darkness--that some one was hidden on the landing or on the stairs where
he would pass. This was further accented by a faint odor of patchouli,
as, with his hand on the rail, he turned the corner of the third
landing, and he was convinced that if he had put out his other hand it
would have come in contact with his mysterious neighbor. But a certain
instinct of respect for her secret, which she was even now guarding in
the darkness, withheld him, and he passed on quickly to his own floor.
Here it was lighter; the moon shot a beam of silver across the passage
from an unshuttered window as he passed. He reached his room door,
entered, but instead of lighting the gas and shutting the door, stood
with it half open, listening in the darkness.
His suspicions were verified; there was a slight rustling noise, and
a figure which had evidently followed him appeared at the end of the
passage. It was that of a woman habited in a grayish dress and cloak of
the same color; but as she passed across the band of moonlight he had
a distinct view of her anxious, worried face. It was a face no longer
young; it was worn with illness, but still replete with a delicacy and
faded beauty so inconsistent with her avowed profession that he felt a
sudden pang of pain and doubt. The next moment she had vanished in her
room, leaving the same faint perfume behind her. He closed his door
softly, lit the gas, and sat down in a state of perplexity. That swift
glimpse of her face and figure had made her story improbable to the
point of absurdity, or possibly to the extreme of pathos!
It seemed incredible that a woman of that quality should be forced to
accept a vocation at once so low, so distasteful, and so unremunerative.
With her evident antecedents, had she no friends but this common Western
night watchman of a bank? Had Roberts deceived him? Was his whole story
a fabrication, and was there some complicity between the two? What was
it? He knit his brows.
Mr. Breeze had that overpowering knowledge of the world which only comes
with the experience of twenty-five, and to this he superadded the active
imagination of a newspaper man. A plot to rob the bank? These mysterious
absences, that luggage which he doubted not was empty and intended for
spoil! But why encumber herself with the two children? Here his common
sense and instinct of the ludicrous returned and he smiled.
But he could not believe in the ballet dancer! He wondered, indeed, how
any manager could have accepted the grim satire of that pale, worried
face among the fairies, that sad refinement amid their vacant smiles and
rouged checks. And then, growing sad again, he comforted himself with
the reflection that at least the children were not alone that night, and
so went to sleep.
For some days he had no further meeting with his neighbors. The
disturbed state of the city--for the Vigilance Committee were still in
session--obliged the daily press to issue “extras,” and his work at the
office increased.
It was not until Sunday again that he was able to be at home. Needless
to say that his solitary little companions were duly installed there,
while he sat at work with his proofs on the table before him.
The stillness of the empty house was only broken by the habitually
subdued voices of the children at their play, when suddenly the harsh
stroke of a distant bell came through the open window. But it was no
Sabbath bell, and Mr. Breeze knew it. It was the tocsin of the Vigilance
Committee, summoning the members to assemble at their quarters for
a capture, a trial, or an execution of some wrongdoer. To him it was
equally a summons to the office--to distasteful news and excitement.
He threw his proofs aside in disgust, laid down his pen, seized his hat,
and paused a moment to look round for his playmates. But they were gone!
He went into the hall, looked into the open door of their room, but they
were not there. He tried the door of the second room, but it was locked.
Satisfied that they had stolen downstairs in their eagerness to
know what the bell meant, he hurried down also, met Roberts in the
passage,--a singularly unusual circumstance at that hour,--called to him
to look after the runaways, and hurried to his office.
Here he found the staff collected, excitedly discussing the news. One
of the Vigilance Committee prisoners, a notorious bully and ruffian,
detained as a criminal and a witness, had committed suicide in his
cell. Fortunately this was all reportorial work, and the services of Mr.
Breeze were not required. He hurried back, relieved, to his room.
When he reached his landing, breathlessly, he heard the same quick
rustle he had heard that memorable evening, and was quite satisfied that
he saw a figure glide swiftly out of the open door of his room. It was
no doubt his neighbor, who had been seeking her children, and as he
heard their voices as he passed, his uneasiness and suspicions were
removed.
He sat down again to his scattered papers and proofs, finished his work,
and took it to the office on his way to dinner. He returned early, in
the hope that he might meet his neighbor again, and had quite settled
his mind that he was justified in offering a civil “Good-evening” to
her, in spite of his previous respectful ignoring of her presence. She
must certainly have become aware by this time of his attention to
her children and consideration for herself, and could not mistake his
motives. But he was disappointed, although he came up softly; he found
the floor in darkness and silence on his return, and he had to be
content with lighting his gas and settling down to work again.
A near church clock had struck ten when he was startled by the sound of
an unfamiliar and uncertain step in the hall, followed by a tap at his
door. Breeze jumped to his feet, and was astonished to find Dick, the
“printer's devil,” standing on the threshold with a roll of proofs in
his hand.
“How did you get here?” he asked testily.
“They told me at the restaurant they reckoned you lived yere, and the
night watchman at the door headed me straight up. When he knew whar I
kem from he wanted to know what the news was, but I told him he'd better
buy an extra and see.”
“Well, what did you come for?” said the editor impatiently.
“The foreman said it was important, and he wanted to know afore he went
to press ef this yer correction was YOURS?”
He went to the table, unrolled the proofs, and, taking out the slip,
pointed to a marked paragraph. “The foreman says the reporter who
brought the news allows he got it straight first-hand! But ef you've
corrected it, he reckons you know best.”
Breeze saw at a glance that the paragraph alluded to was not of his own
writing, but one of several news items furnished by reporters. These
had been “set up” in the same “galley,” and consequently appeared in the
same proof-slip. He was about to say curtly that neither the matter nor
the correction was his, when something odd in the correction of the item
struck him. It read as follows:--
“It appears that the notorious 'Jim Bodine,' who is in hiding and
badly wanted by the Vigilance Committee, has been tempted lately into
a renewal of his old recklessness. He was seen in Sacramento Street the
other night by two separate witnesses, one of whom followed him, but he
escaped in some friendly doorway.”
The words “in Sacramento Street” were stricken out and replaced by the
correction “on the Saucelito shore,” and the words “friendly doorway”
were changed to “friendly dinghy.” The correction was not his, nor the
handwriting, which was further disguised by being an imitation of print.
A strange idea seized him.
“Has any one seen these proofs since I left them at the office?”
“No, only the foreman, sir.”
He remembered that he had left the proofs lying openly on his table
when he was called to the office at the stroke of the alarm bell; he
remembered the figure he saw gliding from his room on his return. She
had been there alone with the proofs; she only could have tampered with
them.
The evident object of the correction was to direct the public attention
from Sacramento Street to Saucelito, as the probable whereabouts of this
“Jimmy Bodine.” The street below was Sacramento Street, the “friendly
doorway” might have been their own.
That she had some knowledge of this Bodine was not more improbable than
the ballet story. Her strange absences, the mystery surrounding her, all
seemed to testify that she had some connection--perhaps only an innocent
one--with these desperate people whom the Vigilance Committee were
hunting down. Her attempt to save the man was, after all, no more
illegal than their attempt to capture him. True, she might have trusted
him, Breeze, without this tampering with his papers; yet perhaps she
thought he was certain to discover it--and it was only a silent appeal
to his mercy. The corrections were ingenious and natural--it was the act
of an intelligent, quick-witted woman.
Mr. Breeze was prompt in acting upon his intuition, whether right or
wrong. He took up his pen, wrote on the margin of the proof, “Print as
corrected,” said to the boy carelessly, “The corrections are all right,”
and dismissed him quickly.
The corrected paragraph which appeared in the “Informer” the next
morning seemed to attract little public attention, the greater
excitement being the suicide of the imprisoned bully and the effect it
might have upon the prosecution of other suspected parties, against whom
the dead man had been expected to bear witness.
Mr. Breeze was unable to obtain any information regarding the desperado
Bodine's associates and relations; his correction of the paragraph had
made the other members of the staff believe he had secret and superior
information regarding the fugitive, and he thus was estopped from
asking questions. But he felt himself justified now in demanding fuller
information from Roberts at the earliest opportunity.
For this purpose he came home earlier that night, hoping to find the
night watchman still on his first beat in the lower halls. But he was
disappointed. He was amazed, however, on reaching his own landing, to
find the passage piled with new luggage, some of that ruder type of
rolled blanket and knapsack known as a “miner's kit.” He was still more
surprised to hear men's voices and the sound of laughter proceeding
from the room that was always locked. A sudden sense of uneasiness and
disgust, he knew not why, came over him.
He passed quickly into his room, shut the door sharply, and lit the gas.
But he presently heard the door of the locked room open, a man's voice,
slightly elevated by liquor and opposition, saying, “I know what's due
from one gen'leman to 'nother”--a querulous, objecting voice saying,
“Hole on! not now,” and a fainter feminine protest, all of which were
followed by a rap on his door.
Breeze opened it to two strangers, one of whom lurched forward
unsteadily with outstretched hand. He had a handsome face and figure,
and a certain consciousness of it even in the abandon of liquor; he
had an aggressive treacherousness of eye which his potations had not
subdued. He grasped Breeze's hand tightly, but dropped it the next
moment perfunctorily as he glanced round the room.
“I told them I was bound to come in,” he said, without looking at
Breeze, “and say 'Howdy!' to the man that's bin a pal to my women folks
and the kids--and acted white all through! I said to Mame, 'I reckon HE
knows who I am, and that I kin be high-toned to them that's high-toned;
kin return shake for shake and shot for shot!' Aye! that's me! So I was
bound to come in like a gen'leman, sir, and here I am!”
He threw himself in an unproffered chair and stared at Breeze.
“I'm afraid,” said Breeze dryly, “that, nevertheless, I never knew who
you were, and that even now I am ignorant whom I am addressing.”
“That's just it,” said the second man, with a querulous protest, which
did not, however, conceal his admiring vassalage to his friend; “that's
what I'm allus telling Jim. 'Jim,' I says, 'how is folks to know you're
the man that shot Kernel Baxter, and dropped three o' them Mariposa
Vigilants? They didn't see you do it! They just look at your fancy style
and them mustaches of yours, and allow ye might be death on the girls,
but they don't know ye! An' this man yere--he's a scribe in them
papers--writes what the boss editor tells him, and lives up yere on the
roof, 'longside yer wife and the children--what's he knowin' about YOU?'
Jim's all right enough,” he continued, in easy confidence to Breeze,
“but he's too fresh 'bout himself.”
Mr. James Bodine accepted this tribute and criticism of his henchman
with a complacent laugh, which was not, however, without a certain
contempt for the speaker and the man spoken to. His bold, selfish eyes
wandered round the room as if in search of some other amusement than his
companions offered.
“I reckon this is the room which that hound of a landlord, Rakes,
allowed he'd fix up for our poker club--the club that Dan Simmons and
me got up, with a few other sports. It was to be a slap-up affair, right
under the roof, where there was no chance of the police raiding us. But
the cur weakened when the Vigilants started out to make war on any game
a gen'leman might hev that wasn't in their gummy-bag, salt pork trade.
Well, it's gettin' a long time between drinks, gen'lemen, ain't it?” He
looked round him significantly.
Only the thought of the woman and her children in the next room, and
the shame that he believed she was enduring, enabled Breeze to keep his
temper or even a show of civility.
“I'm afraid,” he said quietly, “that you'll find very little here to
remind you of the club--not even the whiskey; for I use the room only as
a bedroom, and as I am a workingman, and come in late and go out early,
I have never found it available for hospitality, even to my intimate
friends. I am very glad, however, that the little leisure I have had in
it has enabled me to make the floor less lonely for your children.”
Mr. Bodine got up with an affected yawn, turned an embarrassed yet
darkening eye on Breeze, and lunged unsteadily to the door. “And as I
only happened in to do the reg'lar thing between high-toned gen'lemen,
I reckon we kin say 'Quits.'” He gave a coarse laugh, said “So long,”
nodded, stumbled into the passage, and thence into the other room.
His companion watched him pass out with a relieved yet protecting air,
and then, closing the door softly, drew nearer to Breeze, and said in
husky confidence,--
“Ye ain't seein' him at his best, mister! He's bin drinkin' too much,
and this yer news has upset him.”
“What news?” asked Breeze.
“This yer suicide o' Irish Jack!”
“Was he his friend?”
“Friend?” ejaculated the man, horrified at the mere suggestion. “Not
much! Why, Irish Jack was the only man that could hev hung Jim! Now he's
dead, in course the Vigilants ain't got no proof agin Jim. Jim wants to
face it out now an' stay here, but his wife and me don't see it noways!
So we are taking advantage o' the lull agin him to get him off down the
coast this very night. That's why he's been off his head drinkin'. Ye
see, when a man has been for weeks hidin'--part o' the time in that
room and part o' the time on the wharf, where them Vigilants has been
watchin' every ship that left in order to ketch him, he's inclined to
celebrate his chance o' getting away”--
“Part of the time in that room?” interrupted Breeze quickly.
“Sartin! Don't ye see? He allus kem in as you went out--sabe!--and got
away before you kem back, his wife all the time just a-hoverin' between
the two places, and keeping watch for him. It was killin' to her, you
see, for she wasn't brought up to it, whiles Jim didn't keer--had two
revolvers and kalkilated to kill a dozen Vigilants afore he dropped. But
that's over now, and when I've got him safe on that 'plunger' down at
the wharf to-night, and put him aboard the schooner that's lying off the
Heads, he's all right agin.”
“And Roberts knew all this and was one of his friends?” asked Breeze.
“Roberts knew it, and Roberts's wife used to be a kind of servant
to Jim's wife in the South, when she was a girl, but I don't know ez
Roberts is his FRIEND!”
“He certainly has shown himself one,” said Breeze.
“Ye-e-s,” said the stranger meditatively, “ye-e-s.” He stopped, opened
the door softly, and peeped out, and then closed it again softly. “It's
sing'lar, Mr. Breeze,” he went on in a sudden yet embarrassed burst
of confidence, “that Jim thar--a man thet can shoot straight, and hez
frequent; a man thet knows every skin game goin'--that THET man Jim,”
very slowly, “hezn't really--got--any friends--'cept me--and his wife.”
“Indeed?” said Mr. Breeze dryly.
“Sure! Why, you yourself didn't cotton to him--I could see THET.”
Mr. Breeze felt himself redden slightly, and looked curiously at the
man. This vulgar parasite, whom he had set down as a worshiper of sham
heroes, undoubtedly did not look like an associate of Bodine's, and had
a certain seriousness that demanded respect. As he looked closer into
his wide, round face, seamed with small-pox, he fancied he saw even in
its fatuous imbecility something of that haunting devotion he had seen
on the refined features of the wife. He said more gently,--
“But one friend like you would seem to be enough.”
“I ain't what I uster be, Mr. Breeze,” said the man meditatively,
“and mebbe ye don't know who I am. I'm Abe Shuckster, of Shuckster's
Ranch--one of the biggest in Petalumy. I was a rich man until a year
ago, when Jim got inter trouble. What with mortgages and interest,
payin' up Jim's friends and buying off some ez was set agin him, thar
ain't much left, and when I've settled that bill for the schooner lying
off the Heads there I reckon I'm about played out. But I've allus a
shanty at Petalumy, and mebbe when things is froze over and Jim gets
back--you'll come and see him--for you ain't seen him at his best.”
“I suppose his wife and children go with him?” said Breeze.
“No! He's agin it, and wants them to come later. But that's all right,
for you see she kin go back to their own house at the Mission, now that
the Vigilants are givin' up shadderin' it. So long, Mr. Breeze! We're
startin' afore daylight. Sorry you didn't see Jim in condition.”
He grasped Breeze's hand warmly and slipped out of the door softly. For
an instant Mr. Breeze felt inclined to follow him into the room and make
a kinder adieu to the pair, but the reflection that he might embarrass
the wife, who, it would seem, had purposely avoided accompanying her
husband when he entered, withheld him. And for the last few minutes he
had been doubtful if he had any right to pose as her friend. Beside the
devotion of the man who had just left him, his own scant kindness to her
children seemed ridiculous.
He went to bed, but tossed uneasily until he fancied he heard stealthy
footsteps outside his door and in the passage. Even then he thought of
getting up, dressing, and going out to bid farewell to the fugitives.
But even while he was thinking of it he fell asleep and did not wake
until the sun was shining in at his windows.
He sprang to his feet, threw on his dressing-gown, and peered into the
passage. Everything was silent. He stepped outside--the light streamed
into the hall from the open doors and windows of both rooms--the floor
was empty; not a trace of the former occupants remained. He was turning
back when his eye fell upon the battered wooden doll set upright against
his doorjamb, holding stiffly in its jointed arms a bit of paper folded
like a note. Opening it, he found a few lines written in pencil.
God bless you for your kindness to us, and try to forgive me for
touching your papers. But I thought that you would detect it, know WHY I
did it, and then help us, as you did! Good-by!
MAMIE BODINE.
Mr. Breeze laid down the paper with a slight accession of color, as if
its purport had been ironical. How little had he done compared to the
devotion of this delicate woman or the sacrifices of that rough friend!
How deserted looked this nest under the eaves, which had so long borne
its burden of guilt, innocence, shame, and suffering! For many days
afterwards he avoided it except at night, and even then he often found
himself lying awake to listen to the lost voices of the children.
But one evening, a fortnight later, he came upon Roberts in the hall.
“Well,” said Breeze, with abrupt directness, “did he get away?”
Roberts started, uttered an oath which it is possible the Recording
Angel passed to his credit, and said, “Yes, HE got away all right!”
“Why, hasn't his wife joined him?”
“No. Never, in this world, I reckon; and if anywhere in the next, I
don't want to go there!” said Roberts furiously.
“Is he dead?”
“Dead? That kind don't die!”
“What do you mean?”
Roberts's lips writhed, and then, with a strong effort, he said with
deliberate distinctness, “I mean--that the hound went off with another
woman--that--was--in--that schooner, and left that fool Shuckster adrift
in the plunger.”
“And the wife and children?”
“Shuckster sold his shanty at Petaluma to pay their passage to the
States. Good-night!”
HOW REUBEN ALLEN “SAW LIFE” IN SAN FRANCISCO
The junior partner of the firm of Sparlow & Kane, “Druggists and
Apothecaries,” of San Francisco, was gazing meditatively out of the
corner of the window of their little shop in Dupont Street. He could see
the dimly lit perspective of the narrow thoroughfare fade off into the
level sand wastes of Market Street on the one side, and plunge into the
half-excavated bulk of Telegraph Hill on the other. He could see the
glow and hear the rumble of Montgomery Street--the great central avenue
farther down the hill. Above the housetops was spread the warm blanket
of sea-fog under which the city was regularly laid to sleep every
summer night to the cool lullaby of the Northwest Trades. It was already
half-past eleven; footsteps on the wooden pavement were getting rarer
and more remote; the last cart had rumbled by; the shutters were up
along the street; the glare of his own red and blue jars was the only
beacon left to guide the wayfarers. Ordinarily he would have been going
home at this hour, when his partner, who occupied the surgery and a
small bedroom at the rear of the shop, always returned to relieve him.
That night, however, a professional visit would detain the “Doctor”
until half-past twelve. There was still an hour to wait. He felt drowsy;
the mysterious incense of the shop, that combined essence of drugs,
spice, scented soap, and orris root--which always reminded him of the
Arabian Nights--was affecting him. He yawned, and then, turning away,
passed behind the counter, took down a jar labeled “Glycyrr. Glabra,”
selected a piece of Spanish licorice, and meditatively sucked it.
Not receiving from it that diversion and sustenance he apparently was
seeking, he also visited, in an equally familiar manner, a jar marked
“Jujubes,” and returned ruminatingly to his previous position.