The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories Part 2

"Now that's the way with Emeline," he said; "she's all faith, and then, again, she has no faith. Now, I'm just the other way." He rubbed his bald head in a vain attempt to formulate the obverse of his wife's character. "Well, anyway," he resumed, accepting his failure cheerfully, "the professor he wants to find a claim, as I was telling you, but he wants one that's handy to the place he's selected for the tunnel. Of course he won't say just where that is till we get the papers made out, but he gave me a kind of a general idea of it, and the land around there's all mine. He'd have to go 'way over east to find a government section that hasn't been filed on, and of course there'd be a big expense for pipe; so he offers to locate the tunnel for half the water if we get ten inches or over, and I'm to make the tunnel, and deed him twenty acres of land."

"Suppose you get less than ten inches--what then?"

"Then it's all to be mine; but I'm to deed him the land all the same."

"How many inches of water have you from your spring now?"

"About ten, as near as I can guess."

"Well, suppose he locates the tunnel so it will drain your spring; are you to have the expense of the work and the privilege of giving him half the water and twenty acres of land--is that it?"

John rubbed the back of his neck and reflected.

"The professor laughs at the idea of ten inches of water. He says we'll get at least a hundred, maybe more. You see, if we were to get that much, I'd have a lot of water to sell to the settlers below. It 'u'd be a big thing."

"So it would; but there's a big 'if' in there, Dysart. Do you know anything about this man's record?"

"I asked about him down in Los Angeles. Some folks believe in him, and some don't. They say he struck a big stream for them over at San Luis. I don't go much on what people say, anyway; I size a man up, and depend on that. I like the way the professor talks. I don't understand all of it, but he seems to have things pretty pat. Don't you think he has?"

"Yes; he has things pat enough. Most swindlers have. It's their business. Not that I think him a deliberate swindler, Dysart. Possibly he believes in himself. But I hope you'll be cautious."

"Oh, I'm cautious," a.s.serted John. "I'd be a good deal richer man to-day if I hadn't been so cautious. I've spent a lot of time and money looking into things. I'll get there, if caution'll do it. Now, Emeline she's impulsive; she has to be held back; she never examines into anything: but I'm just the other way."

In spite of Palmerston's warning and Mrs. Dysart's fears, temporal and spiritual, negotiations between Dysart and Brownell made rapid progress.

The newcomer's tent was pitched upon the twenty acres selected, and gleamed white against the mountain-side, suggesting to Palmerston's idle vision a sail becalmed upon a sage-green sea. "Dysart's ship, which will probably never come in," he said to himself, looking at it with visible indignation, one morning, as he sat at his tent door in that state of fuming indolence which the male American calls taking a rest.

"Practically there is little difference between a knave and a fool," he fretted; "it's the difference between the gun that is loaded and the one that is not: in the long run the unloaded gun does the more mischief. A self-absorbed fool is a knave. After all, dishonesty is only abnormal selfishness; it's a question of degree. h.e.l.lo, Dysart!" he said aloud, as his host appeared around the tent. "How goes it?"

"Slow," said John emphatically, "slow. I'm feeling my way like a cat, and the professor he's just about as cautious as I am. We're a good team. He's been over the canon six times, and every time that machine of his'n gives him a new idea. He's getting it down to a fine point. He wanted to go up again to-day, but I guess he can't."

"What's up?" inquired Palmerston indifferently.

"Well, his daughter wrote him she was coming this afternoon, and somebody'll have to meet her down at Malaga when the train comes in.

I've just been oiling up the top-buggy, and I thought maybe if you"--

"Why, certainly," interrupted Palmerston, responding amiably to the suggestion of John's manner; "if you think the young lady will not object, I shall be delighted. What time is the train due?"

"Now, that's just what I told Emeline," said John triumphantly. "He'd liever go than not, says I; if he wouldn't then young folks has changed since I can remember. The train gets there about two o'clock. If you jog along kind of comfortable you'll be home before supper. If the girl's as smart as her father, you'll have a real nice visit."

Mrs. Dysart viewed the matter with a pessimism which was scarcely to be distinguished from conventionality.

"I think it's a kind of an imposition, Mr. Palmerston," she said, as her boarder was about to start, "sendin' you away down there for a total stranger. It's a good thing you're not bashful. Some young men would be terribly put out. I'm sure Jawn would 'a' been at your age. But my father wouldn't have sent a strange young man after one of his daughters--he knowed us too well. My, oh! just to think of it! I'd have fell all in a heap."

Palmerston ventured a hope that the young lady would not be completely unnerved.

"Oh, I'm not frettin' about _her_," said his hostess. "I don't doubt she can take care of _her_self. If she's like some of her folks, she'll talk you blind."

Palmerston drove away to hide the smile that teased the corners of his mouth.

"The good woman has the instincts of a chaperon, without the traditions," he reflected, letting his smile break into a laugh. "Her sympathy is with the weaker s.e.x when it comes to a personal encounter.

We may need her services yet, who knows?"

Malaga was a flag-station, and the shed which was supposed to shelter its occasional pa.s.sengers from the heat of summer and the rain of winter was flooded with afternoon sunshine. Palmerston drove into the square shadow of the shed roof, and set his feet comfortably upon the dashboard while he waited. He was not aware of any very lively curiosity concerning the young woman for whom he was waiting. That he had formed some nebulous hypothesis of vulgarity was evidenced by his whimsical hope that her prevailing atmosphere would not be musk; aggressive perfumery of some sort seemed inevitable. He found himself wondering what trait in her father had led him to this deduction, and drifted idly about in the haze of heredity until the whistle of the locomotive warned him to withdraw his feet from their elevation and betake himself to the platform. Half a minute later the engine panted onward and the young man found himself, with uplifted hat, confronting a slender figure clad very much as he was, save for the skirt that fell in straight, dark folds to the ground.

"Miss Brownell?" inquired Palmerston smiling.

The young woman looked at him with evident surprise.

"Where is my father?" she asked abruptly.

"He was unable to come. He regretted it very much. I was so fortunate as to take his place. Allow me"--He stooped toward her satchel.

"Unable to come--is he ill?" pursued the girl, without moving.

"Oh, no," explained Palmerston hastily; "he is quite well. It was something else--some matter of business."

"Business!" repeated the young woman, with ineffable scorn.

She turned and walked rapidly toward the buggy. Palmerston followed with her satchel. She gave him a preoccupied "Thank you" as he a.s.sisted her to a seat and shielded her dress with the shabby robe.

"Do you know anything about this business of my father's?" she asked as they drove away.

"Very little; it is between him and Mr. Dysart, with whom I am boarding.

Mr. Dysart has mentioned it to me." The young man spoke with evident reluctance. His companion turned her clear, untrammeled gaze upon him.

"You needn't be afraid to say what you think. Of course it is all nonsense," she said bitterly.

Palmerston colored under her intent gaze, and smiled faintly.

"I have said what I think to Mr. Dysart. Don't you really mean that I need not be afraid to say what _you_ think?"

She was still looking at him, or rather at the place where he was. She turned a little more when he spoke, and regarded him as if he had suddenly materialized.

"I think it is all nonsense," she said gravely, as if she were answering a question. Then she turned away again and knitted her brows. Palmerston glanced covertly now and then at her profile, unwillingly aware of its beauty. She was handsome, strikingly, distinguishedly handsome, he said to himself; but there was something lacking. It must be femininity, since he felt the lack and was masculine. He smiled to think how much alike they must appear--he and this very gentlemanly young woman beside him. He thought of her soft felt hat and the cut of her dark-blue coat, and there arose in him a rigidly subdued impulse to offer her a cigar, to ask her if she had a daily paper about her, to--She turned upon him suddenly, her eyes full of tears.

"I am crying!" she exclaimed angrily. "How unspeakably silly!"

Palmerston's heart stopped with that nameless terror which the actual man always experiences when confronted by this phase of the ideal woman.

He had been so serene, so comfortable, under the unexpected that there flashed into his mind a vague sense of injury that she should surprise him in this way with the expected. It was inconsiderate, inexcusable; then, with an inconsistency worthy of a better s.e.x, he groped after an excuse for the inexcusable.

"You are very nervous--your journey has tired you--you are not strong,"

he pleaded.

"I am _not_ nervous," insisted the young woman indignantly. "I have no nerves--I detest them. And I am quite as strong as you are." The young fellow winced. "It is not that. It is only because I cannot have my own way. I cannot make people do as I wish." She spoke with a heat that seemed to dry her tears.

Palmerston sank back and let the case go by default. "If you like that view of it better"--

"I like the truth," the girl broke in vehemently. "I am so tired of talk! Why must we always cover up the facts with a lot of plat.i.tudes?"