Their Mariposa Legend Part 6

"But you said, when you wired, you wanted the extra room to work in," he objected, "and you'll remember, Mr. Blair, that you were pretty emphatic about it, too, at the time. We went to all kinds of trouble to fix that up for you."

"I can get along all right without it, though," coolly observed his changeable guest, "and I'd rather she'd have it. It's possible to split suites here, isn't it?" he persisted. "They do at most hotels."

"It's possible, of course." Across the desk the eyes of the two men met squarely. "That part of it's easy enough. But why? and who's going to pay for it?"

"I'm going to pay for it! What did you suppose?" exploded Blair. "It's worth that and a lot more to me just now to keep her from getting away.

Oh, I'm in earnest all right. I mean it! Look here! Can't you see how that woman can be a perfect gold mine to me? You know enough about my work to understand that I'm really out here after Indians myself, and she--well, I'll wager a cool thousand there isn't a spot on this whole island that ever dreamed of seeing an Indian that she doesn't know all about!"

The clerk nodded. "But--"

"But nothing!" Impatiently Blair brushed aside all objections. "Why, I hadn't the remotest idea how I was going to get started. It's a rattling piece of good luck, and we'll fix it up right now!"

"Yes, but--" Still the other man hesitated. "It sounds all right enough,--from your end of it especially, but you'd better see her first.

She's a proud little piece,--doesn't like obligations of any kind,--and a stranger,--a man--I'm sorry to discourage you, but I don't believe she'll have a thing to do with it."

In Blair's eyes impatience threatened to become something more emphatic.

"It's a business proposition pure and simple," he argued. "She gives me all the information she's been able to get together, and I pay her expenses while she does it. That gives her a chance to finish her own work, don't you see? A mighty good proposition for her, too, I should say, and if she doesn't see it that way herself,--why,--well, she isn't as intelligent as she looks, that's all!"

"Providing you can persuade her it is just business. I'd advise you to talk with her first, just the same. And you'll have to be quick about it, too. She's planning to wait in the village tonight for the morning boat, and she'll be starting down about now."

Outside was one of those radiant nights intended for dreams and the makers of dreams. Over an ocean white with light long breakers rolled crests gleaming with silver that fell in soft thunder on the beach. Miss Hastings, hurrying along the board-walk to the village, glanced at them and looked quickly away.

"Oh, I say!" came a voice out of the darkness behind her, "if you don't mind, hold on there a minute, will you? Wait for me, please!" The voice was that of a man, pleasant, but exceedingly determined. Without so much as turning her head Miss Hastings quickened her steps.

But it was of no use. Whoever her pursuer might be, he was even then at her side.

"I beg your pardon," breathlessly he began again, "but I've been chasing you all the way down from the hotel. I want you to come right back there with me. I have a proposal to make to you."

Even in the darkness he could see how the girl's eyes blazed.

"I never listen--" she began hotly, "to proposals from people I don't know," she had meant to add, but he gave her no time.

"It will mean the biggest chance for your pictures you've ever had," he broke in. "Now, listen!"

And, to her complete surprise, Miss Hastings suddenly found herself doing that very thing.

"There are a lot of things I've got to find out right away," continued the astonishing stranger, "and the clerk up there tells me you're painting a series of Indian portraits."

The little art teacher gazed at him fascinated. What manner of man could this be, she wondered.

"I don't see the connection--" Coldness struggled with curiosity in her voice.

"Listen!" With uplifted, peremptory hand again he stopped her. Nor is it safe to say that any book agent, watching the door slowly closing upon him, ever talked faster, or more rigidly to the point, than did Blair within the next few minutes.

"Perhaps you won't understand it all right off. I wouldn't expect that.

But it's this way. I'm representing Harper's, and Houghton and Mifflin, and Dodd and Mead, and--several other firms" (to satisfy his conscience Blair contended with himself that he might as well as not have been their representative--a mere oversight on their part ought not to be allowed to stand in his way), "and I'm out here to find the best ill.u.s.trator I can lay hands on to do the pictures for some Indian stuff I'm getting into shape for one of 'em. I want to see your work. And, if I like it, I'll pay you well. And anyway, I'll pay every bit of the expense while you finish your series here if you'll tell me what you know about Wildenai!"

But, at the name, the girl beside him had given a low cry of utter amazement. She stopped short.

"Do you know it too, then?" she gasped. "How did you hear about it?"

"Oh, I've known it for years," replied Blair carelessly. "Some of it I've known all my life. But look here now. Is it a bargain?--about your helping me, I mean?"

Before he left her, an hour or so later, every detail had been arranged.

Miss Hastings had meekly agreed to return to the hotel in the morning.

Blair would pay her expenses and something he called a retaining fee besides. That would make an extra fifty dollars,--she smiled to herself in the dark,--a new winter suit at least, and perhaps one or two matinees if she managed! All this for the information she could give him about the island and its history. The various points in their contract spun dizzily in her dazed brain. No spot known to legend to which it was possible to conduct him should remain unvisited. Four hours out of every day were pledged without fail to his interests. The rest of the time she might have for her own work. It had all come about so unexpectedly, and was altogether so extraordinary that, after he had gone, his new employee, stretched uncomfortably upon a narrow cot in the tent of a fellow teacher, spent the remainder of the night in imaginary interviews with Eastern publishers regarding impossible royalties. She was far too excited to sleep.

And, for a week, the arrangement worked very well,--almost too well.

Every day brought with it some new adventure, and every adventure became a pleasure.

Mounted at Blair's expense on more or less energetic ponies, for from the first he had insisted that horses were a necessary part of their business equipment, they cantered gaily along the shady canyon trails, or over the sunlit slopes sheeted in pale lavender wherever the wild lilacs were in bloom. Often, emerging from some thicket of dwarf oak they caught glimpses of a sapphire sea held between red, twisted branches of manzanita as in a frame. About them rang the music of the meadow larks. Merry shouts of bathers floated up from the beaches far below, mingled with the distant click of golf b.a.l.l.s on the greens.

For the whole of a golden day they chartered a sailboat from one, Capt.

Warren, and rounding the yellow headlands under his lazy guidance, they went to examine the Ning Po, the ancient Chinese barge stranded, no one knew how many hundreds of years before, among the rocks off the isthmus.

"Fascinating old place," observed Blair gazing, his eyes aglow with interest, around the mediaeval cabin. "Don't doubt a dozen murders at least were pulled off in this one room!"

"Oh yes, of course," eagerly echoed his a.s.sistant. "It's absolutely unique!"

Her gaze, as bright with interest as his own, rested upon Blair himself.

She was considering, absent-mindedly, how becoming white trousers can be to most men, especially when they are reasonably dark themselves.

But,--her glance travelled upward,--how unusually dark he was, and his hair,--yes, without question, the straightest and blackest she had ever seen. Yet it seemed in some indefinable way to become him,--to belong, as it were, to his type. Leaning her elbows meditatively upon the rusty anchor, her chin in her hands, she silently appraised him. He really was a handsome man, she decided, and clever, too, of the sort who does things in the world! A dreamy light grew within her eyes.

It was only two or three evenings later when, on their way back from the site of an historic Indian village on the other side of the island, they walked their horses slowly around the Wishbone Loop, the ostensible reason being that, as Blair had already discovered, it commanded the widest view of the ocean at sunset.

He was the first to speak when they struck again into the main trail.

"I wished for something about a rose, a wild rose,--want to guess?" He eyed her mischievously.

"Hush,--mustn't tell!" she laughed. "Your wish won't come true if you tell." Then, for no reason at all, she blushed.

Never, in truth, during her twenty-three years of working, and scrimping, and going without, had life shown to the little art teacher so fair and generous a side, seemed so extravagantly joyous an affair as during that magic week. The spending of money, it was easy to see, meant little or nothing to Blair. But that was the least of his attractions, for, to the girl herself, mere wealth for its own sake had never appealed. The charm lay rather in the genial broadness of his view of things, the strength of reasoning behind the few opinions he put forward, his reticence, and quiet modesty. In these dwelt the spell that swept her into an almost delirious enjoyment of his society. For, all unknown to herself, like many another woman in like condition, she had needed a change of people. In the cramped life of a private school men played but little part, and the men who were most worth while, almost no part at all. Instinctively, in time, she had wearied of little girls and their lessons. Sorely had she craved the stimulus which only the companionship of congenial men can give. Of this fact, however, she had been even less aware.

One crisp morning, seated in a diminutive wicker cart behind a discontented pony, they searched out Chicken John's cabin on the mesa behind the golf links.

"Not that it has anything to do with Indians," she apologized, "only I want you to see him. He's such a character, so nice and untidy and queer!"

As a result of this expedition they brought away with them what old John designated a "plump little fry" to be served at the cosy table for two in the sunniest window of the dining room, a luxury which Blair had likewise confiscated in the interests of business.

And so for seven glorious days they tramped the fragrant hills, or sailed a sea as softly blue as though fallen fresh that morning from the cloudless heaven above. In the warmth and glow of his friendship the starved heart of the little art teacher opened like some hot-house flower carried suddenly into the wide outdoors. And when at last the week drew to an end, their work, both his and hers, was still unfinished, so that there was nothing else to do but to live on through another fully as wonderful.

Blair himself took things much more for granted, and even when their talk strayed farthest afield it was plain to the girl that his mind never fully lost sight of the purpose for which he had come. His work stood always first, while,--she blushed to own it even to herself,--she had sometimes entirely forgotten her own.

At the end of the third week they had seen almost everything he considered essential and at times she sensed in his manner, even when he was least aware of it, a kind of repressed impatience. She knew what it meant and shivered. Presently he would leave her, and life would become again the same dull round of work. Only one spot of real importance remained unvisited,--the cavern bower above the Bay of Moons. Of this he had spoken frequently, and well she knew he held it the climax of his search.

But for reasons best known to herself Miss Hastings put off from day to day this final expedition until Blair began to chaff at the delay.