Black Caesar's Clan Part 4

Gavin reached up and lifted the fluffy creature from the trunk, cradling him in expert manner in the crook of one arm.

Simon Cameron forgot his fear and purred loudly, rubbing his snub-nose face against his captor's sleeve.

"Don't feel too much flattered," adjured the girl. "He's like that, with all strangers. As soon as he has known most people a day or two, he'll have nothing to do with them."

"I know," a.s.sented Gavin. "That's a trick of Persian cats.

They have an inordinate interest in every one except the people they know. Their idea of heaven is to be admired by a million strangers at a time. If I'd had any tobacco-reek on me, Simon Cameron wouldn't have let me hold him as long as this. Persian's hate tobacco."

He set the soothed animal down on the lawn, where, after one scornful look at the tugging and helpless dog, Simon Cameron proceeded to rub his arched back against the man's legs, thus transferring a goodly number of fluffy gray hairs to Brice's shabby trousers. Tiring of this, he minced off, affectedly, toward the distant house that stood at the landward end of the sloping lawn.

As he set the cat down, Brice had stepped out of the shadows of the grove, into the open. And now, not only his face, but his whole body was clearly visible in the dying daylight. The girl's eyes ran appraisingly over the worn clothes and the cracking and dusty shoes. Brice felt, rather than saw, her appraisal. And he knew she was contrasting his costume with his voice and his clean-shaven face. She broke the moment of embarra.s.sed silence by saying "You must be tired after your long tramp, from Miami. Were you walking for fun and exercise, or are you bound for any especial place?" He knew she was fencing, that his clothes made her wonder if she ought not to offer him some cash payment for finding her dog,--a reward she would never have dreamed of offering on the strength of his manner and voice. Also, it seemed, she was seeking some way of closing the interview without dismissing him or walking away. And he answered with perfect simplicity:

"No, I wasn't walking for exercise or fun. There are better and easier ways of acquiring fun than by plodding for hours in the hot sunshine. And of getting exercise, too. I was on my way to Homestead or to some farming place along the line, where I might pick up a job."

"Oh!"

"Yes. I could probably have gotten a place as dishwasher or even as a 'bus' or porter, in one of the big Miami hotels," he pursued, "or a billet with one of the dredging gangs in the harbor. But somehow I'd rather do farm work of some sort. It seems less of a slump, when a chap is down on his luck, than to go in for scrubbing or for section-gang hustling. There are farms and citrus groves, all along here, just back of the bay. And I'm looking for one of them where I can get a decent day's work to do and a decent day's wages for doing it."

He spoke with an almost overdone earnestness. The girl was watching him, attentively, a furrow between her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made him uncomfortable. He continued, with a shade less a.s.surance:

"I was brought up on a farm, though I haven't been on one since I was eighteen. I might have been better off if I'd stayed there. Anyhow, when a man's prospects of starving are growing brighter every day, a farm-job is about the pleasantest sort of work he can find."

"Starving!" she repeated, in something like contempt. "If you had been in this region a little longer--say, long enough to p.r.o.nounce the name, 'Miami' as it's p.r.o.nounced down here, instead of calling it 'Me-ah-mee,' as you did--if you'd been here longer, you'd know that n.o.body need starve in Florida.

n.o.body who is willing to work. There's the fishing, and the construction gangs, and the groves, and the farms, and a million other ways of making a living. The weather lets you sleep outdoors, if you have to. The..."

"I've done it," he chimed in. "Slept outdoors, I mean. Last night, for instance. I slept very snugly indeed, under a Traveler Tree in the gardens of the Royal Palm Hotel. There was a dance at the hotel. I went to sleep, under the stars, to the lullaby of a corking good orchestra. The only drawback was that a spooning couple who were engineering a 'petting party,' almost sat down on my head, there in the darkness.

Not that I'd have minded being a settee for them. But they might have told one of the watchmen about my being there. And I'd have had to hunt other sleeping quarters."

She did not abate that look of quizzical appraisal. And again Gavin Brice began to feel uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

"You have an orange grove, back yonder, haven't you?" he asked, abruptly, nodding toward a landward stretch of ground shut off from the lawn by a thickset hedge of oleander.

"How did you know?" she demanded in suspicion. "By this light you couldn't possibly see--"

"Oddly enough," he said, in the pleasant drawling voice she was learning to like in spite of her better judgment, "oddly enough, I was born with a serviceable pair of nostrils. There is a scent of orange blossoms hanging fairly strong in the air. It doesn't come from the mangrove swamp behind me or from the highroad in front of your house or from the big garden patch to the south of the lawn. So I made a Sherlock Holmes guess that it must be over there to northward, and pretty close. Besides, that's the only direction the Trade Winds could bring the scent from."

Again, she was aware of a certain glibness in his tone,--a glibness that annoyed her and at the same time piqued her curiosity.

"Yes," she said, none too cordially. "Our orange groves are there. Why do you ask?"

"Only," he replied, "because where there are large citrus groves on one side of a house and fairly big vegetable gardens on the other, it means the need for a good bit of labor. And that may mean a chance for a job. Or it may not. You'll pardon my suggesting it.

"My brother needs no more labor," she replied. "At least, I am quite certain he doesn't. In fact, he has more men working here now than he actually needs. I--I've heard him say so.

Of course, I'll be glad to ask him, when he comes back from town. And if you'd care to leave your address--"

"Gladly," said Brice. "Any letter addressed to me, as 'Gavin Brice, in care of Traveler Tree, rear gardens of Royal Palm Hotel,' will reach me. Unless, of course, the night watchmen chance to root me out. In that case, I'll leave word with them where mail may be forwarded. In the meantime, it's getting pretty dark, and I don't know this part of Dade County as well as I'd like to. So I'll be starting on. If you don't mind, I'll cross your lawn, and take the main road. It's easier going, at night than by way of the mangrove swamp and the beach. Good night, Miss--"

"Wait!" she interposed, worry creeping into her sweet voice.

"I--I can't let you go like this. Do you really mean you have to sleep out of doors and that you have no money? I don't want to be impertinent, but--"

"'n.o.body need starve in Florida,'" he quoted, gravely.

"'n.o.body who is willing to work. The weather lets you sleep outdoors.' (In which, the weather chimes harmoniously with my pocketbook.) And, as I am extremely 'willing to work,' it follows that I can't possibly starve. But I thank you for feeling concerned about me. It's a long day since a woman has bothered her head whether I live or die. Good night, again, Miss--"

A second time, she ignored his hint that she tell him her name. Too much worried over his light words and the real need they seemed to cover, to heed the subtler intent, she said, a little tremulously:

"I--I don't understand you, at all. Not that it is any business of mine, of course. But I hate to think that any one is in need of food or shelter. Your voice and your face and the way you talk--they don't fit in with the rest of you.

Such men as yourself don't drift, penniless, through Lower Florida, looking for day-laborer jobs. I can't understand--"

"Every one who speaks decent English and yet is down-and-out,"

he said, quietly, "isn't necessarily a tramp or a fugitive from justice. And he doesn't need to be a man of mystery, either. Suppose, let's say, a clerk in New York has been too ill, for a long time, to work. Suppose illness has eaten all his savings, and that he doesn't care to borrow, when he knows he may never be able to pay. Suppose his doctor tells him he must go South, to get braced up, and to avoid a New York February and March. Suppose the patient has only about money enough to get here, and relies on finding something to do to keep him in food and lodging. Well--there's nothing mysterious or especially discreditable in that, is there? ...

The dew is beginning to fall. And I'm keeping you out here in the damp. Good night, Miss--Miss--"

"Standish," she supplied, but speaking absently, her mind still perturbed at his plight. "My name is Standish.

Claire Standish."

"Mine is Gavin Brice," he said. "Good night. Keep hold of Bobby Burns's collar, till I'm well on my way. He may try to follow me. Good-by, old chap," he added, bending down and taking the collie's silken head affectionately between his hands. "You're a good dog, and a good pal. But put the soft pedal on the temperamental stuff, when you're near Simon Cameron. That's the best recipe for avoiding a scratched nose. By the way, Miss Standish, don't encourage him to roam around in the palmetto scrub, on your outings with him. The rattlesnakes have gotten many a good dog, in Florida. He--"

"Mr. Brice!" she broke in. "If I offend you, I can't help it.

Won't you please let me--let me lend you enough money to keep you going, till you get a good job? Please do! Of course, you can pay me, as soon as--"

"'I have not found such faith,--no, not in Israel!'" quoted Brice, a new note in his voice which somehow stirred the embarra.s.sed girl's heart. "You have only my bare word that I'm not a panhandler or a crook. And yet you believe in me enough to--"

"You will let me?" she urged, eagerly. "Say you will! Say it."

"I'll make cleaner use of your faith," he returned, "by asking you to say a good word for me to your brother, if ever I come back here looking for a job. No, no!" he broke off, fiercely, before she could answer. "I don't mean that. You must do nothing of the kind. Forget I asked it."

With which amazing outburst, he turned on his heel, ran across the lawn, leaped the low privet hedge which divided it from the coral road, and made off at a swinging pace in the direction of Coconut Grove and Miami.

"What a fool--and what a cur--a man can make of himself," he muttered disgustedly as he strode along, without daring to look back at the wondering little white-clad figure, watching him out of sight around the bend, "when he gets to talking with a woman--a woman with--with eyes like hers! They--why, they make me feel as if I was in church! What sort of bungling novice am I, anyhow, for work like this?"

With a grunt of self-contempt, he drove his hands deep into the pockets of his shabby trousers and quickened his pace.

His fingers closed mechanically around a roll of bills, of very respectable size, in the depths of his right-hand pocket.

The gesture caused a litter of small change to give forth a m.u.f.fled jingle. A sense of shame crept over the man, at the contact.

"She wanted to lend me money!" he muttered, half-aloud.

"Money! Not give it to me, as a beggar, but to lend it to me.... Her nose has the funniest little tilt to it! And she can't be an inch over five feet tall! ... I'm a wall-eyed idiot!"

He stood aside to let two cars pa.s.s him, one going in either direction. The lamps of the car from the west, traveling east, showed him for a moment the occupant of the car that was moving westward. The brief ray shone upon a pair of shoulders as wide as a steam radiator. They were clad in loose-fitting white silk. Above them a thick golden beard caught the ray of shifting light. Then, both cars had pa.s.sed on, and Brice was resuming his trudge.

"Milo Standish!" he mused, looking back at the car as it vanished in a cloudlet of white coral-dust. "Milo Standish!

... As big as two elephants .... 'The bigger they are, the harder they fall.'"

The road curved, from the Standish estate, in almost a "C"

formation, before straightening out, a mile to the north, into the main highway. Gavin Brice had just reached the end of the "C" when there was a scurrying sound behind him, in a grapefruit grove to his right. Something light and agile scrambled over the low coral-block wall, and flung itself rapturously on him.

It was Bobby Burns.

The collie had suffered himself to be led indoors by the girl whom he had never seen until that morning, and for whom, thus far, he had formed no affection. But his wistful, deepset dark eyes had followed Gavin Brice's receding form. He could not believe this dear new friend meant to desert him. As Brice did not stop, nor even look back, the collie waxed doubtful. And he tugged to be free. Claire spoke gently to him, a slight quiver in her own voice, her dark eyes, like his, fixed upon the dwindling dark speck on the dusky white road.