The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure
reef like phantom serpents in parade.
In the dead of a night like this the visitors arrived.
Even the heavy animal slumber of the blacks was broken by the scream
that issued from the hut of Captain Inocencio. And then the sound of
such fighting! The negroes might have rushed to the assistance of their
leader had it not been for the echo of that awful woman-cry hovering
over the village like a shadow. It filled the air and hung there,
saturating the breathless night with such unnamable terror that the
wakened children began to whimper and the women buried their heads in
the ragged bedding to keep it out. Death was among them and the bravest
cowered while through the quivering silence there came the sounds of a
mighty combat lasting for such an interminable time that the listeners
became hysterical.
At length they discovered that the night was dead again, save for the
sudden patter of raindrops on the thatches when the palm fronds stirred.
One of them called shrilly, another answered, but they did not venture
forth. Afterward they fancied they had heard the thrust of paddles in
the lagoon and strange voices dwindling away to seaward, but they were
not sure. Eventually, however, the stillness got upon them more
fearfully than the former noises, and they stirred. Then, in time, they
heard the voice of Inocencio himself cursing faintly, as if from a great
distance. A light showed through the cracks of a hut, and Nicholas, the
least timid, emerged with a lantern held on high. He summoned the rest
around him, then went toward the black shadow of Inocencio's dwelling
with a score of white-eyed, dusky faces at his shoulder.
The door was down, and from the threshold they could see what the front
room contained. It was Nicholas who, with clattering teeth and nerveless
fingers, dragged a blanket from the bed and covered the woman's figure.
It was he who traced the feeble voice to the wreck of a room behind, and
strove to lift Inocencio out of the welter in which he lay. But the
Haytian blasted him with curses for opening his wounds; so they propped
him against the wall by his direction, and bound him about with strips
torn from the mattress. Then he called for a cigarette, and its ashes
were upon his breast when the French doctor arrived from the hospital on
the Point.
When the white man's work was done, the mulatto addressed him weakly:
"Will m'sieu' do me a great favor?"
"Certainly."
"M'sieu' is acquainted with the American, Señor 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 God! _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 Scrap 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," Scrap 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 Scrap 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 Scrap 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 assistance, 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 Scrap 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 nobody
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.
He had barely finished eating when another footstep sounded outside and
a heavy knock followed.
"Hey, June!" called a voice. "Are you up?"
It was Jim Devlin, the marshal, and the girl rose, only to stop at the
look she saw in the wounded man's face. His dark eyes had widened;
desperation haunted them.
"What is it, Mr. Devlin?" she answered.
"Have you seen anything of a wounded man within the last half-hour?"
She flashed another glance at her guest, to find him staring at her
defiantly, but there was no appeal in his face. "What in the world do
you mean?"
"There was a hold-up at Anvil Creek, and some shooting. We're pretty
sure one of the gang was hit, but he got away. Pete, the waterman, says
he saw a sick-looking fellow crossing the tundra in this direction. I
thought you might have noticed him."
Again June's eyes flew back to the pale face of the stranger. He had
risen now and, seeing the frank inquiry in her gaze, he shrugged his
shoulders and turned his good hand palm upward as if in surrender,
whereupon she answered the marshal: