Another day and the Idaho was battling for her life and that of every
soul aboard. Forging her way southward, she took the furious buffets of
the gale on the starboard quarter--"the right front," as Turnbull would
have put it had he not been too ill to care a fig where she was hit, and
only wished she might go down if that would keep her still. Sea after
sea burst over the dripping decks and tossed her like a cockle shell
upon the waters. Time and again the bows would plunge deep in some
rushing surge and then, uplifting, send torrents washing aft and pour
cataracts from her sides. Long before the dawn of day the red-eyed
commander had ordered the southward course abandoned and headed his
laboring craft for the opposite shores. Harbor there was none north of
the deep sheltered bay of La Paz, but there would be relief from the
tremendous poundings of the billows when once under the lee of Old
California. Obedient to her helm, the Idaho now met "dead ahead" both
wind and sea. The rolling measurably ceased. The pitching fore and aft
continued, but the passenger list by this time cared no longer to
discriminate. It was all one to all but one of their number. Loring, of
the engineers, thanks to long weeks of illness of another sort, was
mercifully exempted from the pangs of seasickness, but the sights and
sounds between decks were more than could long be borne, and, making his
way forward shortly after dawn, he had succeeded in borrowing a spare
sou-wester and pair of sea boots from the second officer, and, equipped
in these and a rubber coat, leaving nothing but his nose and mouth in
evidence, he was boosted up the narrow stairway to the shelter of the
pilot-house on the uppermost deck--the Idaho had no bridge--and there he
saw the sun come up to the meridian and the sea go gradually down as the
steamer found smoother waters under the lee of San Ildefonso. Only
lightly laden, the stanch little craft had well-nigh "jumped out of her
boots," as the jovial skipper expressed it, and now, all brine and
beaming satisfaction after his long hours of stormy vigil, he clapped
Loring on the shoulder, complimented him on his possession of a "sea
stomach" and ordered coffee served forthwith. They were steaming slowly
along at half-speed now, taking a breathing spell before attempting the
next round, and the captain waxed confidential.
"What's wrong with that pretty little niece?" he asked. "She was bright
enough the day they came aboard on our up trip. Now, the stewardess
tells me she fainted dead away and has been begging to be put ashore all
night."
Loring couldn't say.
"But you helped carry her down, you and Turnbull. The stewardess says
you were both very kind to her, where her own people neglected her. I
didn't fancy that scrub Escalante. Do you know anything about him or her
own people?"
"Nothing--to speak of," said Loring.
"Fernandez, one of those young Guaymas swells, says the mother was own
sister to De la Cruz--married against his wishes when she was a mere
girl--died a few years later, and that Don Ramon offered to adopt and
educate her little girl, but only lately would the Escalantes give her
up. All I know is that she's too damned miserable about something else
to be even seasick like the rest of 'em. You'd a-been down there with
Turnbull if you hadn't just had more'n your share of illness," added he,
with the mariner's slight disapprobation of the landsman who defies
initiations of Neptune.
"Very possibly," said Loring.
"The purser tells me Escalante gave him a little packet belonging to
her--very valuable, which he ordered kept in the safe until their agent
should call for it at 'Frisco."
"Indeed!" said Loring, looking up in quick interest.
"Fact," said the skipper. "Now, have some more coffee? I'm going to turn
in for forty winks. Let the steward know when you want anything. Nobody
else will. We've got to face some more rollers after awhile. I dassen't
go inside Carmen Island."
But Loring had something more engrossing to think of than breakfast or
luncheon. So there was a little packet in the purser's safe, was there?
Valuable and not to be delivered except to their agent in 'Frisco. It
was in Pancha's name, yet not subject to Pancha's order. Why that
discrimination? And it was given the purser by Escalante--brother of
_the_ Escalante--another brother of the accomplished sharper of Sancho's
ranch. A precious trinity of blood relations were these! Small wonder
Don Ramon, had opposed his girl sister's union with one of their number.
Now, what on earth could that small packet contain, and was it likely
that the valuables were any more valuable than those snatched from his
saddle-bags the night of the assault at Gila Bend?--the watch and
diamonds of the late Captain Nevins now vanished into thin air,
apparently, for not a trace of him had appeared since the night he rode
away from Camp Cooke.
In genuine distress of mind, Loring had written from Yuma, as soon as
the doctor would permit, to the address penned by Nevins in presence of
the court, informing that vagabond officer's wife that the valuables he
had been charged to place in her hands had been forcibly taken from him,
after he himself had been assaulted and stricken senseless; that every
effort had been made to recover them, but without success; that he
deplored their loss and her many misfortunes, and begged to be informed
if he could serve her in any other way. The doctors had promised him
that he would be restored by a sea voyage. It would be three weeks,
probably, before he could reach San Francisco, and meantime he knew from
the captain's admission that she was probably in need.
"No one," wrote Loring, "is dependent upon me, and I beg your acceptance
as a loan, as a temporary accommodation, or as anything you please, of
the inclosed draft." (It covered nearly every dollar he happened to have
to his credit in the bank at San Francisco, though he had pay accounts
still collectible.) It took nearly ten days for answer to reach him,
and Loring hid himself away to read it when the letter came, addressed
in a hand he knew too well:
"Naomi, my beloved sister, is prostrated by her sorrows and
anxieties," it began, "and I must be her amanuensis--I who would die
for her, yet who shrink from this task, well knowing, though she
does not, how hard it is to write to one to whom I have given
perhaps such infinite pain. Indeed, I should not have had courage to
write had she not required it of me, had not your most generous
offer and action demanded response. But for your aid my heartbroken
sister and I would by this time have had no roof to cover our heads.
These people had refused to house us longer. As soon as she is well
enough to move and I can obtain the means from Eastern friends we
shall sail for New Orleans, where she expects to find friends and
employment, and she bids me say that within the year you shall be
repaid. Meantime the thought that you, too, have been made a
sufferer, all on account of that unprincipled scoundrel who has
deceived and deserted her, weighs upon her spirits as it does on
mine. It is not the loss of the jewels (though we would have been
beyond the possibility of want had they reached her) that we mourn;
it is that one whom I fear I have sorely angered, perhaps past all
forgiveness, should have to suffer so much more on our account, and
yet if you only knew--if I could only explain! But this is futile.
Despise me if you will, yet believe that my gratitude is beyond
words.
"GERALDINE ALLYN.
"P. S.--Should you care to see--sister on your arrival we shall
probably still be here."
Then there had come, not to him but to the post surgeon at Yuma, another
letter just before Loring started down the Colorado. The doctor was with
his patient at the moment, and the superscription caught the latter's
eye. The doctor changed color and looked embarrassed as he read.
Evidently he did not desire to be questioned, nor was he, at the time,
for Loring had a way of thinking before he spoke, but as the doctor
completed certain injunctions at parting, the engineer turned full upon
him:
"Any news of Nevins in the letter you got this morning?"
The doctor flushed, looked bothered and confused, then finally fished
the letter from an inner pocket.
"Read it yourself," said he, and turned away. It was from Miss Allyn. It
apologized for intruding on a stranger, on his time and patience, but
she knew he had been Mr. Loring's medical adviser, and she felt
compelled to make certain inquiries, her sister being still unable to
write for herself. The doctor was probably aware that Mr. Loring had
written apprising them of the loss of certain articles of great value
that had been intrusted to his care and intended for them. He had
expressed the utmost sorrow and had tendered certain reimbursement (that
check was for two hundred dollars, not a cent less), not a fortieth part
of the value of the lost articles, probably, but now they were in
receipt of a letter from Captain Nevins that must have come by private
hand to San Francisco, telling them that he must go forth to seek his
fortunes anew; that his wife would never hear from him until he could
come with full hands; that he had sent her every penny and possession
he had--enough to keep her in comfort--and if Lieutenant Loring did not
promptly deliver the same to take legal steps to compel him to do so, as
he, Nevins, was now convinced the officer might appropriate them to his
own use, if he could find any way to cover his breach of trust, such as
swearing they were stolen from him. Captain Nevins had written other
things in condemnation of Mr. Loring which neither Mrs. Nevins nor
herself could believe; but--it did seem strange that an officer could
find no safe method of sending valuable jewels when so much depended on
his fidelity.
Loring read no further. His blue eyes were blazing already and his face
was white with wrath when he returned the missive to his friend, who,
knowing nothing of Loring's past infatuation for the writer, wondered at
sight of his emotion.
"Why, Loring," said he, "you take this shallow girl too seriously. It's
the way with women all over the world. They can never wholly acquit a
man of complicity when they have suffered a loss. If that package were
with you on the Idaho and she was to go down in midocean and the jewelry
with her, some women would say you scuttled the ship in order to rob
them."
The doctor's name, it must be observed, is unrecorded, because of the
extremity of his cynicism. He went back to Yuma and his duties and
stowed that letter away, to be answered later on. What the writer said
her sister desired most to know was whether Mr. Loring had sustained any
injury that might affect his mind or memory, and the doctor sniffed
indignantly at the notion while we read, yet marveled much at the effect
that half-uttered accusation had on his usually calm, self-poised
patient. He spoke of it to Turnbull when that veteran came hurrying in
by stage and followed Loring down the murky stream, only just in time to
catch the steamer, but Turnbull paid faint heed. Loring was still weak,
he said, and a man of sensitive honor might well be wrathful at such
insinuations.
And now as Loring clung to the rail upon the lofty deck and gazed out
over the waste of tumbling waters toward the barren shores, he was
thinking deeply of that letter, of the strange bent of mind that could
dictate such unjustifiable suggestion--if not accusation. He was
thinking, too, of Pancha and that little packet in the purser's safe,
when suddenly that officer himself came popping up the narrow stairway
and poked his unprotected head into the whistling wind.
"Lieutenant, come below and have a bite while we're here off Ildefonso.
We'll be turning handsprings in half an hour," and Loring followed to
the steward's cuddy where a smoking luncheon awaited them, and the
silent soldier fell to with the appetite that follows fever. Purser and
steward looked on with admiration.
"I'll prescribe a course of typhoid to the next friend of mine that
contemplates a voyage like this," said the former presently. "It made
you invulnerable, but was it typhoid?"
"No--some head trouble."
"Sunstruck?" queried the purser. "Hot as it is, that don't often happen
in Arizona--too dry."
"Struck, but not by sun--pistol-butt, perhaps," said Loring. "Night
attack of Gila Bend--robbers."
"Oh, Lord, yes! I remember. I heard about that," said the genial purser.
"Got away with some money, didn't they?"
"No money, but with a valuable package," and the blue eyes were fixed
intently on the purser as he spoke, while the steward uncorked another
pint of Margaux. "A tin box about eight by three, containing a watch and
jewels. You sometimes get such for safekeeping, do you not?"
"Got one now," was the prompt reply, as the officer smacked his lips and
held out his glass for another sip of the red wine of France. "Old
Escalante gave it to me at Guaymas. It's the little señorita's."