The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure Part 15

"M'sieu' is acquainted with the American, Senor Williams?"

"_Oui._"

"Will _m'sieu' le docteur_ please to tell him that Captain Inocencio has won his wager?"

"I don't understand."

"Listen! In the room yonder, under the bed, m'sieu' will find a little boy baby rolled up in a blanket. The woman heard them at the door, and she was just in time. Oh, she knew they would be coming."

The French doctor nodded his comprehension. "But--your wife herself?"

said he. "Perhaps when you are well again you can have your vengeance.

The soldiers will--"

"Bah! What is the use?" interrupted Inocencio. "The world is full of women." Then, strangely enough, he bared his yellow teeth in a smile of rarest tenderness. "But this boy of mine! They came to kill him, m'sieu', and to show that the San Blas blood cannot be crossed; but the woman was too quick of wit. They did not find him, praise G.o.d! _Le docteur_ has seen many children, perhaps, but never a child like this."

He ran on with a father's tender boastfulness. "M'sieu' will note the back and the legs of him. And see, he did not even cry, poor little man!

Oh, he is like his father for bravery! He will be my vengeance, for he has the San Blas blood in him; he will be a man like me, too. Bring him to me quickly; I must see him again." He was still babbling fondly to the negroes about him when the doctor reappeared, empty-handed.

"The child is dead," said the white man, simply.

In the silence Inocencio rose to a sitting posture. His fierce eyes grew wild with a fright that had never been there until this moment. Then, before they could prevent him, he had gained his feet. He waved them aside and went into the room of death, walking like a strong man. A candle guttering beside the open window betrayed the utter nakedness of the place. With one movement of his great, bony hands he ripped the planks of the bed asunder and stared downward. Then he turned to the east and, raising his arms above his head, gave a terrible cry. He began to sway, and even as the doctor leaped to save him he fell with a crash.

It was Nicholas who told the priest that the French doctor would not let them move him; for he lay upon his face at the feet of the San Blas woman, his arms flung outward like the arms of a cross.

THE WAG-LADY

Her real name was June--well, the rest doesn't matter; for no one ever got beyond that point. It was the Sc.r.a.p Iron Kid who first bore news of her coming to the Wag-boys. Knowing him for a poet, they put down his perfervid description as the logical outpouring of a romantic spirit.

Reddy summed it up neatly by saying, "The Kid has fell for another quilt, that's all."

"I 'ain't fell for no frill," the Kid stoutly declared. "I've saw too many to lose me out. This gal's a thoroughbred."

"Another recruit for Simons, I suppose," Llewellyn yawned. "I'll drop in at the theater and look her over."

"An' she ain't no actor, neither," Sc.r.a.p Iron declared. "She's goin' to start a hotel."

"Bah! If she's as good-looking as you claim, some Swede will marry her before she can buy her dishes."

"Sure! They must all pull something like that to start with," said the Dummy, who was a woman-hater; "then when you've played 'em straight they h'ist the pirate's flag and go to palmin' percentage checks in some dance-hall."

But again the idealistic Sc.r.a.p Iron Kid came stubbornly to the defense of the new-comer; and the argument was growing warm when Thomasville and the Swede entered with two caddies of tobacco which they had managed to acquire during the confusion at the water-front, thus ending the discussion.

There were six of the Wag-boys, six as bold and unscrupulous gentlemen as the ebb and swirl of the Northern gold rush had left stranded beneath the rim of the Arctic, and they had joined forces, drawn as much, perhaps, by their common calling as by the facilities thus afforded for perfecting any alibis that a long and lonesome winter might render necessary. Nor is it quite correct to state that they were stranded; for it takes more than the buffets of a stormy fate to strand such men as the Dummy and George Llewellyn and the Sc.r.a.p Iron Kid and their three companions.

Llewellyn was the gentleman of the outfit, owing to the fact that the polish of an early training had not been utterly dulled by a four years'

trick at Deer Lodge Penitentiary. The Dummy had gained his name from an admirable self-restraint which no "third-degree" methods had ever served to break; Thomasville was so called because of a boyish pride in his Georgia birthplace; while Reddy and the Swede--But this is the story of the Wag-lady, and we digress.

To begin with, June was young, with a springtime flush in her cheeks, and eyes as clear as glacier pools. Yet with all her youth and beauty, she possessed a poise that held men at a distance. She also had a certain fearlessness that came, perhaps, from worldly innocence and was far more effective than the customary brazenness of frontier women. She went ahead with her business, asking neither advice nor a.s.sistance, and, almost before the Wag-boys knew what she was up to, she had leased the P. C. Warehouse near their cabin and had carpenters changing it into a bunk-house.

In a week it was open for business; on the second night after it was full. Then she built a tiny cabin near her "hotel," and proceeded to keep house for herself, sleeping daytimes and working nights.

"Say, she's coinin' money!" the Sc.r.a.p Iron Kid advised his companions some time later. "She's got fifty bunks at a dollar apiece, and each one is full of Swede. You'd ought 'o drift by in business hours--it sounds like a sawmill."

"If she's getting the money so fast, why don't you grab her, Kid?"

inquired Llewellyn.

"You cut that out!" snapped the former speaker. "There ain't n.o.body going to grab that dame. I'd croak any guy that made a crack at her, and that goes!"

Seeing a familiar light smoldering in the Kid's eyes, Llewellyn desisted from further comment, but he made up his mind to become acquainted with June at once.

Now, while he succeeded, it was in quite an unexpected manner; for before he had formulated any plan Thomasville came to him with a proposition that drove all thoughts of women from his mind and sent them both out to the mines shortly after dark, each provided with a six-shooter and a bandana handkerchief with eyeholes cut in it.

Jane had returned to her cabin the following morning, and was preparing for bed, when she heard a faltering footstep outside. She glanced down at her money-sack filled with the night's receipts of her hotel, then at the fastenings of her door. She knew that law was but a pretense and order a mockery in the camp, but the next instant she slid back the bolt and let in a flood of morning sunlight.

There, leaning against her wall, was a tall, dark young man whose head was hanging loosely and rolling from side to side. His hair beneath the gray Stetson was wet, his boots were sodden and muddy, one arm was thrust limply into the front of his coat as if paralyzed. She saw that the sleeve was caked with blood. Even as she spoke he sagged forward and slid down at her feet.

She was not the sort to run for help, and so, taking him under the armpits, she had him on her bed and his sleeve cut away before he opened his eyes. It was but an instant's work to heat a basin of water; then she fell to bathing the wound. When she drew forth the shreds of cloth that had been taken into the flesh by the bullet, the man's face grew ghastly and she heard his teeth grind, but he made no other sound.

"That hurt, didn't it?" she smiled at him, and he tried to smile back.

"How did it happen?" she queried.

"Accident."

"You have come a long way?"

He nodded.

"Why didn't you ask for help?"

"It--wasn't worth while."

She looked at him wonderingly, admiring his gameness; then was surprised to hear him say:

"So you're June!"

"Yes."

He closed his eyes and lay still while she poured some brandy for him; then he said:

"Please don't bother. I must be going."

"Not till you've eaten something." She laid a soft, cool palm upon his forehead when he endeavored to rise, and he dropped back again, watching her curiously.