Treasure and Trouble Therewith Part 3

Seeing him thus, his hat off, sullen indifference replaced by a malign animation, he was a very different being from the man who had accosted Mark. A dangerous chap beyond doubt, dangerous from a dark soul and a stored power of malevolence. His face, vitalized with rage, was handsome; a narrow forehead, the hair receding from the temples, a high-bridged nose with wide-cut nostrils, lips thin and fine, moving flexibly as they muttered. It matched with what the voice had told Mark, was not the face of the brutalized hobo or low-bred vagrant, but beneath its hair and dirt showed as the mask of a man who might have fallen from high places. Even his curses went to prove it. They were not the dull profanities of the loafer, but were varied, colorful, imaginative, such curses as might come from one who had read and remembered.

Suddenly they stopped and his glance deflected, alert and apprehensive--his ear had caught a low crooning of song. It came from a small boy who, a little wooden boat in his hand, was advancing up the slope. This was t.i.to Murano, Junior, t.i.to's first-born, nine years old, softly footing it home after a joyous hour along the edge of the tules.

t.i.to's mother was Irish, but the Latin strain had flowered forth strong in her son. He was bronze-brown, with a black bullet head and eyes like shoe b.u.t.tons. A pair of cotton trousers and a rag of shirt clothed him and his feet were bare and caked with mud. A happy day behind him and the prospect of supper made his heart light and he gave forth its joy in fresh, bird-sweet carolings.

He did not see the tramp and a sharp, "Hey, there, kid," made him halt, startled, gripping the treasured boat against his breast. Then he made out the man, and stood staring, poised to run.

"Is there any way of getting across this infernal place?" The tramp's hand swept the prospect.

Bashfulness held t.i.to speechless, and he stood rubbing one foot across the other.

The man's eyes narrowed with a curious, ugly look.

"Are you deaf?" he said very quietly.

A muttered negative came from the child. The question contained a quality of scorn that he felt and resented.

"I want to cross the marsh, get to the railway. What's the best way to go?"

t.i.to's arm made a sweeping gesture round the head of the tules.

"That. There's a trail. You go round."

"Good G.o.d--that's _miles_. How do people go, the people here, when they want to get to the other side?"

"That way." t.i.to repeated his gesture. "But they don't go often, and they mostly rides."

The man gave a groaning oath, picked up his hat, then cast it from him with fury, and, planting his elbows on his knees, dropped his forehead on his hands. t.i.to was sorry for him, and advanced charily, his heart full of sympathy.

"The duck shooters have laid planks," he murmured encouragingly.

The man raised his head.

"Planks--where?"

t.i.to indicated the marsh.

"All along. They lay 'em when they come to shoot and then they let 'em lay. n.o.body don't ever go there 'cept the duck shooters."

"You mean I can get across by the planks?"

t.i.to forgot his bashfulness and drew nearer. He was emboldened by the thought that he could help the tramp, give a.s.sistance as man to man.

"_You_ couldn't. It's all mud and water, and turns too, like you was goin' round in rings. But _I_ could--I bin acrost, right over to the Ariel Club." He pointed to a small white square on the opposite side. "That's where. The railroad's a ways beyont that, but it ain't awful far."

The man looked and nodded, then smiled, a slight curling of his lip, a slight contraction of the skin round his eyes.

"If you show me the way I'll give you a quarter," he said, turning the smile on t.i.to.

t.i.to did not like the smile; it suggested a dog's lifted lip when contemplating battle. Also he had been forbidden to go into the marsh; some of the streams were deep, the mud treacherous. But a quarter had seldom crossed his palm. He saw himself spending it at the crossroads store, and, tucking his boat up under his arm, said manfully:

"All right--I'll get you over before sundown."

They started, the child running fleet-footed ahead, the man following with long strides. There was evidently a way and t.i.to knew it. His black head bobbed along in front, now a dark sphere glossed by the sunlight, now an inky silhouette against the white shine of water. There were creeks to jump and pools to wade--the duck shooters' planks only spanned the deep places--and the way was hard.

Once the tramp stopped, surly-faced, and measured the distance to the Ariel Club house. It seemed but little nearer. He told t.i.to so, and the child, pausing to look back, cheered him with heartening phrases. But it was a hard pull, crushing through the dense growth, staggering on the slippery ooze, and he began to mutter his curses again. t.i.to, hearing them, made no reply, a little scared in the sun-swept loneliness with the swearing in his ears.

Finally the man, floundering on a bank of mud, slipped and fell to his knees. He groveled, his hands caked, and when he rose a fearful stream of profanity broke from him. t.i.to stopped, chilled, peering back between the rushes. If it had been a rancher or one of the boys he would have laughed. But he had no inclination to laugh at the staggering figure, with the haggard, sweat-beaded face and furious eyes.

"I said it was long, but we're gettin' there. We're halfway acrost now,"

his little pipe, mellow-sweet, was in strange contrast with what had come before.

"You're a liar, a d.a.m.nable liar. You've led me into the middle of this--place that you don't know any more of than I do."

His eyes, ranging about in helpless desperation, saw, some distance beyond, a rise of dry ground. The sight appeared to divert him, and he stood looking at it. He had the appearance of having forgotten t.i.to, and the child, uneasy at this sudden stillness as he was ready to be at anything the tramp did, said with timid urgence:

"Say, come on. I got to get home for supper or I'll get licked."

For answer the man moved in an opposite direction, to where the stream widened. He saw there was deep water between him and the dry place, but he wanted to get there, rest, smoke, unroll his blanket and sleep. t.i.to's uneasiness increased.

"You're goin' the wrong way," he pleaded. "You can't get round there, it's all water."

Suddenly the man turned on him savagely. His brooding eyes widened and their look, a threatening glare, made the boy's heart quail.

"Get out," he shouted, "get out, I'm done with you. You're a fakir."

t.i.to retreated, crushing the rushes under his naked feet, his face extremely fearful.

"But I was takin' you. I sure was--"

"Get out. You don't know anything about it. You're a liar."

"I do. I was takin' you straight--and you promised me a quarter."

"To h.e.l.l with you and your quarter. Didn't you hear me say get out?"

The thought of the quarter gave t.i.to a desperate courage; his voice rose in a protesting wail:

"But I done half already--you're halfway acrost. You'd oughter give me a dime. I've done more than a dime's worth."

The tramp, with a smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, bent and picked up a bit of iron, relic of some sportsman's pa.s.sage. t.i.to saw the raised hand and ducked, hearing the missile hurtle over his head and plop into the water behind him. It frightened him, but not so much as the man's face. Like a small, terrified animal he bent and fled. The breaths came quick from his laboring breast, and as he ran, his head low, the rushes swaying together over his wake, sobs burst from him, not alone for fear, but for his lost quarter.

The sun was the dazzling core of a golden glow when he crept on to the dry ground, mud-soaked, tear-streaked, his wooden boat still in his hand.

His terror was over and he padded home in deep thought, inventing a lie.

For if his parents knew of his wanderings he would be beaten and sent to bed without supper.

The tramp picked his way round to the stream that separated him from the desired ground, slipped out of his clothes and, putting them in the basket, plunged in the current. On the opposite bank he stood up, a lean, shining shape, the sunlight gilding his wet body, till it looked like a statue of bra.s.s. The bath refreshed him; he would eat some fruit he had in his basket, take a smoke, and rest there for the night.