness
in seeing others made happy, were in abeyance to a strong, serious
emotion.
“Mr. Wansfell, if you’ll consent I’ll give Genie a home here with me,”
she said.
“Consent!... I--I gladly do that,” he replied, with strong agitation.
“You are a--a good woman, Mrs. Blair. I am overwhelmed with gladness
for Genie--for her luck.... It’s so sudden--so unexpected.”
“Some things happen that way,” she replied. “They just come about. I
took to Genie right off. So did my boy. I asked him--when we got back
from our neighbor’s--if it would not be a good idea to keep Genie.
We are poor. It’s one more to feed and clothe. But she can help. And
she’ll teach the children. That means a great deal to me and Gene....
He would be glad, he said. So I thought it over--and I’ve decided.
We’ve your consent.... Now, Genie, will you stay and have a home with
us?”
“Oh, I’ll--I’ll be so happy! I’ll try so--so hard!” faltered Genie.
“Then--it’s settled. My dear girl, we’ll try to make you happy,”
declared Mrs. Blair, and, sitting beside Genie, she embraced her.
Adam’s happiness was so acute it seemed pain. But was his feeling
all happiness? What had Genie’s quick look meant--the intense
soul-searching flash she gave him when Mrs. Blair had said it was all
settled? Genie’s desert eyes saw separation from the man who had been
savior, father, brother. One flash of eyes--then she was again lost in
this immense and heart-numbing idea of a home. Adam saw Eugene look at
her as his mother enfolded her. And Adam’s heart suddenly lifted to
exaltation. Youth to youth! The wonderful, the calling, the divine! The
lad’s look was soulful, absorbing, full of strange, deep melancholy,
full of dreamy, distant, unconscious enchantment. What had seemed
mysterious was now as clear as the sunlight. By some happy chance of
life the homeless Genie had been guided to a good woman and a noble
lad. Goodness was the commonest quality in the hearts of women; and
nobility, in youth at least, flowered in the breast of every man.
And while Eugene thus gazed at Genie she lifted her eyelids, so heavy
with their dreams, and met his gaze. Suddenly she sweetly, strangely
blushed and looked away, at Adam, through him to the beyond. She seemed
full of a vague, dreaming sweetness of life; a faint smile played round
her lips; her face lost its scarlet wave for pearly whiteness; and
tears splashed down upon her listless hands.
The moment, with all it revealed to Adam, swiftly passed.
“Gene, take her and show her the horses,” said Mrs. Blair. “She said
she loved horses. Show her all around. We’ll let the work go by to-day.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Blair talked awhile with Adam, asking to know more about Genie,
and confiding her own practical plans. Then she bustled off to look
after the children, who had been forgotten.
Adam was left to the happiest and most grateful reflections of his
life. Much good must come for him, for his lonely hours, when once
more the wastelands claimed him; but that was the only thought he gave
himself. Lounging back on the old rustic bench, he gave himself up to a
growing delight of anticipation. These good Blairs did not dream that
in offering Genie a home out of the kindliness of their hearts they
had touched prosperity. They were poor. But Genie was rich. They meant
to share with the orphan their little; they had no thought of anything
Genie might share with them. Adam decided that he would buy the ninety
acres, and the hundred in the valley beyond it; and horses, cattle,
all the stock and implements for a fine ranch. Genie, innocent and
bewildered child that she was, had utterly forgotten her bags of gold.
On the next day, or soon, Adam meant to borrow Gene’s horse and buggy
and drive to Santa Ysabel and then to San Diego. He must find some
good investment for the rest of Genie’s gold, and a good bank, and
some capable and reliable person to look after her affairs. How like a
fairy story it would seem to Genie! What amazement and delight it would
occasion Mrs. Blair! And as for the lad, no gold could enhance Genie’s
charm for him. Gene would love Genie! Adam had seen it written in their
unconscious eyes. And Gene would have the working of the beautiful
ranch his eager heart had longed for. For the first time Adam realized
the worth of gold. Here it would be a golden harvest.
Dreaming thus, Adam was only faintly aware of voices and footsteps that
drew nearer; and suddenly he seemed transfixed and thrilling, his gaze
on a face he knew, the face on the miniature he carried--the lovely
face of Ruth Virey.