COMPLETE 
 WORKS OF 
 FRANK 
 & NORRIS X 
 
PAULINE FORE MOFFITT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 ^GENERAL LIBRARY, BERKELEY 
 
THIS EDITION CONSISTS OF ONE HUNDRED 
 SETS, ON STRATHMORE PAPER, 
 OF WHICH THIS IS 
 NO. U-0 
 
BLIX 
 
 AND 
 
 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
GOLDEN GATE EDITION 
 
 BLIX-MORAN 
 
 OF THE 
 LADY LETTY 
 
 COMPLETE 
 WORKS OF 
 
 WRANRC 
 NORRJS? 
 
 Published at New York ky 
 
 , Pag* &- Co. 
 
 1905 
 
Copyright, 1899, by 
 Frank A. Munsey 
 Copyright, 1899, by 
 Doubleday & McClure Co. 
 Copyright, 1898, by 
 S. S. McClure Co. 
 
 Add to Lib. 
 
 GIFT 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 403 
 
BLIX 
 
BLIX 
 
 IT had just struck nine from the cuckoo clock that 
 hung over the mantelpiece in the dining-room 
 when Victorine brought in the halved watermelon 
 and set it in front of Mr. Bessemer s plate. Then 
 she went down to the front door for the damp, 
 twisted roll of the Sunday morning s paper, and 
 came back and rang the breakfast bell for the 
 second time. 
 
 As the family still hesitated to appear, she went to 
 the bay window at the end of the room, and stood there 
 for a moment looking out. The view was wonderful. 
 The Bessemers lived upon the Washington-Street hill, 
 almost at its very summit, in a flat in the third story of 
 the building. The contractor had been clever enough to 
 reverse the position of kitchen and dining-room, so that 
 the latter room was at the rear of the house. From its 
 windows one could command a sweep of San Francisco 
 Bay and the Contra Costa shore, from Mount Diablo, 
 along past Oakland, Berkeley, Saucelito, and Mount 
 Tamalpais, out to the Golden Gate, the Presidio, the 
 ocean, and even on very clear days to the Farrallone 
 islands. 
 
 For some time Victorine stood looking down at the 
 great expanse of land and sea, then faced about with 
 an impatient exclamation. 
 
 On Sundays all the week-day regime of the family was 
 deranged, and breakfast was a movable feast, to be had 
 any time after seven or before half-past nine. As 
 Victorine was pouring the ice-water, Mr. Bessemer him- 
 
 3 
 
4 BLIX 
 
 self came in, and addressed himself at once to his meal, 
 without so much as a thought of waiting for others. 
 
 He was a little round man. He wore a skull-cap to 
 keep his bald spot warm, and read his paper through a 
 reading-glass. The expression of his face, wrinkled and 
 bearded, the eyes shadowed by enormous gray eyebrows, 
 was that of an amiable gorilla. 
 
 Bessemer was one of those men who seem entirely 
 disassociated from their families. Only on rare and 
 intense occasions did his paternal spirit or instincts 
 assert themselves. At table he talked but little. 
 Though devotedly fond of his eldest daughter, she was 
 a puzzle and a stranger to him. His interests and hers 
 were absolutely dissimilar. The children he seldom 
 spoke to but to reprove; while Howard, the son, the 
 ten-year-old and terrible infant of the household, he 
 always referred to as "that boy." 
 
 He was an abstracted, self-centred old man, with but 
 two hobbies homoeopathy and the mechanism of clocks. 
 But he had a strange way of talking to himself in a low 
 voice, keeping up a running, half-whispered comment 
 upon his own doings and actions; as, for instance, upon 
 this occasion: "Nine o clock the clock s a little fast. 
 I think I ll wind my watch. No, I ve forgotten my 
 watch. Watermelon this morning, eh? Where s a 
 knife? I ll have a little salt. Victorine s forgot the 
 spoons ah, here s a spoon! No, it s a knife I want." 
 
 After he had finished his watermelon, and while 
 Victorine was pouring his coffee, the two children came 
 in, scrambling to their places, and drumming on the 
 table with their knife-handles. 
 
 The son and heir, Howard, was very much a boy. He 
 played baseball too well to be a very good boy, and for 
 the sake of his own self-respect maintained an attitude 
 of perpetual revolt against his older sister, who, as much 
 
BLIX 5 
 
 as possible, took the place of the mother, long since dead. 
 Under her supervision, Howard blacked his own shoes 
 every morning before breakfast, changed his underclothes 
 twice a week, and was dissuaded from playing with the 
 dentist s son who lived three doors below and who had 
 St. Vitus dance. 
 
 His little sister was much more tractable. She had 
 been christened Alberta, and was called Snooky. She 
 promised to be pretty when she grew up, but was at this 
 time in that distressing transitional stage between 
 twelve and fifteen; was long-legged, and endowed with 
 all the awkwardness of a colt. Her shoes were still 
 innocent of heels ; but on those occasions when she was 
 allowed to wear her tiny first pair of corsets she was 
 exalted to an almost celestial pitch of silent ecstasy. 
 The clasp of the miniature stays around her small body 
 was like the embrace of a little lover, and awoke in her 
 ideas that were as vague, as immature and unformed 
 as the straight little figure itself. 
 
 When Snooky and Howard had seated themselves, 
 but one chair at the end of the breakfast table, 
 opposite Mr. Bessemer remained vacant. 
 
 " Is your sister is Miss Travis going to have her 
 breakfast now ? Is she got up yet ? " inquired Victorine 
 of Howard and Snooky, as she pushed the cream pitcher 
 out of Howard s reach. It was significant of Mr. 
 Bessemer s relations with his family that Victorine did 
 not address her question to him. 
 
 "Yes, yes, she s coming," said both the children, 
 speaking together; and Howard added: "Here she 
 comes now." 
 
 Travis Bessemer came in. Even in San Francisco, 
 where all women are more or less beautiful, Travis passed 
 for a beautiful girl. She was young, but tall as most 
 men, and solidly, almost heavily built. Her shoulders 
 
6 BLIX 
 
 were broad, her chest was deep, her neck round and firm. 
 She radiated health ; there were exuberance and vitality 
 in the very touch of her foot upon the carpet, and there 
 was that cleanliness about her, that freshness, that sug 
 gested a recent plunge in the surf and a " constitutional " 
 along the beach. One felt that here were stamina, good 
 physical force, and fine animal vigour. Her arms were 
 large, her wrists were large, and her fingers did not taper. 
 Her hair was of a brown so light as to be almost yellow. 
 In fact, it would be safer to call it yellow from the start 
 not golden nor flaxen, but plain, honest yellow. The 
 skin of her face was clean and white, except where it 
 flushed to a most charming pink upon her smooth, cool 
 cheeks. Her lips were full and red, her chin very round 
 and a little salient. Curiously enough, her eyes were 
 small small, but of the deepest, deepest brown, and 
 always twinkling and alight, as though she were just 
 ready to smile or had just done smiling, one could not 
 say which. And nothing could have been more delight 
 ful than those sloe-brown, glinting little eyes of hers set 
 off by her white skin and yellow hair. 
 
 She impressed one as being a very normal girl : nothing 
 morbid about her, nothing nervous or false or over 
 wrought. You did not expect to find her introspective. 
 You felt sure that her mental life was not at all the result 
 of thoughts and reflections germinating from within, 
 but rather of impressions and sensations that came to her 
 from without. There was nothing extraordinary about 
 Travis. She never had her vagaries, was not moody- 
 depressed one day and exalted the next. She was just a 
 good, sweet, natural, healthy-minded, healthy-bodied 
 girl, honest, strong, self-reliant and good-tempered. 
 
 Though she was not yet dressed for church, there was 
 style in her to the pointed tips of her patent-leather 
 slippers. She wore a heavy black overskirt that rustled 
 
BLIX 7 
 
 in delicious fashion over the coloured silk skirt beneath, 
 and a white shirt-waist, striped black, and starched to 
 a rattling stiffness. Her neck was swathed tight and 
 high with a broad ribbon of white satin, while around 
 her waist, in place of a belt, she wore the huge dog- 
 collar of a St. Bernard a chic little idea which was all 
 her own, and of which she was very proud. 
 
 She was as trig and trim and crisp as a crack yacht : 
 not a pin was loose, not a seam that did not fall in its 
 precise right line; and with every movement there 
 emanated from her a barely perceptible delicious femi 
 nine odour an odour that was in part perfume, but 
 mostly a subtle, vague smell, charming beyond words, 
 that came from her hair, her neck, her arms her whole 
 sweet personality. She was nineteen years old. 
 
 She sat down to breakfast and ate heartily, though 
 with her attention divided between Howard who was 
 atrociously bad, as usual of a Sunday morning and her 
 father s plate. Mr. Bessemer was as like as not to leave 
 the table without any breakfast at all unless his fruit, 
 chops and coffee were actually thrust under his nose. 
 
 "Paptim," she called, speaking clear and distinct, 
 as though to the deaf, "there s your coffee there at your 
 elbow; be careful, you ll tip it over. Victorine, push 
 his cup farther on the table. Is it strong enough for you, 
 Papum?" 
 
 "Eh! Ah, yes yes yes," murmured the old man, 
 looking vaguely about him; "coffee, to be sure" and he 
 emptied the cup at a single draught, hardly knowing 
 whether it was coffee or tea. "Now I ll take a roll," 
 he continued, in a monotonous murmur. "Where 
 are the rolls? Here they are. Hot rolls are bad for 
 my digestion I ought to eat bread. I think I eat too 
 much. Where s my place in the paper? always lose 
 my place in the paper. Clever editorials this fellow 
 
8 BLIX 
 
 Eastman writes, unbiassed by party prejudice unbi 
 assed unbiassed." His voice died to a whisper. 
 
 The breakfast proceeded, Travis supervising every 
 thing that went forward, even giving directions to 
 Victorine as to the hour for serving dinner. It was 
 while she was talking to Victorine as to this matter that 
 Snooky began to whine. 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 "And tell Maggie," pursued Travis, "to fricassee her 
 chicken, and not to have it too well done " 
 
 "Sto-o-op !" whined Snooky again. 
 
 " And leave the heart out for Papum. He likes 
 the heart " 
 
 " Sto-o-op !" 
 
 "Unbiassed by prejudice," murmured Mr. Bessemer, 
 "vigourous and to the point. I ll have another roll." 
 
 "Pa, make Howard stop !" 
 
 "Howard!" exclaimed Travis; "what is it now?" 
 
 "Howard s squirting watermelon-seeds at me," whined 
 Snooky, "and pa won t make him stop." 
 
 "Oh, I didn t so !" vociferated Howard. "I only held 
 one between my fingers, and it just kind of shot out." 
 
 "You ll come upstairs with me in just five minutes," 
 announced Travis, "and get ready for Sunday-school." 
 
 Howard knew that his older sister s decisions were as 
 the laws of the Persians, and found means to finish his 
 breakfast within the specified time, though not without 
 protest. Once upstairs, however, the usual Sunday- 
 morning drama of despatching him to Sunday-school in 
 presentable condition was enacted. At every moment 
 his voice could be heard uplifted in shrill expostula 
 tion and debate. No, his hands were clean enough, 
 and he didn t see why he had to wear that little old 
 pink tie; and, oh ! his new shoes were too tight and hurt 
 his sore toe; and he wouldn t, he wouldn t no, not if he 
 
BLIX 9 
 
 were killed for it, change his shirt. Not for a moment 
 did Travis lose her temper with him. But "very well," 
 she declared at length, "the next time she saw that 
 little Miner girl she would tell her that he had said she 
 was his beau-heart. Now would he hold still while she 
 brushed his hair?" 
 
 At a few minutes before eleven Travis and her father 
 went to church. They were Episcopalians, and for 
 time out of mind had rented a half-pew in the church 
 of their denomination on California Street, not far from 
 Chinatown. By noon the family reassembled at dinner- 
 table, where Mr. Bessemer ate his chicken-heart after 
 Travis had thrice reminded him of it and expressed 
 himself as to the sermon and the minister s theology; 
 sometimes to his daughter and sometimes to himself. 
 
 After dinner Howard and Snooky foregathered in the 
 nursery with their beloved lead soldiers ; Travis went to 
 her room to write letters; and Mr. Bessemer sat in the 
 bay window of the dining-room reading the paper from 
 end to end. 
 
 At five Travis bestirred herself. It was Victorine s 
 afternoon out. Travis set the table, spreading a cover 
 of blue denim edged with white braid, which showed 
 off the silver and the set of delft her great and never- 
 ending joy to great effect. Then she tied her apron 
 about her, and went into the kitchen to make the mayon 
 naise dressing for the potato salad, to slice the ham, 
 and to help the cook (a most inefficient Irish person, 
 taken on only for that month during the absence of the 
 family s beloved and venerated Sing Wo) in the matter 
 of preparing the Sunday-evening tea. 
 
 Tea was had at half-past five. Never in the history 
 of the family had its menu varied: cold ham, potato 
 salad, pork and beans, canned fruit, chocolate, and the 
 inevitable pitcher of ice-water. 
 
io BLIX 
 
 In the absence of Victorine, Maggie waited on the 
 table, very uncomfortable in her one good dress and 
 stiff white apron. She stood, off from the table, making 
 awkward dabs at it from time to time. In her excess of 
 deference she developed a clumsiness that was beyond 
 all expression. She passed the plates upon the wrong 
 side, and remembered herself with a broken apology at 
 inopportune moments. She dropped a spoon ; she spilt 
 the ice-water. She handled the delft cups and platters 
 with an exaggerated solicitude, as though they were 
 glass bombs. She brushed the crumbs into their laps 
 instead of into the crumb-tray, and at last, when she 
 had set even Travis placid nerves in a jangle, was 
 dismissed to the kitchen, and retired with a gasp of 
 unspeakable relief. 
 
 Suddenly there came a prolonged trilling of the 
 electric bell, and Howard flashed a grin at Travis. 
 Snooky jumped up and pushed back, crying out: "I ll 
 go! I ll go!" 
 
 Mr. Bessemer glanced nervously at Travis. "That s 
 Mr. Rivers, isn t it, daughter?" Travis smiled. "Well, 
 I think I ll I think I d better " he began. 
 
 "No," said Travis, "I don t want you to, Papum; 
 you sit right where you are. How absurd !" 
 
 The old man dropped obediently back into his seat. 
 
 "That s all right, Maggie," said Travis as the cook 
 reappeared from the pantry. "Snooky went." 
 
 "Huh!" exclaimed Howard, his grin widening. 
 "Huh!" 
 
 "And remember one thing, Howard," remarked 
 Travis calmly; "don t you ever again ask Mr. Rivers 
 for a nickel to put in your bank." 
 
 Mr. Bessemer roused up. "Did that boy do that?" 
 he inquired sharply of Travis. 
 
 "Well, well, he won t do it again," said Travis sooth- 
 
BLIX 
 
 ii 
 
 ingly. The old man glared for an instant at Howard, 
 who shifted uneasily in his seat. But meanwhile 
 Snooky had clamoured down to the outside door, and 
 before anything further could be said young Rivers 
 came into the dining-room. 
 
II 
 
 FOR some reason, never made sufficiently clear, 
 Rivers parents had handicapped him from the bap 
 tismal font with the praenomen of Cond6, which, how 
 ever, upon Anglo-Saxon tongues, had been promptly 
 modified to Condy, or even, amongst his familiar and 
 intimate friends, to Conny. Asked as to his birth 
 place for no Californian assumes that his neighbour 
 is born in the State Condy was wont to reply that he 
 was "bawn V rais " in Chicago; "but," he always 
 added, "I couldn t help that, you know." His people 
 had come West in the early eighties, just in time to 
 bury the father in alien soil. Condy was an only child. 
 He was educated at the State University, had a finishing 
 year at Yale, and a few months after his return home 
 was taken on the staff of the San Francisco Daily Times 
 as an associate editor of its Sunday supplement. For 
 Condy had developed a taste and talent in the matter 
 of writing. Short stories were his mania. He had begun 
 by an inoculation of the Kipling virus, had suffered an 
 almost fatal attack of Harding Davis, and had even 
 been affected by Maupassant. He "went in" for accu 
 racy of detail ; held that if one wrote a story involving 
 firemen one should have, or seem to have, every detail 
 of the department at his fingers ends, and should 
 "bring in" to the tale all manner of technical names 
 and cant phrases. 
 
 Much of his work on the Sunday supplements of the 
 Daily Times was of the hack order special articles, 
 write-ups, and interviews. About once a month, 
 
 12 
 
BLIX 13 
 
 however, he wrote a short story, and of late, now that 
 he was convalescing from Maupassant and had begun 
 to be somewhat himself, these stories had improved in 
 quality, and one or two had even been copied in the 
 Eastern journals. He earned $100 a month. 
 
 When Snooky had let him in, Rivers dashed up the 
 stairs of the Bessemers flat, two at a time, tossed his 
 stick into a porcelain cane-rack in the hall, wrenched 
 off his overcoat with a single movement, and precipitated 
 himself, panting, into the dining-room, tugging at his 
 gloves. 
 
 He was twenty-eight years old nearly ten years 
 older than Travis; tall and somewhat lean; his face 
 smooth-shaven and pink all over, as if he had just given 
 it a violent rubbing with a crash towel. Unlike most 
 writing folk, he dressed himself according to prevailing 
 custom. But Condy overdid the matter. His scarfs 
 and cravats were too bright, his coloured shirt-bosoms 
 were too broadly barred, his waistcoats too extreme. 
 Even Travis, as she rose to his abrupt entrance, told 
 herself that of a Sunday evening a pink shirt and scarlet 
 tie were a combination hardly to be forgiven. 
 
 Condy shook her hand in both of his, then rushed 
 over to Mr. Bessemer, exclaiming between breaths: 
 "Don t get up, sir don t think of it! Heavens! I m 
 disgustingly late. You re all through. My watch 
 this beastly watch of mine I can t imagine how I came 
 to be so late. You did quite right not to wait." 
 
 Then as his morbidly keen observation caught a cer 
 tain look of blankness on Travis face, and his rapid 
 glance noted no vacant chair at table, he gave a quick 
 gasp of dismay. 
 
 "Heavens and earth ! didn t you expect me !" he cried. 
 "I thought you said I thought I must have forgotten 
 I must have got it mixed up somehow. What a 
 
i 4 BLIX 
 
 hideous mistake ! What a blunder ! What a fool 
 I am!" 
 
 He dropped into a chair against the wall and mopped 
 his forehead with a blue-bordered handkerchief. 
 
 "Well, what difference does it make, Condy?" said 
 Travis quietly. "I ll put another place for you." 
 
 "No !" he vociferated, jumping up. "I won t hear of 
 it ! I won t permit it ! You ll think I did it on purpose !" 
 
 Travis ignored his interference, and made a place for 
 him opposite the children, and had Maggie make some 
 more chocolate. 
 
 Condy meanwhile covered himself with opprobrium. 
 
 "And all this trouble I always make trouble every 
 where I go. Always a round man in a square hole, or a 
 square man in a round hole." 
 
 He got up and sat down again, crossed and recrossed 
 his legs, picked up little ornaments from the mantel 
 piece, and replaced them without consciousness of what 
 they were, and finally broke the crystal of his watch as 
 he was resetting it by the cuckoo clock. 
 
 "Hallo!" he exclaimed suddenly; "where did you 
 get that clock ? Where did you get that clock ? That s 
 new to me. Where did that come from?" 
 
 "That cuckoo clock?" inquired Travis, with a stare. 
 "Condy Rivers, you ve been here and in this room at 
 least twice a week for the last year and a half, and 
 that clock, and no other, has always hung there." 
 
 But already Condy had forgotten or lost interest in 
 the clock. 
 
 "Is that so?" he murmured absent-mindedly, seating 
 himself at the table. 
 
 Mr. Bessemer was murmuring: "That clock s a little 
 fast. I cannot make that clock keep time. Victorine 
 has lost the key. I have to wind it with a monkey- 
 wrench. Now I ll try some more beans. Maggie has 
 
BLIX 15 
 
 put in too much pepper. I ll have to have a new key 
 made to-morrow." 
 
 "Hey? Yes yes. Is that so?" answered Condy 
 Rivers, bewildered, wishing to be polite, yet unable to 
 follow the old man s mutterings. 
 
 "He s not talking to you," remarked Travis, without 
 lowering her voice. "You know how Papum goes on. 
 He won t hear a word you say. Well, I read your story 
 in this morning s Times." 
 
 A few moments later, while Travis and Condy were 
 still discussing this story, Mr. Bessemer rose. "Well, 
 Mr. Rivers," he announced, "I guess I ll say good-night. 
 Come, Snooky." 
 
 "Yes, take her with you, Papum," said Travis. "She ll 
 go to sleep on the lounge here if you don t. Howard, 
 have you got your lessons for to-morrow?" 
 
 It appeared that he had not. Snooky whined to stay 
 up a little longer, but at last consented to go with her 
 father. They all bade Condy good-night and took 
 themselves away, Howard lingering a moment in the 
 door in the hope of the nickel he dared not ask for. 
 Maggie reappeared to clear away the table. 
 
 "Let s go into the parlour," suggested Travis, rising. 
 "Don t you want to?" 
 
 The parlour was the front room overlooking the street, 
 and was reached by the long hall that ran the whole 
 length of the flat, passing by the door of each one of its 
 eight rooms in turn. 
 
 Travis preceded Condy, and turned up ohe of the 
 burners in a coloured globe of the little brass chandelier. 
 
 The parlour was a small affair, peopled by a family 
 of chairs and sofas robed in white druggets. A gold- 
 and-white effect had been striven for throughout the 
 room. The walls had been tinted instead of papered, 
 and bunches of hand-painted pink flowers tied up with 
 
1 6 BLIX 
 
 blue ribbons straggled from one corner to the ceiling. 
 Across one angle of the room straddled a brass easel 
 upholding a crayon portrait of Travis at the age of nine, 
 "enlarged from a photograph." A yellow drape orna 
 mented one corner of the frame, while another drape of 
 blue depended from one end of the mantelpiece. 
 
 The piano, upon which nobody ever played, balanced 
 the easel in an opposite corner. Over the mantelpiece 
 hung in a gilded frame a steel engraving of Priscilla and 
 John Alden; and on the mantel itself two bisque figures 
 of an Italian fisher boy and girl kept company with the 
 clock, a huge timepiece, set in a red plush palette, that 
 never was known to go. But at the right of the fire 
 place, and balancing the tuft of pampa grass to the left, 
 was an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted blue and 
 decorated with daisies. Into it was thrust a sheaf of 
 cat-tails, gilded, and tied with a pink ribbon. 
 
 Travis dropped upon the shrouded sofa, and Condy 
 set himself carefully down on one of the frail chairs with 
 its spindling golden legs, and they began to talk. 
 
 Condy had taken her to the theatre the Monday night 
 of that week, as had been his custom ever since he had 
 known her well, and there was something left for them 
 to say on that subject. But in ten minutes they had 
 exhausted it. An engagement of a girl known to both of 
 them had just been announced. Condy brought that up 
 and kept conversation going for another twenty min 
 utes, and then filled in what threatened to be a gap by 
 telling her stories of the society reporters, and how they 
 got inside news by listening to telephone party wires for 
 days at a time. Travis condemnation of this occupied 
 another five or ten minutes; and so what with this and 
 with that they reached nine o clock. Then decidedly 
 the evening began to drag. It was too early to go. 
 Condy could find no excuse for taking himself away, 
 
BLIX 17 
 
 and, though Travis was good-natured enough, and met 
 him more than half way, their talk lapsed, and lapsed, 
 and lapsed. The breaks became more numerous and 
 lasted longer. Condy began to wonder if he was boring 
 her. No sooner had the suspicion entered his head than 
 it hardened to a certainty, and at once what little fluency 
 and freshness he yet retained forsook him on the spot. 
 What made matters worse was his recollection of other 
 evenings that of late had failed in precisely the same 
 manner. Even while he struggled to save the situation 
 Condy was wondering if they two were talked out if 
 they had lost charm for each other. Did he not know 
 Travis through and through by now her opinions, her 
 ideas, her convictions? Was there any more freshness 
 in her for him? Was their little flirtation of the last 
 eighteen months, charming as it had been, about to end ? 
 Had they played out the play ; had they come to the end 
 of each other s resources? He had never considered 
 the possibility of this before ; but all at once as he looked 
 at Travis looked fairly into her little brown-black eyes 
 it was borne in upon him that she was thinking pre 
 cisely the same thing. 
 
 Condy Rivers had met Travis at a dance a year and 
 a half before this, and, because she was so very pretty, 
 so unaffected, and so good-natured, had found means to 
 see her three or four times a week ever since. They two 
 "went out " not a little in San Francisco society, and had 
 been in a measure identified with what was known as 
 the Younger Set ; though Travis was too young to come 
 out, and Rivers too old to feel very much at home with 
 girls of twenty and boys of eighteen. 
 
 They had known each other in the conventional way 
 (as conventionality goes in San Francisco); during the 
 season Rivers took her to the theatres Monday nights, 
 and called regularly Wednesdays and Sundays. Then 
 
1 8 * BLIX 
 
 they met at dances, and managed to be invited to the 
 same houses for teas and dinners. They had flirted 
 rather desperately, and at times Condy even told himself 
 that he loved this girl so much younger than he this 
 girl with the smiling eyes and robust figure and yellow 
 hair, who was so frank, so straightforward, and so won 
 derfully pretty. 
 
 But evidently they had come to the last move in the 
 game ; and as Condy reflected that after all he had never 
 known the real Travis, that the girl he told himself he 
 knew through and through was only the Travis of dinner 
 parties and afternoon functions, he was suddenly sur 
 prised to experience a sudden qualm of deep and genuine 
 regret. He had never been near to her, after all. They 
 were as far apart as when they had first met. And yet 
 he knew enough of her to know that she was "worth 
 while." He had had experience all the experience he 
 wanted with other older women and girls of society. 
 They were sophisticated ; they were all a little tired ; they 
 had run the gamut of amusements in a word, they were 
 jaded. But Travis, this girl of nineteen, who was not 
 yet even a debutante, had been fresh and unspoiled, had 
 been new and strong and young. 
 
 "Of course you may call it what you like. He was 
 nothing more nor less than intoxicated yes, drunk." 
 
 "Hah! who what wh what are you talking 
 about?" gasped Condy, sitting bolt upright. 
 
 "Jack Carter," answered Travis. "No," she added,, 
 shaking her head at him helplessly, "he hasn t been 
 listening to a word. I m talking about Jack Carter 
 and the Saturday Evening last night." 
 
 "No, no, I haven t heard. Forgive me; I was think 
 ing thinking of something else. Who was drunk?" 
 
 Travis paused a moment, settling her side-combs in 
 her hair; then: 
 
BLIX 19 
 
 " If you ll try to listen, I ll tell it all over again, because 
 it s serious with me, and I m going to take a very decided 
 stand about it. You know," she went on "you know 
 what the Saturday Evening is. Plenty of the 
 girls who are not out belong, and a good many of last 
 year s debutantes come, as well as the older girls of three 
 or four seasons standing. You could call it represen 
 tative, couldn t you? Well, they always serve punch; 
 and you know yourself that you have seen men there 
 who have taken more than they should." 
 
 "Yes, yes," admitted Condy. " I know Carter and the 
 two Catlin boys always do." 
 
 "It gets pretty bad, sometimes, doesn t it?" she said. 
 
 " It does, it does and it s shameful. But most of the 
 girls most of them don t seem to mind." 
 
 Miss Bessemer stiffened a bit. "There are one or two 
 girls that do," she said quietly. "Frank Catlin had the 
 decency to go home last night," she continued; "and his 
 brother wasn t any worse than usual. But Jack Carter 
 must have been drinking before he came. He was 
 very bad indeed as bad," she said between her teeth, 
 "as he could be and yet walk straight. As you say, 
 most of the girls don t mind. They say, It s only 
 Johnnie Carter; what can you expect ? But one of the 
 girls you know her, Laurie Flagg cut a dance with 
 him last night and told him exactly why. Of course 
 Carter was furious. He was sober enough to think he 
 had been insulted; and what do you suppose he did?" 
 
 "What? what?" exclaimed Condy, breathless, leaning 
 toward her. 
 
 "Went about the halls and dressing-rooms circulating 
 some dirty little lie about Laurie. Actually trying to 
 to" Travis hesitated "to make a scandal about her." 
 
 Condy bounded in his seat. "Beast, cat, swine!" 
 he exclaimed. 
 
20 BLIX 
 
 "I didn t think," said Travis, "that Carter would so 
 much as dare to ask me to dance with him " 
 
 "Did he? Did did " 
 
 "Wait," she interrupted. "So I wasn t at all pre 
 pared for what happened. During the german, before I 
 knew it, there he was in front of me. It was a break, and 
 he wanted it. I hadn t time to think. The only idea 
 I had was that if I refused him he might tell some dirty 
 little lie about me. I was all confused mixed up. I 
 felt just as though it were a snake that I had to humour 
 to get rid of. I gave him the break." 
 
 Condy sat speechless. Suddenly he arose. 
 
 "Well, now, let s see," he began, speaking rapidly, his 
 hands twisting and untwisting till the knuckles cracked. 
 "Now, let s see. You leave it to me. I know Carter. 
 He s going to be at a stag dinner where I m invited 
 to-morrow night, and I I " 
 
 "No, you won t, Condy," said Travis placidly. 
 "You ll pay no attention to it, and I ll tell you why. 
 Suppose you should make a scene with Mr. Carter 
 I don t know how men settle these things. Well, 
 it would be told in all the clubs and in all the 
 newspaper offices that two men had quarreled over a 
 girl; and my name is mentioned, discussed, and handed 
 around from one crowd of men to another, from 
 one cluo to another; and then, of course, the papers 
 take it up. By that time Mr. Carter will have told his 
 side of the story and invented another dirty little lie, 
 and I m the one who suffers the most in the end. And 
 remember, Condy, that I haven t any mother in such 
 an affair not even an older sister. No, we ll just let 
 the matter drop. It would be more dignified, anyhow. 
 Only, I have made up my mind what I m going to do." 
 
 "What s that?" 
 
 "I m not coming out. If that s the sort of thing one 
 
BLIX 21 
 
 has to put up with in society " Travis drew a little line 
 on the sofa at her side with her finger-tip " I am going 
 to stop right there. It s not" Miss Bessemer 
 stiffened again "that I m afraid of Jack Carter and 
 his dirty stories; I simply don t want to know the kind 
 of people who have made Jack Carter possible. The 
 other girls don t mind it, nor many men besides you, 
 Condy; and I m not going to be associated with people 
 who take it as a joke for a man to come to a function 
 drunk. And as for having a good time, I ll find my 
 amusements somewhere else. I ll ride a wheel, take long 
 walks, study something. But as for leading the life of 
 a society girl no ! And whether I have a good time or 
 not, I ll keep my own self-respect. At least I ll never 
 have to dance with a drunken man. I won t have to 
 humiliate myself like that a second time." 
 
 "But I presume you will still continue to go some 
 where," protested Condy Rivers. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I have thought it all over, and I ve talked about it 
 with Papum. There s no half way about it. The only 
 way to stop is to stop short. Just this afternoon I ve 
 regretted three functions for next week, and I shall 
 resign from the Saturday Evening. Oh, it s not the 
 Jack Carter affair alone!" she exclaimed; "the whole 
 thing tires me. Mind, Condy," she concluded, "I m not 
 going to break with it because I have any purpose in 
 life, or that sort of thing. I want to have a good time, 
 and I m going to see if I can t have it in my own way. 
 If the kind of thing that makes Jack Carter possible is 
 conventionality, then I m done with conventionality for 
 good. I am going to try, from this time on, to be just 
 as true to myself as I can be. I am going to be sincere, 
 and not pretend to like people and things that I don t 
 like; and I m going to do the things that I like to do 
 
22 BLIX 
 
 just as long as they are the things a good girl can do. 
 See, Condy?" 
 
 " You re fine," murmured Condy, breathless. "You re 
 fine as gold, Travis, and I I love you all the better for 
 it." 
 
 "Ah, now!" exclaimed Travis, with a brusque move 
 ment, "there s another thing we must talk about. No 
 more foolishness between us. We ve had a jolly little 
 flirtation, I know, and it s been good fun while it lasted. 
 I know you like me, and you know that I like you; but 
 as for loving each other, you know we don t. Yes, you 
 say that you love me and that I m the only girl. That s 
 part of the game. I can play it" her little eyes began 
 to dance "quite as well as you. But it s playing with 
 something that s quite too serious to be played with 
 after all, isn t it, now? It s insincere, and, as I tell you, 
 from now on I m going to be as true and as sincere and 
 as honest as I can." 
 
 "But I tell you that I do love you," protested Condy, 
 trying to make the words ring true. 
 
 Travis looked about the room an instant as if in 
 deliberation ; then abruptly : Ah ! what am I going 
 to do with such a boy as you are, after all a great big, 
 overgrown boy? Condy Rivers, look at me straight in 
 the eye. Tell me, do you honestly love me ? You know 
 what I mean when I say love. Do you love me?" 
 
 "No, I don t!" he exclaimed blankly, as though he 
 had just discovered the fact. 
 
 "There!" declared Travis "and I don t love you." 
 They both began to laugh. 
 
 "Now," added Travis, "we don t need to have the 
 burden and trouble of keeping up the pretenses any 
 more. We understand each other, don t we?" 
 
 "This is queer enough," said Condy drolly. 
 
 "But isn t it an improvement?" 
 
BLIX 23 
 
 Condy scoured his head. 
 
 "Tell me the truth," she insisted; "you be sincere." 
 
 "I do believe it is. Why why Travis by Jingo! 
 Travis, I think I m going to like you better than ever 
 now." 
 
 "Never mind. Is it an agreement?" 
 
 "What is?" 
 
 "That we don t pretend to love each other any more ? " 
 
 "All right yes you re right; because the moment I 
 began to love you I should like you so much less." 
 
 She put out her hand. "That s an agreement, then." 
 
 Condy took her hand in his. "Yes, it s an agree 
 ment." But when, as had been his custom, he made as 
 though to kiss her hand, Travis drew it quickly away. 
 
 "No! no!" she said firmly, smiling for all that "no 
 more foolishness." 
 
 "But but," he protested, "it s not so radical as 
 that, is it? You re not going to overturn such time- 
 worn, time-honoured customs as that ? Why, this is a 
 regular rebellion." 
 
 "No, sire," quoted Travis, trying not to laugh, "it s a 
 revolution." 
 
Ill 
 
 ALTHOUGH Monday was practically a holiday for the 
 Sunday-supplement staff of The Daily Times, Condy 
 Rivers made a point to get down to the office betimes 
 the next morning. There were reasons why a certain 
 article descriptive of a great whaleback steamer taking 
 on grain for famine-stricken India should be written 
 that day, and Rivers wanted his afternoon free in 
 order to go to Laurie Flagg s coming-out tea. 
 
 But as he came into his room at The Daily Times 
 office, which he shared with the exchange and sporting 
 editors, and settled himself at his desk, he suddenly 
 remembered that, under the new order of things, he 
 need not expect to see Travis at the Flaggs . 
 
 "Well," he muttered, "maybe it doesn t make so much 
 difference, after all. She was a corking fine girl, but 
 might as well admit it the play is played out. Of 
 course I don t love her any more than she loves me. 
 I ll see less and less of her now. It s inevitable, and 
 after awhile we ll hardly even meet. In a way, it s a 
 pity; but of course one has to be sensible about these 
 things. . . . Well, this whaleback, now." 
 
 He rang up the Chamber of Commerce, and found 
 out that the City of Everett, which was the whaleback s 
 name, was at the Mission Street wharf. This made it 
 possible for him to write the article in two ways. He 
 either could fake his copy from a clipping on the subject 
 which the exchange editor had laid on his desk, or he 
 could go down in person to the wharf, interview the 
 captain, and inspect the craft for himself. The former 
 
 24 
 
BLIX 25 
 
 was the short and easy method. The latter was more 
 troublesome, but would result in a far more interesting 
 article. 
 
 Condy debated the subject a few minutes, then 
 decided to go down to the wharf. San Francisco s 
 water-front was always interesting, and he might get 
 hold of a photograph of the whaleback. All at once 
 the "idea" of the article struck him, the certain under 
 lying notion that would give importance and weight to 
 the mere details and descriptions. Condy s enthusiasm 
 flared up in an instant. 
 
 "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "By Jove!" 
 
 He clapped on his hat wrong side foremost, crammed 
 a sheaf of copy-paper into his pocket, and was on the 
 street again in another moment. Then it occurred to 
 him that he had forgotten to call at his club that morning 
 for his mail, as was his custom, on the way to the office. 
 He looked at his watch. It was early yet, and his club 
 was but two blocks distant. He decided that he 
 would get his letters at the club, and read them on the 
 way down to the wharf. 
 
 For Condy had joined a certain San Francisco club of 
 artists, journalists, musicians, and professional men 
 that is one of the institutions of the city, and, in fact, 
 famous throughout the United States. He was one of 
 the younger members, but was popular and well liked, 
 and on more than one occasion had materially contrib 
 uted to the fun of the club s "low jinks." 
 
 In his box this morning he found one letter 
 that he told himself he must read upon the instant. 
 It bore upon the envelope the name of a New 
 York publishing house to whom Condy had sent a 
 collection of his short stories about a month before. 
 He took the letter into the "round window" of 
 the club overlooking the street, and tore it open 
 
26 BLIX 
 
 excitedly. The fact that he had received a letter 
 from the firm without the return of his manuscript 
 seemed a good omen. This was what he read: 
 
 CONDE RIVERS, ESQ., 
 
 Bohemian Club, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Dear Sir: We return to you by this mail the manu 
 script of your stories, which we do not consider as 
 available for publication at the present moment. We 
 would say, however, that we find in several of them 
 indications of a quite unusual order of merit. The 
 best-selling book just now is the short novel say thirty 
 thousand words of action and adventure. Judging 
 from the stories of your collection, we suspect that your 
 talent lies in this direction, and we would suggest that 
 you write such a novel and submit the same to us. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 New York. THE CENTENNIAL Co. 
 
 Condy shoved the letter into his pocket and collapsed 
 limply into his chair. 
 
 " What s the good of trying to do anything anyhow !" 
 he muttered, looking gloomily down into the street. 
 "My level is just the hack-work of a local Sunday supple 
 ment, and I am a fool to think of anything else." 
 
 His enthusiasm in the matter of the City of Everett 
 was cold and dead in a moment. He could see no 
 possibilities in the subject whatever. His "idea" of 
 a few minutes previous seemed ridiculous and over 
 wrought. He would go back to the office and grind out 
 his copy from the exchange editor s clipping. 
 
 Just then his eye was caught by a familiar figure in 
 trim, well-fitting black halted on the opposite corner 
 waiting for the passage of a cable car. It was Travis 
 Bessemer. No one but she could carry off such 
 rigourous simplicity in the matter of dress so well: 
 
BLIX 27 
 
 black skirt, black Russian blouse, tiny black bonnet 
 and black veil, white kids with black stitching. 
 Simplicity itself. Yet the style of her, as Condy 
 Rivers told himself, flew up and hit you in the 
 face; and her figure was there anything more per 
 fect? and the soft, pretty effect of her yellow hair 
 seen through the veil could anything be more 
 fetching? and her smart carriage and the fling of her 
 fine broad shoulders, and no, it was no use; Condy 
 had to run down to speak to her. 
 
 "Come, come!" she said as he pretended to jostle 
 against her on the curbstone without noticing her; 
 "you had best go to work. Loafing at ten o clock on 
 the street corners the idea !" 
 
 "It is not it cannot be and yet it is it is she" he 
 burlesqued; "and after all these years!" Then in his 
 natural voice: "Hello, T. B." 
 
 "Hello, C. R." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "Home. I ve just run down for half an hour to have 
 the head of my banjo tightened." 
 
 "If I put you on the car, will you expect me to pay 
 your car-fare?" 
 
 "Condy Rivers, I ve long since got over the idea of 
 ever expecting you to have any change concealed about 
 your person." 
 
 "Huh ! No, it all goes for theatre tickets, and flowers, 
 and boxes of candy for a certain girl I know. But 
 and he glared at her significantly "no more foolishness." 
 
 She laughed. "What are you on this morning, 
 Condy?" 
 
 Condy told her as they started to walk toward Kearney 
 Street. 
 
 "But why don t you go to the dock and see the 
 vessel, if you can make a better article that way?" 
 
2 8 BLIX 
 
 "Oh, what s the good! The Centennial people have 
 turned down my stories." 
 
 She commiserated him for this; then suddenly ex 
 claimed. 
 
 "No, you must go down to the dock ! You ought to, 
 Condy. Oh, I tell you, let me go down with you?" 
 
 In an instant Condy leaped to the notion. "Splen 
 did ! Splendid! No reason why you shouldn t!" he 
 exclaimed. And within fifteen minutes the two were 
 treading the wharfs and quays of the city s water-front. 
 
 Ships innumerable nuzzled at the endless line of docks, 
 mast overspiring mast, and bowsprit overlapping bow 
 sprit, till the eye was bewildered, as if by the confusion 
 of branches in a leafless forest. In the distance the 
 mass of rigging resolved itself into a solid gray blur 
 against the sky. The great hulks, green and black and 
 slate gray, laid themselves along the docks, straining 
 leisurely at their mammoth chains, their flanks opened, 
 their cargoes, as it were their entrails, spewed out in 
 a wild disarray of crate and bale and box. Sailors and 
 stevedores swarmed them like vermin. Trucks rolled 
 along the wharfs like peals of ordnance, the horse-hoofs 
 beating the boards like heavy drum-taps. Chains 
 clanked, a ship s dog barked incessantly from a com- 
 panionway, ropes creaked in complaining pulleys, 
 blocks rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and strangled, 
 while all the air was redolent of oakum, of pitch, of paint, 
 of spices, of ripe fruit, of clean, cool lumber, of coffee, 
 of tar, of bilge, and the brisk, nimble odour of the sea. 
 
 Travis was delighted, her little brown eyes snapping, 
 her cheeks flushing, as she drank in the scene. 
 
 "To think," she cried, "where all these ships have 
 come from ! Look at their names; aren t they perfect ? 
 Just the names, see: the Mary Baker, Hull; and the 
 Anandale, Liverpool; and the Two Sisters, Calcutta; and 
 
BLIX 29 
 
 see that one they re caulking, the Montevideo, Callao; 
 and there, look ! look ! the very one you re looking for, 
 the City of Everett, San Francisco." 
 
 The whaleback, an immense tube of steel plates, lay 
 at her wharf, sucking in entire harvests of wheat 
 from the San Joaquin Valley harvests that were to feed 
 strangely clad skeletons on the southern slopes of the 
 Himalaya foothills. Travis and Condy edged their 
 way among piles of wheat-bags, dodging drays and 
 rumbling trucks, and finally brought up at the after 
 gangplank, where a sailor halted them. Condy exhibited 
 his reporter s badge. 
 
 "I represent the Times" he said, with profound 
 solemnity, "and I want to see the officer in charge." 
 
 The sailor fell back upon the instant. 
 
 "Power of the press," whispered Condy to Travis as 
 the two gained the deck. 
 
 A second sailor directed them to the mate, whom they 
 found in the chart-room, engaged, singularly enough, in 
 trimming the leaves of a scraggly geranium. 
 
 Condy explained his mission with flattering allusions 
 to the whaleback and the novelty of the construction. 
 The mate an old man with a patriarchal beard 
 softened at once, asked them into his own cabin aft, and 
 even brought out a camp-stool for Travis, brushing it 
 with his sleeve before setting it down. 
 
 While Condy was interviewing the old fellow, Travis 
 was examining, with the interest of a child, the details 
 of the cabin: the rack-like bunk, the wash-stand, ingen 
 iously constructed so as to shut into the bulkhead when 
 not in use, the alarm clock screwed to the wall, and the 
 array of photographs thrust into the mirror between 
 frame and glass. One, an old daguerreotype, particu 
 larly caught her fancy. It was the portrait of a very 
 beautiful girl, wearing the old-fashioned side curls and 
 
30 BLIX 
 
 high comb of a half-century previous. The old mate 
 noticed the attention she paid to it, and, as soon as he 
 had done giving information to Condy, turned and 
 nodded to Travis, and said quietly: "She was pretty, 
 wasn t she!" 
 
 "Oh, very!" answered Travis, without looking away. 
 
 There was a silence. Then the mate, his eyes wide 
 and thoughtful, said with a long breath: 
 
 "And she was just about your age, miss, when I 
 saw her; and you favour her, too." 
 
 Condy and Travis held their breaths in attention. 
 There in the cabin of that curious nondescript whaleback 
 they had come suddenly to the edge of a romance a 
 romance that had been lived through before they were 
 born. Then Travis said in a low voice, and sweetly: 
 "She died?" 
 
 "Before I ever set eyes on her, miss. That is, maybe 
 she died. I sometimes think fact is, I really believe 
 she s alive yet, and waiting for me." He hesitated 
 awkwardly. "I dunno," he said, pulling his beard. 
 "I don t usually tell that story to strange folk; but you 
 remind me so of her that I guess I will." 
 
 Condy sat down on the edge of the bunk, and the 
 mate seated himself on the plush settle opposite the door, 
 his elbows on his knees, his eyes fixed on a patch of 
 sunlight upon the deck outside. 
 
 "I began life," he said, "as a deep-sea diver began 
 pretty young, too. I first put on the armour when I 
 was twenty nothing but a lad; but I could take the 
 pressure up to seventy pounds even then. One of my 
 very first dives was off Trincomalee, on the coast of 
 Ceylon. A mail packet had gone down in a squall with 
 all on board. Six of the bodies had come up and had 
 been recovered, but the seventh hadn t. It was the 
 body of the daughter of the governor of the island a 
 
BLIX 31 
 
 beautiful young girl of nineteen, whom everybody 
 loved. I was sent for to go down and bring the body 
 up. Well, I went down. The packet lay in a hundred 
 feet of water, and that s a wonder deep dive. I had 
 to go down twice. The first time I couldn t find any 
 thing, though I went all through the berth-deck. I 
 came up to the wrecking-float and reported that I had 
 seen nothing. There were a lot of men there belonging 
 to the wrecking gang, and some correspondents of 
 London papers. But they would have it that she was 
 below, and had me go down again. I did, and this time 
 I found her." 
 
 The mate paused a moment. 
 
 "I ll have to tell you," he went on, "that when a 
 body don t come to the surface it will stand or sit in a 
 perfectly natural position until a current or movement 
 of the water around touches it. When that happens 
 well, you d say the body was alive; and old divers have 
 a superstition no, it ain t just a superstition; I believe 
 it s so that drowned people really don t die till they 
 come to the surface and the air touches them. We say 
 that the drowned who don t come up still have some 
 sort of life of their own way down there in all that 
 green water . . . some kind of life . . . surely 
 surely. When I went down the second time I 
 came across the door of what I thought at first was the 
 linen closet. But it turned out to be a little stateroom. 
 I opened it. There was the girl. She was sitting on 
 the sofa opposite the door, with a little hat on her 
 head, and holding a satchel in her lap, just as if 
 she was ready to go ashore. Her eyes were wide 
 open, and she was looking right at me and smiling. 
 It didn t seem terrible or ghastly in the least. She 
 seemed very sweet. When I opened the door it set the 
 water in motion, and she got up and dropped the 
 
32 BLIX 
 
 satchel, and came toward me smiling and holding out 
 her arms. 
 
 "I stepped back quick and shut the door, and sat 
 down in one of the saloon chairs to fetch my breath, 
 for it had given me a start. The next thing to do was 
 to send her up. But I began to think. She seemed 
 so pretty as she was. What was the use of bringing 
 her up up there on the wrecking-float with that crowd 
 of men up where the air would get at her, and where 
 they would put her in the ground along o the worms ? 
 If I left her there she d always be sweet and pretty 
 always be nineteen; and I remembered what old divers 
 said about drowned people living just so long as they 
 stayed below. You see, I was only a lad then, and 
 things like that impress you when you re young. 
 Well, I signaled to be hauled up. They asked 
 me on the float if I d seen anything, and I said 
 no. That was all there was to the affair. They 
 never raised the ship, and in a little while it was all 
 forgotten. 
 
 "But I never forgot it, and I always remembered her, 
 way down there in all that still green water, waiting 
 there in that little stateroom for me to come back and 
 open the door. And I ve growed to be an old man 
 remembering her; but she s always stayed just as she 
 was the first day I saw her, when she came toward me 
 smiling and holding out her arms. She s always stayed 
 young and fresh and pretty. I never saw her but that 
 once. Only afterward I got her picture from a native 
 woman of Trincomalee who was housekeeper at the 
 residency where the governor of the island lived. 
 Somehow I never could care for other women after that, 
 and I ain t never married for that reason." 
 
 "No, no, of course not !" exclaimed Travis, in a low 
 voice, as the old fellow paused. 
 
BLIX 33 
 
 "Fine, fine; oh, fine as gold!" murmured Condy, 
 under his breath. 
 
 "Well," said the mate, getting up and rubbing his 
 knee, "that s the story. Now you know all about 
 that picture. Will you have a glass of Madeira, miss?" 
 
 He got out a bottle of wine bearing the genuine 
 Funchal label and filled three tiny glasses. Travis 
 pushed up her veil, and she and Condy rose. 
 
 "This is to her," said Travis gravely. 
 
 "Thank you, miss," answered the mate, and the three 
 drank in silence. 
 
 As Travis and Condy were going down the gangplank 
 they met the captain of the whaleback coming up. 
 
 "I saw you in there talking to old McPherson," he 
 explained. "Did you get what you wanted from him?" 
 
 "More, more!" exclaimed Condy. 
 
 "My hand in the fire, he told you that yarn about the 
 girl who was drowned off Trincomalee. Of course, I 
 knew it. The old boy s wits are turned on that subject. 
 He will have it that the body hasn t decomposed in all 
 this time. Good seaman enough, and a first-class 
 navigator, but he s soft in that one spot." 
 
IV 
 
 "On, but the story of it !" exclaimed Condy as he 
 and Travis regained the wharf "the story of it ! Isn t 
 it a ripper ! Isn t it a corker ! His leaving her that 
 way, and never caring for any other girl afterward." 
 
 "And so original!" she commented, quite as enthusi 
 astic as he. 
 
 "Original? Why, it s new as paint! It s it s 
 
 Travis, I ll make a story out of this that will be copied 
 in every paper between the two oceans." 
 
 They were so interested in the mate s story that they 
 forgot to take a car, and walked up Clay Street talking 
 it over, suggesting, rearranging, and embellishing; and 
 Condy was astonished and delighted to note that she 
 "caught on" to the idea as quickly as he, and knew the 
 telling points and what details to leave out. 
 
 "And I ll make a bang-up article out of the whale- 
 back herself," declared Condy. The "idea" of the 
 article had returned to him, and all his enthusiasm 
 with it. 
 
 "And look here," he said, showing her the letter from 
 the Centennial Company. "They turned down my 
 book, but see what they say." 
 
 "Quite an unusual order of merit!" cried Travis. 
 "Why, that s fine ! Why didn t you show this to me 
 before ? and asking you like this to write them a novel 
 of adventure! What more can you want? Oh!" she 
 exclaimed impatiently, "that s so like you; you would 
 tell everybody about your reverses, and carry on about 
 them yourself, but never say a word when you get 
 
 34 
 
BLIX 35 
 
 a little boom. Have you an idea for a thirty-thousand- 
 word novel? Wouldn t that diver s story do?" 
 
 "No, there s not enough in that for thirty thousand 
 words. I haven t any idea at all never wrote a story 
 of adventure never wrote anything longer than six 
 thousand words. But I ll keep my eye open for some 
 thing that will do. By the way by Jove! Travis, 
 where are we?" 
 
 They looked swiftly around them, and the bustling, 
 breezy water-front faded from their recollections. They 
 were in a world of narrow streets, of galleries and over 
 hanging balconies. Craziest structures, riddled and 
 honeycombed with stairways and passages, shut out 
 the sky, though here and there rose a building of extra 
 ordinary richness and most elaborate ornamentation. 
 Colour was everywhere. A thousand little notes of 
 green and yellow, of vermilion and sky blue, assaulted 
 the eye. Here it was a doorway, here a vivid glint of 
 cloth or hanging, here a huge scarlet sign lettered with 
 gold, and here a kaleidoscopic effect in the garments of a 
 passer-by. Directly opposite, and two stories above 
 their heads, a sort of huge "loggia," one blaze of gilding 
 and crude vermilions, opened in the gray cement of a 
 crumbling fagade, like a sudden burst of flame. Gigantic 
 potbellied lanterns of red and gold swung from its ceiling, 
 while along its railing stood a row of pots brass, ruddy 
 bronze, and blue porcelain from which were growing 
 red, saffron, purple, pink, and golden tulips without 
 number. The air was vibrant with unfamiliar noises. 
 From one of the balconies near at hand, though unseen, 
 a gong, a pipe, and some kind of stringed instrument 
 wailed and thundered in unison. There was a vast 
 shuffling of padded soles and a continuous interchange 
 of singsong monosyllables, high-pitched and staccato, 
 while from every hand rose the strange aromas of the 
 
36 BLIX 
 
 East sandalwood, punk, incense, oil, and the smell of 
 mysterious cookery. 
 
 "Chinatown!" exclaimed Travis. "I hadn t the 
 faintest idea we had come up so far. Condy Rivers, 
 do you know what time it is!" She pointed a 
 white kid finger through the doorway of a drug 
 store, where, amid lacquer boxes and bronze urns of 
 herbs and dried seeds, a round Seth Thomas marked 
 half-past two. 
 
 "And your lunch!" cried Condy. "Great heavens! 
 I never thought." 
 
 "It s too late to get any at home. Never mind; I ll 
 go somewhere and have a cup of tea." 
 
 "Why not get a package of Chinese tea, now that 
 you re down here, and take it home with you !" 
 
 "Or drink it here." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "In one of the restaurants. There wouldn t be a soul 
 there at this hour. I know they serve tea any time. 
 Condy, let s try it. Wouldn t it be fun?" 
 
 Condy smote his thigh. "Fun !" he vociferated. "It 
 is by Jove it would be heavenly! Wait a moment. 
 I ll tell you what we will do. Tea won t be enough. 
 We ll go down to Kearney Street, or to the market, 
 and get some crackers to go with it." 
 
 They hurried back to the California market, a few 
 blocks distant, and bought some crackers and a wedge 
 of new cheese. On the way back to Chinatown Travis 
 stopped at a music store on Kearney Street to get her 
 banjo, which she had left to have its head tightened; 
 and thus burdened they regained the "town," Condy 
 grieving audibly at having to carry "brown-paper 
 bundles through the street." 
 
 "First catch your restaurant," said Travis, as they 
 turned into Dupont Street with its thronging coolies 
 
BLIX 37 
 
 and swarming, gaily clad children. But they had not 
 far to seek. 
 
 "Here you are !" suddenly exclaimed Condy, halting 
 in front of a wholesale tea-house bearing a sign in Chinese 
 and English. "Come on, Travis!" 
 
 They ascended two flights of a broad brass-bound 
 staircase leading up from the ground floor, and gained 
 the restaurant on the top story of the building. As 
 Travis had foretold, it was deserted. She clasped her 
 gloved hands gaily, crying: "Isn t it delightful ! We ve 
 the whole place to ourselves." 
 
 The restaurant ran the whole depth of the building, 
 and was finished off at either extremity with a gilded 
 balcony, one overlooking Dupont Street and the other 
 the old Plaza. Enormous screens of gilded ebony, 
 intricately carved and set with coloured glass panes, 
 divided the room into three, and one of these divisions, 
 in the rear part, from which they could step out upon the 
 balcony that commanded the view of the Plaza, they 
 elected as their own. 
 
 It was charming. At their backs they had the huge, 
 fantastic screen, brave and fine with its coat of gold. 
 In front, through the glass-paved valves of a pair of 
 folding doors, they could see the roofs of the houses 
 beyond the Plaza,, and beyond these the blue of the bay 
 with its anchored ships, and even beyond this the faint 
 purple of the Oakland shore. On either side of these 
 doors, in deep alcoves, were divans with mattings and 
 head-rests for opium smokers. The walls were painted 
 blue and hung with vertical Cantonese legends in red 
 and silver, while all around the sides of the room small 
 ebony tables alternated with ebony stools, each inlaid 
 with a slab of mottled marble. A chandelier, all a-glitter 
 with tinsel, swung from the centre of the ceiling over a 
 huge round table of mahogany. 
 
38 BLIX 
 
 And not a soul was there to disturb them. Below 
 them, out there around the old Plaza, the city drummed 
 through its work with a lazy, soothing rumble. Nearer 
 at hand, Chinatown sent up the vague murmur of the 
 life of the Orient. In the direction of the Mexican 
 quarter, the bell of the cathedral knolled at intervals. 
 The sky was without a cloud and the afternoon was 
 warm. 
 
 Condy was inarticulate with the joy of what he called 
 their "discovery." He got up and sat down. He went 
 out into the other room and came back again. He 
 dragged up a couple of the marble-seated stools to the 
 table. He took off his hat, lit a cigarette, let it go out, 
 lit it again, and burned his fingers. He opened and 
 closed the folding doors, pushed the table into a better 
 light, and finally brought Travis out upon the balcony 
 to show her the "points of historical interest" in and 
 around the Plaza. 
 
 "There s the Stevenson memorial ship in the centre, 
 see; and right there, where the flagstaff is, General 
 Baker made the funeral oration over the body of Terry. 
 Broderick killed him in a duel or was it Terry killed 
 Broderick? I forget which. Anyhow, right opposite, 
 where that pawnshop is, is where the Overland stages 
 used to start in 49. And every other building that 
 fronts on the Plaza, even this one we re in now, used 
 to be a gambling-house in bonanza times; and see, over 
 yonder is the Morgue and the City Prison." 
 
 They turned back into the room, and a great, fat 
 Chinaman brought them tea on Condy s order. But 
 besides tea, he brought dried almonds, pickled water 
 melon rinds, candied quince, and "China nuts." 
 
 Travis cut the cheese into cubes with Condy s pen 
 knife, and arranged the cubes in geometric figures upon 
 the crackers. 
 
BLIX 39 
 
 "But, Condy," she complained, "why in the world 
 did you get so many crackers? There s hundreds of 
 them here enough to feed a regiment. Why didn t 
 you ask me?" 
 
 "Huh! what? what? I don t know. What s the 
 matter with the crackers ? You were dickering with the 
 cheese, and the man said: How many crackers? I 
 didn t know. I said: Oh, give me a quarter s worth ! 
 
 "And we couldn t possibly have eaten ten cents 
 
 worth ! Oh, Condy, you are you are But never 
 
 mind, here s your tea. I wonder if this green, pasty 
 stuff is good." 
 
 They found it was, but so sweet that it made their tea 
 taste bitter. The watermelon rinds were flat to their 
 Western palates, but the dried almonds were a great 
 success. Then Condy promptly got the hiccoughs from 
 drinking his tea too fast, and fretted up and down the 
 room like a chicken with the pip till Travis grew faint 
 and weak with laughter. 
 
 "Oh, well," he exclaimed aggrievedly "laugh, that s 
 right ! / don t laugh. It isn t such fun when you ve 
 got em yourself hulp." 
 
 "But sit down, for goodness sake! You make me 
 so nervous. You can t walk them off. Sit down and 
 hold your breath while you count nine. Condy, I m 
 going to take off my gloves and veil. What do you 
 think?" 
 
 "Sure, of course, and I ll have a cigarette. Do you 
 mind if I smoke?" 
 
 "Well, what s that in your hand now?" 
 
 "By Jove, I have been smoking! I I beg your 
 pardon. I m a regular stable-boy. I ll throw it away." 
 
 Travis caught his wrist. "What nonsense ! I would 
 have told you before if I d minded." 
 
 "But it s gone out !" he exclaimed. "I ll have another." 
 
40 BLIX 
 
 As he reached into his pocket for his case, his hand 
 encountered a paper-covered volume, and he drew it 
 out in some perplexity. 
 
 "Now, how in the wide world did that book come in 
 my pocket?" he muttered, frowning. "What have I 
 been carrying it around for? I ve forgotten. I declare 
 I have." 
 
 "What book is it?" 
 
 "Hey? book? . . . h m," he murmured, staring. 
 
 Travis pounded on the table. "Wake up, Condy, I m 
 talking to you," she called. 
 
 "It s Life s Handicap, " he answered, with a start; 
 "but why and but why have I " 
 
 "What s it about ? I never heard of it," she declared. 
 
 "You never heard of Life s Handicap ? " he shouted; 
 "you never heard you never you mean to say you 
 never heard but here, this won t do. Sit right still, 
 and I ll read you one of these yarns before you re another 
 minute older. Any one of them open the book at 
 random. Here we are The Strange Ride of Morrowbie 
 Jukes ; and it s a stem-winder, too." 
 
 And then for the first time in her life, there in that 
 airy, golden Chinese restaurant, in the city from which 
 he hasted to flee, Travis Bessemer fell under the charm 
 of the little spectacled colonial, to whose song we all must 
 listen and to whose pipe we all must dance. 
 
 There was one "point" in the story of Jukes strange 
 ride that Condy prided himself upon having discovered. 
 So far as he knew, all critics had overlooked it. It is. 
 where Jukes is describing the man-trap of the City of the 
 Dead who are alive, and mentions that the slope of the 
 sandhills was "about forty-five degrees." Jukes was a 
 civil engineer, and Condy held that it was a capital 
 bit of realism on the part of the author to have him 
 speak of the pitch of the hills in just such technical 
 
BLIX 41 
 
 terms. At first he thought he would call Travis atten 
 tion to this bit of cleverness ; but as he read he abruptly 
 changed his mind. He would see if she would find it 
 out for herself. It would be a test of her quickness, 
 he told himself; almost an unfair test, because the point 
 was extremely subtle and could easily be ignored by 
 the most experienced of fiction readers. He read 
 steadily on, working himself into a positive excitement 
 as he approached the passage. He came to it and read 
 it through without any emphasis, almost slurring over 
 it in his eagerness to be perfectly fair. But as he began 
 to read the next paragraph, Travis, her little eyes 
 sparkling with interest and attention, exclaimed: 
 
 "Just as an engineer would describe it. Isn t that 
 good !" 
 
 "Glory hallelujah !" cried Condy, slamming down the 
 book joyfully. "Travis, you are one in a thousand!" 
 
 "What what is it?" she inquired blankly. 
 
 "Never mind, never mind; you re a wonder, that s 
 all" and he finished the tale without further explana 
 tion. Then, while he smoked another cigarette and she 
 drank another cup of tea, he read to her "The Return of 
 Imri" and the "Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney." 
 He found her an easy and enrapt convert to the little 
 Englishman s creed, and for himself tasted the intense 
 delight of revealing to another an appreciation of a 
 literature hitherto ignored. 
 
 "Isn t he strong!" cried Travis. "Just a little better 
 than Marie Corelli and the Duchess !" 
 
 "And to think of having all those stories to read! 
 You haven t read any of them yet?" 
 
 "Not a one. I ve been reading only the novels we 
 take up in the Wednesday class." 
 
 "Lord !" muttered Condy. 
 
 Condy s spirits had been steadily rising since the 
 
42 BLIX 
 
 incident aboard the whaleback. The exhilaration of 
 the water-front, his delight over the story he was to 
 make out of the old mate s yarn, Chinatown, the charm 
 ing unconventionality of their lunch in the Chinese 
 restaurant, the sparkling serenity of the afternoon, and 
 the joy of discovering Travis appreciation of his adored 
 and venerated author, had put him into a mood border 
 ing close upon hilarity. 
 
 "The next event upon our interesting programme," he 
 announced, "will be a banjosephine obligate in A-sia 
 minor, by the justly renowned impresario, Signor Cond 
 Tin-pani Rivers, specially engaged for this performance; 
 with a pleasing and pan-hellenic song-and-dance turn by 
 Miss Travis Bessemer, the infant phenomenon, otherwise 
 known as Babby Bessie." 1 
 
 "You re not going to play that banjo here?" said 
 Travis, as he stripped away the canvas covering. 
 
 "Order in the gallery!" cried Condy, beginning to 
 tune up. Then in a rapid, professional monotone: 
 "Ladies - and - gentlemen -with-your - kind-permission-I- 
 will-erideavour - to-give-you-an - imitation-of-a-Carolina- 
 coon-song" and without more ado, singing the words 
 to a rattling, catchy accompaniment, swung off into 
 
 " F or my gal s a high-born leddy, 
 She s brack, but not too shady." 
 
 He did not sing loud, and the clack and snarl of the 
 banjo carried hardly farther than the adjoining room; 
 but there was no one to hear, and, as he went along, 
 even Travis began to hum the words. But at that 
 Condy stopped abruptly, laid the instrument across 
 his knees with exaggerated solicitude, and said 
 deliberately : 
 
 "Travis, you are a good, sweet girl, and what you lack 
 in beauty you make up in amiability, and I ve no doubt 
 
BLIX 43 
 
 you re kind to your aged father; but you can not 
 sing." 
 
 Travis was cross in a moment, all the more so because 
 Condy had spoken the exact truth. It was quite impos 
 sible for her to carry a tune half a dozen bars without 
 entangling herself in as many different keys. What 
 voice she had was not absolutely bad; but as she per 
 sisted in singing in spite of Condy s guying, he put back 
 his head and begun a mournful and lugubrious howling. 
 
 "Ho!" she exclaimed, grabbing the banjo from his 
 knees, " if I can t sing, I can play better than some smart 
 people." 
 
 "Yes, by note," railed Condy, as Travis executed a 
 banjo "piece" of no little intricacy. "That s just like 
 a machine like a hand-piano." 
 
 " Order in the gallery ! " she retorted, without pausing 
 in her playing. She finished with a great flourish and 
 gazed at him in triumph, only to find him pretending a 
 profound slumber. " O o o ! " she remarked between 
 her teeth, "I just hate you, Condy Rivers." 
 
 " There are others," he returned airily. 
 
 "Talk about slang !" 
 
 "Now what will we do?" he cried. "Let s do some 
 thing. Suppose we break something just for fun." 
 
 Then suddenly the gaiety went out of his face, and he 
 started up and clapped his hand to his head with a gasp 
 of dismay. "Great heavens!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Condy," cried Travis in alarm, "what is it?" 
 
 "The Tea!" he vociferated. "Laurie Flagg s Tea. 
 I ought to be there right this minute." 
 
 Travis fetched a sigh of relief. "Is that all?" 
 
 " All !" he retorted. " All ! Why, it s past four now 
 and I d forgotten every last thing." Then suddenly 
 falling calm again, and quietly resuming his seat: "I 
 don t see as it makes any difference. I won t go, that s 
 
44 BLIX 
 
 all. Push those almonds here, will you, Miss Lady? 
 But we aren t doing anything!" he exclaimed, with a 
 brusque return of exuberance. "Let s do things. 
 What ll we do? Think of something. Is there any 
 thing we can break ? " Then, without any transition, he 
 vaulted upon the table and begun to declaim, with tre 
 mendous gestures: 
 
 "There once was a beast called an Ounce, 
 Who went with a spring and a bounce. 
 His head was as flat 
 As the head of a cat, 
 This quadrupetantical Ounce, 
 
 tical Ounce, 
 This quadrupetantical Ounce. 
 
 " You d think from his name he was small, 
 But that was not like him at all. 
 He weighed, I ll be bound, 
 Three or four hundred pound, 
 And he looked most uncommonly tall, 
 
 monly tall, 
 And he looked most uncommonly tall." 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! " cried Travis, pounding on the table. 
 "Hear, hear none, Brutus, none." 
 
 Condy sat down on the table and swung his legs. But 
 during the next few moments, while they were eating 
 the last of their cheese, his good spirits fell rapidly away 
 from him. He heaved a sigh, and thrust both hands 
 gloomily into his pockets. 
 
 "Cheese, Condy?" asked Travis. 
 
 He shook his head with a dark frown, muttering: 
 "No cheese, no cheese." 
 
 "What s wrong, Condy what s the matter?" asked 
 Travis, with concern. 
 
 For some time he would not tell her, answering all her 
 inquiries by closing his eyes and putting his chin in the 
 air, nodding his head in knowing fashion. 
 
BLIX 45 
 
 "But what is it?" 
 
 "You don t respect me," he muttered; and for a long 
 time this was all that could be got from him. No, 
 no, she did not respect him; no, she did not take him 
 seriously. 
 
 "But of course I do. Why don t I? Condy Rivers, 
 what s got into you now?" 
 
 "No, no; I know it. I can tell. You don t take me 
 seriously. You don t respect me." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Make a blooming buffoon of myself," he mumbled 
 tragically. 
 
 In great distress Travis laboured to contradict him. 
 Why, they had just been having a good time, that was 
 all. Why, she had been just as silly as he. Condy 
 caught at the word. 
 
 "Silly! There, I knew it. I told you. I m silly. 
 I m a buffoon. But haven t we had a great afternoon ? " 
 he added, with a sudden grin. 
 
 "I never remember," announced Travis emphatically, 
 " when I ve had a better time than I ve had to-day; and 
 I know just why it s been such a success." 
 
 "Why. then?" 
 
 "Because we ve had no foolishness. We ve just been 
 ourselves, and haven t pretended we were in love with 
 each other when we are not. Condy, let s do this lots." 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Go round to queer little, interesting little places. 
 We ve had a glorious time to-day, haven t we ? and we 
 haven t been talked out once." 
 
 "As we were last night, for instance," he hazarded. 
 
 " I thought you felt it, the same as I did. It was a bit 
 awful, wasn t it?" 
 
 "It was." 
 
 "From now on, let s make a resolution. I know 
 
46 BLIX 
 
 you ve had a good time to-day. Haven t you had a 
 better time than if you d gone to the Tea?" 
 
 "Well, rather. I don t know when I ve had a better, 
 jollier afternoon." 
 
 "Well, now, we re going to try to have lots more good 
 times, but just as chums. We ve tried the other, and it 
 failed. Now be sincere; didn t it fail?" 
 
 "It worked out. It did work out." 
 
 "Now from this time on, no more foolishness. We ll 
 just be chums." 
 
 "Chums it is. No more foolishness." 
 
 "The moment you begin to pretend you re in love 
 with me, it will spoil everything. It s funny," said 
 Travis, drawing on her gloves. "We re doing a funny 
 thing, Condy. With ninety-nine people out of one 
 hundred, this little affair would have been all ended after 
 our explanation of last night confessing, as we did, 
 that we didn t love each other. Most couples would 
 have drifted apart ; but here we are, planning to be 
 chums and have good times in our own original, uncon 
 ventional way and we can do it, too. There, there, 
 he s a thousand miles away. He s not heard a single 
 word I ve said. Condy, are you listening to me?" 
 
 " Blix, " he murmured, staring at her vaguely. " Blix 
 you look that way; I don t know, look kind of blix. 
 Don t you feel sort of blix ? " he inquired anxiously. 
 
 "Blix?" 
 
 He smote the table with his palm. "Capital!" he 
 cried; "sounds bully, and snappy, and crisp, and bright, 
 and sort of sudden. Sounds don t you know, this 
 way?" and he snapped his fingers. "Don t you see 
 what I mean? Blix, that s who you are. You ve 
 always been Blix, and I ve just found it out. Blix, " he 
 added, listening to the sound of the name. " Blix, Blix. 
 Yes, yes; that s your name." 
 
BLIX 
 
 47 
 
 "Blix?" she repeated; "but why Blix?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I don t know why not. " 
 
 "Well, then," he declared, as though that settled the 
 question. They made ready to go, as it was growing late. 
 
 "Will you tie that for me, Condy?" she asked, rising 
 and turning the back of her head toward him, the ends 
 of the veil held under her fingers. "Not too tight. 
 Condy, don t pull it so tight. There, there, that will do. 
 Have you everything that belongs to you? I know 
 you ll go away and leave something here. There s your 
 cigarette case, and your book, and of course the banjo. " 
 
 As if warned by a mysterious instinct, the fat China 
 man made his appearance in the outer room. Condy 
 put his fingers into his vest pocket, then dropped back 
 upon his stool with a suppressed exclamation of horror. 
 
 " Condy ! " exclaimed Blix in alarm, " are you sick ? " 
 for he had turned a positive white. 
 
 "I haven t a cent of money," he murmured faintly. 
 "I spent my last quarter for those beastly crackers. 
 What s to be done? What is to be done? I ll I ll 
 leave him my watch. Yes, that s the only thing. " 
 
 Blix calmly took out her purse. "I expected it," 
 she said resignedly. " I knew this would happen sooner 
 or later, and I always have been prepared. How much 
 is it, John?" she asked of the Chinaman. 
 
 " Hefadollah. " 
 
 "I ll never be able to look you in the face again," 
 protested Condy. "I ll pay you back to-night. I will ! 
 I ll send it up by a messenger boy. " 
 
 "Then you would be a buffoon." 
 
 "Don t!" he exclaimed. "Don t, it humiliates me 
 to the dust. " 
 
 "Oh, come along and don t be so absurd ! It must be 
 after five." 
 
48 BLIX 
 
 Half way down the brass-bound stairs, he clapped his 
 hand to his head with a start. 
 
 "And now what is it ? " she inquired meekly. 
 
 "Forgotten, forgotten!" he exclaimed. "I knew I 
 would forget something. " 
 
 "/ knew it, you mean." 
 
 He ran back, and returned with the great bag of 
 crackers, and thrust it into her hands. "Here, here, 
 take these. We mustn t leave these," he declared 
 earnestly. "It would be a shameful waste of money," 
 and in spite of all her protests, he insisted upon taking 
 the crackers along. 
 
 "I wonder," said Blix, as the two skirted the Plaza, 
 going down to Kearney Street, "I wonder if I ought to 
 ask him to supper?" 
 
 "Ask who me? how funny to " 
 
 I wonder if we are talked out if it would spoil the 
 day?" 
 
 "Anyhow, I m going to have supper at the Club; and 
 I ve got to write my article some time to-night. " 
 
 Blix fixed him with a swift glance of genuine concern. 
 "Don t play to-night, Condy," she said, with a sudden 
 gravity. 
 
 " Fat lot / can play ! What money have I got to play 
 with?" 
 
 "You might get some somewheres. But, anyhow, 
 promise me you won t play. " 
 
 " Well, of course I ll promise. How can I, if I haven t 
 any money? And besides, I ve got my whaleback stuff 
 to write. I ll have supper at the club, and go up in the 
 library and grind out copy for awhile. " 
 
 "Condy," said Blix, "I think that diver s story is 
 almost too good for the Times. Why don t you write it 
 and send it east ? Send it to the Centennial Company, 
 why don t you? They ve paid some attention to you 
 
BLIX 49 
 
 now, and it would keep your name in their minds if you 
 sent the story to them, even if they didn t publish it. 
 Why don t you think of that?" 
 
 "Fine great idea! I ll do that. Only I ll have to 
 write it out of business hours. It will be extra work. " 
 
 "Never mind, you do it; and," she added, as he put 
 her on the cable car, "keep your mind on that thirty- 
 thousand-word story of adventure. Good-by, Condy. 
 Haven t we had the jolliest day that ever was?" 
 
 "Couldn t have been better. Good-by, Blix. " 
 
 Condy returned to his club. It was about six o clock. 
 In response to his question, the hall-boy told him that 
 Tracy Sargeant had arrived a few moments previous 
 and had been asking for him. 
 
 The Saturday of the week before Condy had made an 
 engagement with young Sargeant to have supper together 
 that night, and perhaps go to the theatre afterward. 
 And now at the sight of Sargeant in the "round window " 
 of the main room, buried in the file of the Gil Bias, 
 Condy was pleased to note that neither of them had 
 forgotten the matter. 
 
 Sargeant greeted him with extreme cordiality as he 
 came up, and at once proposed a drink. Sargeant was 
 a sleek, well-groomed, well-looking fellow of thirty, just 
 beginning to show the effects of a certain amount of dis 
 sipation in the little puffs under the eyes and the faint 
 blueness of the temples. The sudden death of his father, 
 for which event Sargeant was still mourning, had left 
 him in such a position that his monthly income was about 
 five times as large as Condy s salary. The two had 
 supper together, and Sargeant proposed the theatre. 
 
 "No, no; I ve got to work to-night," asserted Condy. 
 
 After dinner, while they were smoking their cigars in a 
 window of the main room, one of the hall-boys came up 
 and touched Condy on the arm. 
 
50 BLIX 
 
 "Mr. Eckert, and Mr. Hendricks, and Mr. George 
 Hands, and several other of those gentlemen are up in 
 the card-room, and are asking for you and Mr. Sargeant." 
 
 "Why, I didn t know the boys were here! They ve 
 got a game going, Condy. Let s go up and get in. 
 Shall we?" 
 
 Condy remembered that he had no money. "I m 
 flat broke, Tracy, " he announced, for he knew Sargeant 
 well enough to make the confession without wincing. 
 "No, I ll not go in; but I ll go up and watch you a few 
 minutes. " 
 
 They ascended to the card-room, where the air was 
 heavy and acrid with cigar smoke, and where the silence 
 was broken only by the click of poker-chips. At the 
 end of twenty minutes Condy was playing, having bor 
 rowed enough money of Sargeant to start in the game. 
 
 Unusually talkative and restless, he had suddenly 
 hardened and stiffened to a repressed, tense calm; 
 speechless, almost rigid in his chair. Excitable under 
 even ordinary circumstances, his every faculty was now 
 keyed to its highest pitch. The nervous strain upon him 
 was like the stretching and tightening of harp-strings, 
 too taut to quiver. The colour left his face, and the 
 moisture fled his lips. His projected article, his promise 
 to Blix, all the jollity of the afternoon, all thought of 
 time or place, faded away as the one indomitable, evil 
 passion of the man leaped into life within him, and lashed 
 and roweled him with excitement. His world resolved 
 itself to a round green table, columns of tri-coloured 
 chips, and five ever-changing cards that came and went 
 and came again before his tired eyes like the changing, 
 weaving colours of the kaleidoscope. Midnight struck, 
 then one o clock, then two, three, and four. Still his 
 passion rode him like a hag, spurring the jaded body, 
 rousing up the wearied brain. 
 
BLIX 51 
 
 Finally, at half-past four, at a time when Condy was 
 precisely where he had started, neither winner nor loser 
 by so much as a dime, a round of jack-pots was declared, 
 and the game broke up. Condy walked home to the 
 uptown hotel where he lived with his mother, and went 
 to bed as the first milk-wagons began to make their 
 appearance and the newsboys to cry the morning 
 papers. 
 
 Then, as his tired eyes closed at last, occurred that 
 strange trick of picture-making that the overtaxed brain 
 plays upon the retina. A swift series of pictures of the 
 day s doings began to whirl through rather than before 
 the pupils of his shut eyes. Condy saw again a brief 
 vision of the street, and Blix upon the corner waiting to 
 cross; then it was the gay, brisk confusion of the water 
 front, the old mate s cabin aboard the whaleback, 
 Chinatown, and a loop of vermilion cloth over a gallery 
 rail, the golden balcony, the glint of the Stevenson ship 
 upon the green Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, the delight 
 ful and picturesque confusion of the deserted Chinese 
 restaurant; Blix again, turning her head for him to 
 fasten her veil, holding the ends with her white-kid 
 fingers; Blix once more, walking at his side with her 
 trim black skirt, her round little turban hat, her 
 yellow hair, and her small dark, dancing eyes. 
 
 Then, suddenly, he remembered the promise he had 
 made her in the matter of playing that night. He 
 winced sharply at this, and the remembrance of his fault 
 harried and harassed him. In spite of himself, he felt 
 contemptible. Yet he had broken his promise to her in 
 this very matter of playing before before that day of 
 their visit to the Chinese restaurant and had felt no 
 great qualm of self-reproach. Had their relations 
 changed? Rather the reverse, for they had done with 
 "foolishness. " 
 
52 BLIX 
 
 "Never worried me before," muttered Condy, as he 
 punched up his pillow "never worried me before. 
 Why should it worry me now worry me like the devil ; 
 and she caught on to that point about the slope of 
 forty-five degrees." 
 
CONDY began his week s work for the supplement 
 behindhand. Naturally he overslept himself Tuesday 
 morning, and, not having any change in his pockets, 
 was obliged to walk down to the office. He arrived late, 
 to find the compositors already fretting for copy. His 
 editor promptly asked for the whaleback stuff, and 
 Condy was forced into promising it within half an hour. 
 It was out of the question to write the article according 
 to his own idea in so short a time; so Condy faked the 
 stuff from the exchange clipping, after all. His descrip 
 tion of the boat and his comments upon her mission 
 taken largely at second hand served only to fill space 
 in the paper. They were lacking both in interest and 
 in point. There were no illustrations. The article was 
 a failure. 
 
 But Condy redeemed himself by a witty interview 
 later in the week with an emotional actress, and by a 
 solemn article compiled after an hour s reading in 
 Lafcadio Hearn and the encyclopedia on the "Indus 
 trial Renaissance in Japan. " 
 
 But the idea of the diver s story came back to him 
 again and again, and Thursday night after supper he 
 went down to his club, and hid himself at a corner desk 
 in the library, and, in a burst of enthusiasm, wrote out 
 some two thousand words of it. In order to get the 
 "technical details," upon which he set such store, he 
 consulted the encyclopedias again, and "worked in" a 
 number of unfamiliar phrases and odd-sounding names. 
 He was so proud of the result that he felt he could not 
 
 53 
 
54 BLIX 
 
 wait until the tale was finished and in print to try its 
 effect. He wanted appreciation and encouragement 
 upon the instant. He thought of Blix. 
 
 "She saw the point in Morrowbie Jukes description 
 of the slope of the sandhill, " he told himself; and the next 
 moment had resolved to go up and see her the next 
 evening and read to her what he had written. 
 
 This was on Thursday. All through that week Blix 
 had kept much to herself, and for the first time in two 
 years had begun to spend every evening at home. In 
 the morning of each day she helped Victorine with the 
 upstairs work, making the beds, putting the rooms to 
 rights ; or consulted with the butcher s and grocer s boys 
 at the head of the back stairs, or chaffered with urbane 
 and smiling Chinamen with their balanced vegetable 
 baskets. She knew the house and its management at 
 her fingers ends, and supervised everything that went 
 forward. Laurie Flagg, coming to call upon her, on 
 Wednesday afternoon, to remonstrate upon her sudden 
 defection, found her in the act of tacking up a curtain 
 across the pantry window. 
 
 But Blix had the afternoons and evenings almost 
 entirely to herself. These hours, heretofore taken up 
 with functions and the discharge of obligations, dragged 
 not a little during the week that followed upon her 
 declaration of independence. Wednesday afternoon, 
 however, was warm and fine, and she went to the park 
 with Snooky. Without looking for it or even expecting 
 it, Blix came across a little Japanese tea-house, or rather 
 a tiny Japanese garden, set with almost toy Japanese 
 houses and pavilions, where tea was served and thin, 
 sweetish wafers for five cents. Blix and Snooky went 
 in. There was nobody about but the Japanese serving 
 woman. Snooky was in raptures, and Blix spent a 
 delightful half hour there, drinking Japanese tea, and 
 
BLIX 
 
 55 
 
 feeding the wafers to the carp and gold-fish in the tiny 
 pond immediately below where she sat. A Chinaman, 
 evidently of the merchant class, came in, with a Chinese 
 woman following. As he took his place and the Japanese 
 girl came up to get his order, Blix overheard him say in 
 English: "Bring tea for-um leddy. " 
 
 "He had to speak in English to her," she whispered; 
 " isn t that splendid ! Did you notice that, Snooky ? " 
 
 On the way home Blix was wondering how she should 
 pass her evening. She was to have made one of a 
 theatre party where Jack Carter was to be present. 
 Then she suddenly remembered "Morrowbie Jukes," 
 "The Return of Imri, " and " Krishna Mulvaney. " She 
 continued on past her home, downtown, and returned 
 late for supper with "Plain Tales" and "Many Inven 
 tions." 
 
 Toward half-past eight there came a titter of the 
 electric bell. At the moment Blix was in the upper 
 chamber of the house of Suddhoo, quaking with exquisite 
 horror at the Seal-cutter s magic. She looked up 
 quickly as the bell rang. It was not Condy Rivers 
 touch. She swiftly reflected that it was Wednesday 
 night, and that she might probably expect Frank Catlin. 
 He was a fair specimen of the Younger Set, a sort of 
 modified Jack Carter, and called upon her about once 
 a fortnight. No doubt he would hint darkly as to his 
 riotous living during the past few days and refer to his 
 diet of bromo-seltzers. He would be slangy, familiar, 
 call her by her first name as many times as he dared, 
 discuss the last dance of the Saturday cotillion, and try 
 to make her laugh over Carter s drunkenness. Blix 
 knew the type. Catlin was hardly out of college; but 
 the older girls, even the young women of twenty-five 
 or six, encouraged and petted these youngsters, driven 
 to the alternative by the absolute dearth of older men. 
 
56 BLIX 
 
 "I m not at home, Victorine," announced Blix, inter 
 cepting the maid in the hall. It chanced that it was not 
 Frank Catlin, but another boy of precisely the same 
 breed; and Blix returned to Suddhoo, Mrs. Hawksbee, 
 and Mulvaney with a little cuddling movement of satis 
 faction. 
 
 "There is only one thing I regret about this," she said 
 to Condy Rivers on the Friday night of that week; "that 
 is, that I never thought of doing it before." Then 
 suddenly she put up her hand to shield her eyes, as 
 though from an intense light, turning away her head 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I say, what is it? What what s the matter?" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Blix peeped at him fearfully from between her fingers. 
 "He s got it on," she whispered "that awful crimson 
 scarf." 
 
 "Hoh !" said Condy, touching his scarf nervously, 
 "it s it s very well. Is it too loud ?" he asked uneasily. 
 
 Blix put her fingers in her ears; then: 
 
 "Condy, you re a nice, amiable young man, and, 
 if you re not brilliant, you re good and kind to your 
 aged mother; but your scarfs and neckties are simply 
 impossible." 
 
 "Well, look at this room!" he shouted they were in 
 the parlour. "You needn t talk about bad taste. Those 
 drapes oh-h ! those drapes ! ! Yellow, s help me ! 
 And those bisque figures that you get with every pound 
 of tea you buy; and this, this, this" he whimpered, 
 waving his hands at the decorated sewer-pipe with its 
 gilded cat-tails. "Oh, speak to me of this; speak to 
 me of art; speak to me of aesthetics. Cat-tails, gilded. 
 Of course, why not, gilded!" He wrung his hands. 
 Somewhere people are happy. Somewhere little 
 children are at play 
 
BLIX 57 
 
 "Oh, hush!" she interrupted. "I know it s bad; 
 but we ve always had it so, and I won t have it abused. 
 Let s go into the dining-room, anyway. We ll sit in 
 there after this. We ve always been stiff and con 
 strained in here." 
 
 They went out into the dining-room, and drew up a 
 couple of armchairs into the bay window, and sat there 
 looking out. Blix had not yet lit the gas it was hardly 
 dark enough for that; and for upward of ten minutes 
 they sat and watched the evening dropping into night. 
 
 Below them the hill fell away so abruptly that the 
 roofs of the nearest houses were almost at their feet; 
 and beyond these the city tumbled raggedly down to 
 meet the bay in a confused, vague mass of roofs, cornices, 
 cupolas, and chimneys, blurred and indistinct in the 
 twilight, but here and there pierced by a new-lit street 
 lamp. Then came the bay. To the east they could 
 see Goat Island, and the fleet of sailing-ships anchored 
 off the water-front ; while directly in their line of vision 
 the island of Alcatraz, with its triple crown of forts, 
 started from the surface of the water. Beyond was the 
 Contra Costa shore, a vast streak of purple against 
 the sky. The eye followed its skyline westward till 
 it climbed, climbed, climbed up a long slope that sud 
 denly leaped heavenward with the crest of Tamalpais, 
 purple and still, looking always to the sunset like a 
 great watching sphinx. Then, farther on, the slope 
 seemed to break like the breaking of an advancing 
 billow, and go tumbling, crumbling downward to meet 
 the Golden Gate the narrow inlet of green tidewater 
 with its flanking Presidio. But, farther than this, 
 the eye was stayed. Farther than this there was 
 nothing, nothing but a vast, illimitable plain of 
 green the open Pacific. But at this hour the colour 
 of the scene was its greatest charm. It glowed with 
 
58 BLIX 
 
 all the somber radiance of a cathedral. Everything 
 was seen through a haze of purple from the low green 
 hills in the Presidio reservation to the faint red mass of 
 Mount Diablo shrugging its rugged shoulder over the 
 Contra Costa foothills. As the evening faded, the 
 west burned down to a dull red glow that overlaid the 
 blue of the bay with a sheen of ruddy gold. The foot 
 hills of the opposite shore, Diablo and at last even 
 Tamalpais, resolved themselves in the velvet gray of 
 the sky. Outlines were lost. Only the masses remained 
 and these soon began to blend into one another. The 
 sky, and land, and the city s huddled roofs were one. 
 Only the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing the 
 single vast mass of purple like the blade of a golden 
 sword. 
 
 "There s a ship !" said Blix in a low tone. 
 
 A four-master was dropping quietly through the 
 Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere 
 shadow, specked with lights, red and green. In a few 
 moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort 
 at the Gate. Then her red light vanished, then the 
 mainmast. She was gone. By midnight she would 
 be out of sight of land, rolling on the swell of the lonely 
 ocean under the moon s white eye. 
 
 Condy and Blix sat quiet and without speech, not 
 caring to break the charm of the evening. For quite 
 five minutes they sat thus, watching the stars light 
 one by one, and the immense gray night settle and 
 broaden and widen from mountain-top to horizon. 
 They did not feel the necessity of making conversation. 
 There was no constraint in their silence now. 
 
 Gently, and a little at a time, Condy turned his head 
 and looked at Blix. There was just light enough to 
 see. She was leaning back in her chair, her hands 
 fallen into her lap, her head back and a little to one 
 
BLIX 59 
 
 side. As usual, she was in black; but now it was some 
 sort of dinner-gown that left her arms and neck bare. 
 The line of the chin and the throat and the sweet round 
 curve of the shoulder had in it something indescribable 
 something that was related to music, and that eluded 
 speech. Her hair was nothing more than a warm 
 coloured mist without form or outline. The sloe- 
 brown of her little eyes and the flush of her cheek were 
 mere inferences like the faintest stars that are never 
 visible when looked at directly; and it seemed to him 
 that there was disengaged from her something for which 
 there was no name; something that appealed to a mys 
 terious sixth sense a sense that only stirred at such 
 quiet moments as this; something that was now a dim, 
 sweet radiance, now a faint aroma, and now again a 
 mere essence, an influence, an impression nothing 
 more. It seemed to him as if her sweet, clean purity 
 and womanliness took a form of its own which his 
 accustomed senses were too gross to perceive. Only 
 a certain vague tenderness in him went out to meet and 
 receive this impalpable presence; a tenderness not for 
 her only, but for all the good things of the world. Often 
 he had experienced the same feeling when listening to 
 music. Her sweetness, her goodness appealed to what 
 he guessed must be the noblest in him. And 
 she was only nineteen. Suddenly his heart 
 swelled, the ache came to his throat and the smart to 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Blixy," he said, just above a whisper; "Blixy, wish 
 I was a better sort of chap." 
 
 That s the beginning of being better, isn t it, 
 Condy ? " she answered, turning toward him, her chin on 
 her hand. 
 
 "It does seem a pity," he went on, "that when you 
 want to do the right, straight thing, and be clean and 
 
60 BLIX 
 
 fine, that you can t just be it, and have it over with. It s 
 the keeping it up that s the grind." 
 
 "But it s the keeping it up, Condy, that makes you 
 worth being good when you finally get to be good; don t 
 you think ? It s the keeping it up that makes you 
 strong ; and then when you get to be good you can make 
 your goodness count. What s a good man if he s weak ? 
 if his goodness is better than he is himself? It s the 
 good man who is strong as strong as his goodness, and 
 who can make his goodness count who is the right kind 
 of man. That s what I think." 
 
 "There s something in that, there s something in 
 that." Then, after a pause: "I played Monday night 
 after all, Blix, after promising I wouldn t." 
 
 For a time she did not answer, and when she spoke 
 she spoke quietly: "Well I m glad you told me;" 
 and after a little she added, "Can t you stop, Condy?" 
 
 "Why, yes yes, of course I oh, Blix, sometimes 
 I don t know ! You can t understand ! How could a 
 girl understand the power of it? Other things, I don t 
 say; but when it comes to gambling, there seems to be 
 another me that does precisely as he chooses, whether 
 / will or not. But I m going to do my best. I haven t 
 played since, although there was plenty of chance. You 
 see, this card business is only a part of this club life, this 
 city life like drinking and other vices of men. If I 
 didn t have to lead the life, or if I didn t go with that 
 crowd Sargeant and the rest of those men it would 
 be different; easier, maybe." 
 
 "But a man ought to be strong enough to be himself 
 and master of himself anywhere. Condy, is there any 
 thing in the world better or finer than a strong man?" 
 
 "Not unless it is a good woman, Blix." 
 
 "I suppose I look at it from a woman s point of view; 
 but for me, a strong man strong in everything is the 
 
BLIX 6 1 
 
 grandest thing in the world. Women love strong men, 
 Condy. They can forgive a strong man almost any 
 thing." 
 
 Condy did not immediately answer, and in the interval 
 an idea occurred to Blix that at once hardened into a 
 determination. But she said nothing at the moment. 
 The spell of the sunset was gone, and they had evidently 
 reached the end of that subject of their talk. Blix rose 
 to light the gas. "Will you promise me one thing, 
 Condy?" she said. "Don t, if you don t want to. But 
 will you promise me that you will tell me whenever you 
 do play?" 
 
 "That I ll promise you!" exclaimed Condy; "and 
 I ll keep that, too." 
 
 "And now, let s hear the story or what you ve done 
 of it." 
 
 They drew up to the dining-room table with its cover 
 of blue denim edged with white cord, and Condy unrolled 
 his manuscript and read through what he had written. 
 She approved, and, as he had foreseen, "caught on" to 
 every one of his points. He was almost ready to burst 
 into cheers when she said: 
 
 "Any one reading that would almost believe you had 
 been a diver yourself, or at least had lived with divers. 
 Those little details count, don t they? Condy, I ve an 
 idea. See what you think of it. Instead of having the 
 story end with his leaving her down there and going 
 away, do it this way. Let him leave her there, and then 
 go back after a long time when he gets to be an old man. 
 Fix it up some way to make it natural. Have him go 
 down to see her and never come up again, see? And 
 leave the reader in doubt as to whether it was an acci 
 dent or whether he did it on purpose." 
 
 Condy choked back a whoop and smote his knee. 
 "Blix, you re the eighth wonder! Magnificent glo- 
 
62 BLIX 
 
 rious ! Say!" he fixed her with a glance of curiosity 
 "you ought to take to story- writing yourself." 
 
 "No, no," she retorted significantly. "I ll just stay 
 with my singing and be content with that. But remem 
 ber that story don t go to the Times supplement. At 
 least not until you have tried it east with the Centen 
 nial Company, at any rate." 
 
 "Well, I guess not!" snorted Condy. "Why, this is 
 going to be one of the best yarns I ever wrote." 
 
 A little later on he inquired with sudden concern: 
 "Have you got anything to eat in the house?" 
 
 "I never saw such a man!" declared Blix; "you are 
 always hungry." 
 
 "I love to eat," he protested. 
 
 "Well, we ll make some creamed oysters; how would 
 that do?" suggested Blix. 
 
 Condy rolled his eyes. "Oh, speak to me of 
 creamed oysters!" Then, with abrupt solemnity: 
 "Blix, I never in my life had as many oysters as I 
 could eat." 
 
 She made the creamed oysters in the kitchen over 
 the gas stove, and they ate them there Condy, sitting 
 on the wash-board of the sink, his plate in his lap. 
 
 Condy had a way of catching up in his hands what 
 ever happened to be nearest to him, and while still 
 continuing to talk, examining it with apparent deep 
 interest. Just now it happened to be the morning s 
 paper that Victorine had left on the table. For five 
 minutes Condy had been picking it up and laying it down 
 frowning abstractedly at it during the pauses in the 
 conversation. Suddenly he became aware of what it 
 was, and instantly read aloud the first item that caught 
 his glance: 
 
 " Personal. Young woman, thirty-one, good house 
 keeper, desires acquaintance respectable middle-aged 
 
BLIX 63 
 
 gentleman. Object, matrimony. Address K. D. B., 
 this office. 
 
 "Hum!" he commented, "nothing equivocal about 
 K. D. B.; has the heroism to call herself young at 
 thirty-one. I ll bet she is a good housekeeper. Right 
 to the point. If K. D. B. don t see what she wants, she 
 asks for it." 
 
 "I wonder," mused Blix, "what kind of people they 
 are who put personals in the papers. K. D. B., for 
 instance; who is she, and what is she like?" 
 
 "They re not tough," Condy assured her. "I see 
 em often down at the Times office. They are usually 
 a plain, matter-of-fact sort, quite conscientious, you 
 know; generally middle-aged or thirty-one; outgrown 
 their youthful follies and illusions, and want to settle 
 down." 
 
 "Read some more," urged Blix. Condy went on: 
 
 " Bachelor, good habits, twenty-five, affectionate 
 disposition, accomplishments, money, desires acquaint 
 ance pretty, refined girl. Object, matrimony. McB., 
 this office. " : 
 
 "No, I don t like McB.," said Blix. "He s too- 
 ornamental, somehow." 
 
 "He wouldn t do for K. D. B., would he?" 
 
 "Oh, my, no! He d make her very unhappy." 
 
 " Widower, two children, home-loving disposition, 
 desires introduction to good, honest woman to make 
 home for his children. Matrimony, if suitable. B. P. T., 
 Box A, this office." 1 
 
 "He s not for K. D. B., that s flat," declared Blix; 
 "the idea, matrimony if suitable patronizing enough ! 
 I know just what kind of an old man B. P. T. is. I know 
 he would want K. D. B. to warm his slippers, and would 
 be fretful and grumpy. B. P. T., just an abbreviation 
 for bumptious. No, he can t have her." 
 
64 BLIX 
 
 Condy read the next two or three to himself, despite 
 her protests. 
 
 "Condy, don t be mean ! Read them to " 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed, " here s one for K. D. B. Behold 
 the bridegroom cometh ! Listen. 
 
 "Bachelor, thirty-nine, sober and industrious, retired 
 sea captain, desires acquaintance respectable young 
 woman, good housekeeper and manager. Object, 
 matrimony. Address Captain Jack, office this 
 paper. 
 
 " I know he s got a wooden leg ! " cried Blix. " Can t 
 you just see it sticking out between the lines ? And he 
 lives all alone somewhere down near the bay with a 
 parrot 
 
 "And makes a glass of grog every night." 
 
 "And smokes a long clay pipe. " 
 
 "But he chews tobacco." 
 
 "Yes; isn t it a pity he will chew that nasty, smelly 
 tobacco ? But K. D. B. will break him of that. " 
 
 "Oh, is he for K. D. B.?" 
 
 "Sent by Providence!" declared Blix. "They were 
 born for each other. Just see, K. D. is a good house 
 keeper, and wants a respectable middle-aged gentleman. 
 Captain Jack is a respectable middle-aged gentleman, 
 and wants a good housekeeper. Oh, and besides, I can 
 read between the lines ! I just feel they would be con 
 genial. If they know what s best for themselves, they 
 would write to each other right away. " 
 
 "But wouldn t you love to be there and see them 
 meet!" exclaimed Condy. 
 
 "Can t we fix it up someway," said Blix, "to bring 
 these two together to help them out in some way?" 
 
 Condy smote the table, and jumped to his feet. 
 
 "Write to em!" he shouted. "Write to K. D. B. 
 and sign it Captain Jack, and write to Captain Jack " 
 
BLIX 65 
 
 And sign it K. D. B.," she interrupted, catching the 
 idea. 
 
 "And have him tell her, and her tell him," he added, 
 "to meet at some place; and then we can go to that place 
 and hide, and watch. 
 
 "But how will we know them? How would they 
 know each other? They ve never met. " 
 
 "We ll tell them both to wear a kind of flower. Then 
 we can know them, and they can know each other. Of 
 course as soon as they began to talk they would find out 
 they hadn t written. " 
 
 "But they wouldn t care." 
 
 1 No they want to meet each other. They would be 
 thankful to us for bringing them together. 
 
 "Won t it be the greatest fun?" 
 
 "Fun! Why, it will be a regular drama. Only we 
 are running the show, and everything is real. Let s get 
 at it!" 
 
 Blix ran into her room and returned with writing 
 material. Condy looked at the note-paper critically. 
 "This kind s too swell. K. D. B. wouldn t use Irish 
 linen never ! Here, this is better, glazed, with blue 
 lines, and a flying bird stamped in the corner. Now I ll 
 write for the Captain, and you write for K. D. B. " 
 
 " But where will we have them meet ? " 
 
 This was a point. They considered the Chinese 
 restaurant, the Plaza, Lotta s fountain, the Mechanics 
 Library, and even the cathedral over in the Mexican 
 quarter, but arrived at no decision. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of Luna s restaurant?" said 
 Condy. "By Jove, it s just the place ! It s the restau 
 rant where you get Mexican dinners; right in the heart 
 of the Latin quarter; quiet little old-fashioned place 
 below the level of the street, respectable as a tomb. I 
 was there just once. We ll have em meet there at seven 
 
66 BLIX 
 
 in the evening. No one is there at that hour. The 
 place isn t patronized much, and it shuts up at eight. 
 You and I can go there and have dinner at six, say, and 
 watch for them to come." 
 
 Then they set to work at their letters. 
 
 " Now, " said Condy, " we must have these sound per 
 fectly natural, because if either of these people smell the 
 smallest kind of a rat, you won t catch em. You must 
 write not as you would write, but as you think they 
 would. This is an art, a kind of fiction, don t you see? 
 We must imagine a certain character, and write a letter 
 consistent with that character. Then it ll sound 
 natural. Now, K. D. B. Well, K. D. B., she s prim. 
 Let s have her prim, and proud of using correct, precise, 
 elegant language. I guess she wears mits, and believes 
 in cremation. Let s have her believe in cremation. 
 And Captain Jack; oh ! he s got a terrible voice, like this, 
 row-row-row, see? and whiskers, very fierce; and he says, 
 Belay there ! and Avast ! and is very grandiloquent 
 and orotund and gallant when it comes to women. Oh, 
 he s the devil of a man when it comes to women, is 
 Captain Jack!" 
 
 After countless trials and failures, they evolved the 
 two following missives, which Condy posted that 
 night : 
 
 CAPTAIN JACK. 
 
 Sir: I have perused with entire satisfaction your per 
 sonal in The Daily Times. I should like to know more 
 of you. I read between the lines, and my perception 
 ineradicably convinces me that you are honest and 
 respectable. I do not believe I should compromise 
 my self-esteem at all in granting you an interview. 
 I shall be at Luna s restaurant at seven precisely, 
 next Monday eve, and will bear a bunch of white 
 
BLIX 67 
 
 marguerites. Will you likewise, and wear a marguerite 
 in your lapel? 
 
 Trusting this will find you in health, I am, 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 K. D. B. 
 Miss K. D. B. 
 
 Dear Miss: From the modest and retiring descrip 
 tion of your qualities and character, I am led to believe 
 that I will find in you an agreeable life companion. Will 
 you not accord me the great favour of a personal inter 
 view? I shall esteem it a high honour. I will be at 
 Luna s Mexican restaurant at seven of the clock p. M. on 
 Monday evening next. May I express the fervent hope 
 that you also will be there ? I name the locality because 
 it is quiet and respectable. I shall wear a white margue 
 rite in my buttonhole. Will you also carry a bunch of 
 the same flower ? 
 
 Yours to command, 
 
 CAPTAIN JACK. 
 
 So great was her interest in the affair that Blix even 
 went out with Condy while he mailed the letters in the 
 nearest box, for he was quite capable of forgetting the 
 whole matter as soon as he was out of the house. 
 
 "Now let it work!" she exclaimed as the iron flap 
 clanked down upon the disappearing envelopes. But 
 Condy was suddenly smitten with nameless misgiving. 
 "Now we ve done it! Now we ve done it!" he cried 
 aghast. " I wish we hadn t. We re in a fine fix now. " 
 
 Still uneasy, he saw Blix back to the flat, and bade 
 her good-by at the door. 
 
 But before she went to bed that night, Blix sought 
 out her father, who was still sitting up tinkering with 
 the cuckoo clock, which he had taken all to pieces under 
 the pretext that it was out of order and went too fast. 
 
68 BLIX 
 
 "Papum," said Blix, sitting down on the rug before 
 him, "did you ever when you were a pioneer, when 
 you first came out here in the fifties did you ever play 
 poker? " 
 
 "I oh, well! it was the only amusement the miners 
 had for a long time." 
 
 "I want you to teach me." 
 
 The old man let the clock fall into his lap and stared. 
 But Blix explained her reasons. 
 
VI 
 
 THE next day was Saturday, and Blix had planned 
 a walk out to the Presidio. But at breakfast, while she 
 was debating whether she should take with her Howard 
 and Snooky, or "Many Inventions," she received a note 
 from Condy, sent by special messenger. 
 
 "All our fun is spoiled," he wrote. "I ve got ptomaine 
 poisoning from eating the creamed oysters last night, 
 and am in for a solid fortnight spent in bed. Have 
 passed a horrible night. Can t you look in at the hotel 
 this afternoon ? My mother will be here at the time." 
 
 "Ptomaine poisoning!" The name had an ugly 
 sound, and Condy s use of the term inferred the doctor s 
 visit. Blix decided that she would put off her walk 
 until the afternoon, and call on Mrs. Rivers at once, 
 and ask how Condy did. 
 
 She got away from the flat about ten o clock, but on 
 the steps outside met Condy dressed as if for bicycling, 
 and smoking a cigarette. 
 
 "I ve got eleven dollars !" he announced cheerily. 
 
 "But I thought it was ptomaine poisoning !" she cried 
 with a sudden vexation. 
 
 Pshaw! that s what the doctor says. He s a flap 
 doodle; nothing but a kind of a sort of a pain. It s 
 all gone now. I m as fit as a fiddle and I ve got eleven 
 dollars. Let s go somewhere and do something." 
 
 "But your work?" 
 
 "They don t expect me. When I thought I was going 
 
70 BLIX 
 
 to be sick, I telephoned the office, and they said all 
 right, that they didn t need me. Now I ve got eleven 
 dollars, and there are three holidays of perfect weather 
 before us: to-day, to-morrow, and Monday. What will 
 we do? What must we do to be saved? Our " Matri 
 monial Objects" don t materialize till Monday night. 
 In the meanwhile, what ? Shall we go down to China 
 town to the restaurant, or to the water-front again? 
 Maybe the mate on the whaleback would invite us to 
 lunch. Or," added Condy, his eye caught by a fresh- 
 fish peddler who had just turned into the street, "we 
 can go fishing." 
 
 "For oysters, perhaps." 
 
 But the idea had caught Condy s fancy. 
 
 "Blix !" he exclaimed, "let s go fishing." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "I don t know. Where do people fish around here? 
 Where there s water, I presume." 
 
 "No! Is it possible?" she asked with deep concern. 
 "I thought they fished in their back yards, or in their 
 front parlours, perhaps." 
 
 "Oh, you be quiet ! You re all the time guying me," 
 he answered. "Let me think let me think," he went 
 on, frowning heavily, scouring at his hair. Suddenly 
 he slapped a thigh. 
 
 "Come on," he cried, "I ve an idea !" He was already 
 half-way down the steps, when Blix called him back. 
 
 "Leave it all to me," he assured her; "trust me im 
 plicitly. Don t you want to go?" he demanded with 
 abrupt disappointment. 
 
 "Want to !" she exclaimed. "Why, it would be the 
 very best kind of fun, but 
 
 "Well, then, come along." 
 
 They took a downtown car. 
 
 "I ve got a couple of split bamboo rods," he explained 
 
BLIX 71 
 
 as the car slid down the terrific grade of the Washington 
 Street hill. "I haven t used em in years not since 
 we lived east; but they re hand-made, and are tip-top. 
 I haven t any other kind of tackle; but it s just as well, 
 because the tackle will all depend upon where we are 
 going to fish." 
 
 "Where s that?" 
 
 "Don t know yet; am going down now to find out." 
 
 He took her down to the principal dealer in sporting 
 goods on Market Street. It was a delicious world, 
 whose atmosphere and charm were not to be resisted. 
 There were shotguns in rows, their gray barrels looking 
 like so many organ-pipes; sheaves of fishing-rods, from 
 the four-ounce wisp of the brook-trout up to the rigid 
 eighteen-ounce lance of the king-salmon and sea-bass; 
 show-cases of wicked revolvers, swelling by calibers into 
 the thirty-eight and forty-four man-killers of the plains 
 men and Arizona cavalry; hunting-knives and dirks, 
 and the slender steel whips of the fencers; files of Win 
 chesters, sleeping quietly in their racks, waiting patiently 
 for the signal to speak the one grim word they knew; 
 swarms of artificial flies of every conceivable shade, 
 brown, gray, black, gray-brown, gray-black, with here 
 and there a brisk vermilion note ; coils of line, from the 
 thickness of a pencil, spun to hold the sullen plunges of a 
 jew-fish off the Catalina Islands, down to the sea-green 
 gossamers that a vigourous fingerling might snap; 
 hooks, snells, guts, leaders, gaffs, cartridges, shells, and 
 all the entrancing munitions of the sportsman, that 
 savoured of lonely canons, deerlicks, mountain streams, 
 quail uplands, and the still reaches of inlet and marsh 
 grounds, gray and cool in the early autumn dawn. 
 
 Condy and Blix got the attention of a clerk, and 
 Condy explained. 
 
 "I want to go fishing we want to go fishing. We 
 
72 BLIX 
 
 want some place where we can go and come in the same 
 day, and we want to catch fair- sized fish no minnows." 
 
 The following half-hour was charming. Never was 
 there a clerk more delightful It would appear that his 
 one object in life was that Condy and Blix should catch 
 fish. The affairs of the nation stood still while he 
 pondered, suggested, advised, and deliberated. He told 
 them where to go, how to get there, what train to take 
 coming back, and who to ask for when they arrived. 
 They would have to wait till Monday before going, but 
 could return long before the fated hour of 7 p. M. 
 
 "Ask for Richardson," said the clerk; "and here, 
 give him my card. He ll put you on to the good spots: 
 some places are A-i to-day, and to-morrow in the same 
 place you can t kill a single fish." 
 
 Condy nudged Blix as the Mentor turned away to 
 get his card. 
 
 "Notice that," he whispered: "kill a fish. You don t 
 say catch, you say kill technical detail." 
 
 Then they bought their tackle: a couple of cheap 
 reels, lines, leaders, sinkers, a book of assorted flies that 
 the delightful clerk suggested, and a beautiful little tin 
 box painted green, and stenciled with a gorgeous gold 
 trout upon the lid, in which they were to keep the pint 
 of salted shrimps to be used as bait in addition to the 
 flies. Blix would get these shrimps at a little market 
 near her home. 
 
 "But," said the clerk, "you ve got to get a permit to 
 fish in that lake. Have you got a pull with the Water 
 Company? Are you a stockholder?" 
 
 Condy s face fell, and Blix gave a little gasp of dismay. 
 They looked at each other. Here was a check, indeed. 
 
 "Well," said the sublime being in shirt-sleeves from 
 behind the counter, "see what you can do; and if you 
 can t make it, come back here and lemmeno, and we ll 
 
BLIX 73 
 
 fix it up in some other place. But Lake San Andreas 
 has been bang-up this last week been some great kills 
 there; hope to the deuce you can make it." 
 
 Everything now hinged upon this permit. It was 
 not until their expedition had been in doubt that Condy 
 and Blix realized how alluring had been its prospects. 
 
 "Oh, I guess you can get a permit," said the clerk 
 soothingly. "An if you make any good kills, lemmeno 
 and I ll put it in the paper. I m the editor of the 
 Sport-with-Gun-and-Rod column in The Press" he 
 added with a flush of pride. 
 
 Toward the middle of the afternoon, Blix, who was 
 waiting at home, in great suspense, for that very 
 purpose, received another telegram from Condy: 
 
 "Tension of situation relieved. Unconditional per 
 mission obtained. Don t forget the shrimps." 
 
 It had been understood that Condy was to come to 
 the flat on Sunday afternoon to talk over final arrange 
 ments with Blix. But as it was, Saturday evening saw 
 him again at the Bessemers . 
 
 He had been down at his club in the library, writing 
 the last paragraphs of his diver s story, when, just as he 
 finished, Sargeant discovered him. 
 
 "Why, Conny, old man, all alone here? Let s go 
 downstairs and have a cigar. Hendricks and George 
 Hands are coming around in half an hour. They told 
 me not to let you get away." 
 
 Condy stirred nervously in his chair. He knew what 
 that meant. He had enough money in his pockets to 
 play that night, and in an instant the enemy was all 
 awake. The rowel was in his flank again, and the 
 scourge at his back. Sargeant stood there, the well- 
 groomed clubman of thirty; a little cynical, perhaps, but 
 a really good fellow for all that, and undeniably fond of 
 Condy. But somewhere, with the eyes of some second 
 
74 BLIX 
 
 self, Condy saw the girl of nineteen, part child and part 
 woman; saw her goodness, her fine, sweet feminine 
 strength as it were a dim radiance. "What s a good man 
 worth, Condy," she had said, "if he s not a strong man ? " 
 
 " I suppose we ll have a game going before midnight," 
 admitted Sargeant resignedly, smiling good-humouredly 
 nevertheless. 
 
 Condy set his teeth. "I ll join you later. Wait a 
 few moments," he said. He hurried to the office of the 
 club, and sent a despatch to Blix the third since 
 morning : 
 
 "Can I come up right away? It s urgent. Send 
 answer by this messenger." 
 
 He got his answer within three-quarters of an hour, 
 and left the club as Hendricks and George Hands 
 arrived by the elevator entrance. 
 
 Sitting in the bay window of the dining-room, he told 
 Blix why he had come. 
 
 "Oh, you were right!" she told him. "Always, 
 always come, when when you feel you must." 
 
 "It gets so bad sometimes, Blix," he confessed with 
 abject self -contempt, "that when I can t get some one 
 to play against, I ll sit down and deal dummy hands, 
 and bet on them. Just the touch of the cards just 
 the feel of the chips. Faugh! it s shameful." 
 
 The day following, Sunday, Condy came to tea as 
 usual; and after the meal, as soon as the family and 
 Victorine had left the pair alone in the dining-room, they 
 set about preparing for their morrow s excursion. Blix 
 put up their lunch sandwiches of what Condy called 
 "devilish" ham, hard-boiled eggs, stuffed olives, and a 
 bottle of claret. 
 
 Condy took off his coat and made great show of 
 stringing the tackle; winding the lines from the spools 
 on to the reels, and attaching the sinkers and flies to the 
 
BLIX 
 
 75 
 
 leaders, smoking the while, and scowling fiercely. He 
 got the lines fearfully and wonderfully snarled, he caught 
 the hooks in the tablecloth, he lost the almost invisible 
 gut leaders on the floor, and looped the sinkers on the 
 lines when they should have gone on the leaders. In 
 the end Blix had to help him out, disentangling the lines 
 foot by foot with a patience that seemed to Condy little 
 short of superhuman. 
 
 At nine o clock she said decisively: 
 
 "Do you know what time we must get up in the 
 morning if we are to have breakfast and get the seven- 
 forty train ? Quarter of six by the latest, and you must 
 get up earlier than that, because you re at the hotel and 
 have farther to go. Come here for breakfast, and 
 listen be here by half-past six are you listening, 
 Condy? -and we ll go down to the depot from here. 
 Don t forget to bring the rods." 
 
 "I ll wear my bicycle suit," he said, "and one of those 
 golf scarfs that wrap around your neck." 
 
 "No," she declared; "I won t have it. Wear the 
 oldest clothes you ve got, but look fairly respectable, 
 because we re to go to Luna s when we get back, remem 
 ber. And now go home ; you need all the sleep you can 
 get up to six o clock." 
 
 Instead of being late, as Blix had feared, Condy was 
 absurdly ahead of time the next morning. For a 
 wonder, he had not forgotten the rods; but he was one 
 tremour of nervousness. He would eat no breakfast. 
 
 "We re going to miss the train," he would announce 
 from time to time; "I just know it. Blix, look what 
 time it is. We ought to be on the way to the depot now. 
 Come on; you don t want any more coffee. Have you 
 got everything? Did you put the reels in the lunch- 
 basket ? and the fly-book ? Lord, if we should forget 
 the fly-book!" 
 
76 BLIX 
 
 He managed to get her to the depot over half an hour 
 ahead of time. The train had not even backed in, nor 
 the ticket office opened. 
 
 "I told you, Condy; I told you," complained Blix, 
 sinking helplessly upon a bench in the waiting-room. 
 
 "No no no," he answered vaguely, looking nerv 
 ously about, his head in the air. "We re none too 
 soon have more time to rest now. I wonder what 
 track the train leaves from. I wonder if it stops at 
 San Bruno. I wonder how far it is from San Bruno to 
 Lake San Andreas. I m afraid it s going to rain. 
 Heavens and earth, Blix, we forgot the shrimps !" 
 
 "No, no! Sit down; I ve got the shrimps. Condy, 
 you make me so nervous I shall scream in a minute. " 
 
 Some three-quarters of an hour later the train had set 
 them down at San Bruno nothing more than a road- 
 house, the headquarters for duck-shooters and fisher 
 men from the city. However, Blix and Condy were the 
 only visitors. Everybody seemed to be especially 
 nice to them on that wonderful morning. Even the 
 supercilious ticket seller at the San Francisco depot 
 had unbent, and wished them good luck. The conductor 
 of the train had shown himself affable. The very 
 brakeman had gone out of his way to apprise them, 
 quite five minutes ahead of time, that "the next stop 
 was their place." And at San Bruno the proprietor of 
 the roadhouse himself hitched up to drive them over to 
 the lake, announcing that he would call for them at 
 " Richardson s " in time for the evening train. 
 
 "And he only asked me four bits for both trips," 
 whispered Condy to Blix, as they jogged along. 
 
 The country was beautiful. It was hardly eight 
 o clock, and the morning still retained much of the brisk 
 effervescence of the early dawn. Great bare, rolling 
 hills of gray-green, thinly scattered with live oak, bore 
 
BLIX 77 
 
 back from the road on either hand. The sky was pale 
 blue. There was a smell of cows in the air, and twice 
 they heard an unseen lark singing. It was very still. 
 The old buggy and complacent horse were embalmed 
 in a pungent aroma of old leather and of stables that 
 was entrancing; and a sweet smell of grass and sap 
 came to them in occasional long whiffs. There was 
 exhilaration in the very thought of being alive on that 
 odourous, still morning. The young blood went spank 
 ing in the veins. Blix s cheeks were ruddy, her little 
 dark-brown eyes fairly coruscating with pleasure. 
 
 " Condy, isn t it all splendid ! " she suddenly burst out. 
 
 "I feel regularly bigger !" he declared solemnly. "I 
 could do anything a morning like this. " 
 
 Then they came to the lake, and to Richardson s, 
 where the farmer lived who was also the custodian of 
 the lake. The complacent horse jogged back, and 
 Condy and Blix set about the serious business of the day. 
 Condy had no need to show Richardson the delightful 
 sporting clerk s card. The old Yankee his twang and 
 dry humour singularly incongruous on that royal morn 
 ing was solicitude itself. He picked out the best boat 
 on the beach for them, loaned them his own anchor of 
 railroad iron, indicated minutely the point on the 
 opposite shore ofl which the last big trout had been 
 killed, " and wetted himself to his ankles as he pushed 
 off the boat. 
 
 Condy took the oars. Blix sat in the stern, jointing 
 the rods and running the lines through the guides. She 
 even baited the hooks with the salt shrimp herself; 
 and by nine o clock they were at anchor some forty 
 feet off-shore, and fishing, according to Richardson s 
 advice, "a leetle mite off the edge o the weeds. " 
 
 "If we don t get a bite the whole blessed day," said 
 Condy, as he paid out his line to the ratchet music of the 
 
78 BLIX 
 
 reel, "we ll have fun, just the same. Look around 
 isn t this great?" 
 
 They were absolutely alone. The day was young as 
 yet. The lake, smooth and still as gray silk, widened 
 to the west and south without so much as a wrinkle 
 to roughen the surface. Only to the east, where the 
 sun looked over a shoulder of a higher hill, it flamed 
 up into a blinding diamond iridescence. The surround 
 ing land lay between sky and water, hushed to a Sunday 
 stillness. Far off across the lake by Richardson s they 
 heard a dog bark, and the sound came fine and small 
 and delicate. At long intervals the boat stirred with a 
 gentle clap-clapping of the water along its sides. From 
 the nearby shore in the growth of manzanita bushes 
 quail called and clucked comfortably to each other; a 
 bewildered yellow butterfly danced by over their heads, 
 and slim blue dragon flies came and poised on their 
 lines and fishing-rods, bowing their backs. 
 
 From his seat in the bow, Condy cast a glance at Blix. 
 She was holding her rod in both hands, absorbed, watch 
 ful, very intent. She was as trim as ever, even in the 
 old clothes she had worn for the occasion. Her round, 
 strong neck was, as usual, swathed high and tight in 
 white, and the huge dog-collar girdled her waist accord 
 ing to her custom. She had taken off her hat. Her 
 yellow hair rolled back from her round forehead and 
 cool pink cheeks like a veritable nimbus, and for the 
 fiftieth time Condy remarked the charming contrast of 
 her small, deep-brown eyes in the midst of this white 
 satin, yellow hair, white skin, and exquisite pink cheeks. 
 
 An hour passed. Then two. 
 
 "No fish," murmured Condy, drawing in his line to 
 examine the bait. But as he was fumbling with the 
 flies he was startled by a sharp exclamation from Blix. 
 
 " Oh-Condy-I ve-got-a-bite ! " 
 
BLIX 79 
 
 He looked up just in time to see the tip of her rod 
 twitch, twitch, twitch. Then the whole rod arched 
 suddenly, the reel sang, the line tautened and cut 
 diagonally through the water. 
 
 "You got him! You got him!" he shouted, palpi 
 tating with excitement. "And he s a good one!" 
 
 Blix rose, reeling in as rapidly as was possible, the 
 butt of the twitching, living rod braced against her 
 belt. All at once the rod straightened out again, the 
 strain was released, and the line began to slant rapidly 
 away from the boat. 
 
 "He s off!" she cried. 
 
 "Off, nothing! He s going to jump. Look out for 
 him, now !" 
 
 And then the two, watching from the boat, tense and 
 quivering with the drama of the moment, saw that most 
 inspiriting of sights the "break" of a salmon-trout. 
 Up he went, from a brusque explosion of ripples and 
 foam up into the gray of the morning from out the 
 gray of the water : scales all gleaming, hackles all a-bristle, 
 a sudden flash of silver, a sweep as of a scimitar in gray 
 smoke, with a splash, a turmoil, an abrupt burst of 
 troubled sound that stabbed through the silence of 
 the morning, and in a single instant dissipated all 
 the placid calm of the previous hours. 
 
 "Keep the line taut," whispered Condy, gritting his 
 teeth. "When he comes toward you, reel him in; an 
 if he pulls too hard, give him his head. " 
 
 Blix was breathing fast, her cheeks blazing, her eyes 
 all alight. 
 
 "Oh, " she gasped, " I m so afraid I ll lose him ! Oh, 
 look at that!" she cried, as the trout darted straight 
 for tKe bottom, bending the rod till the tip was sub 
 merged. "Condy, I ll lose him I know I shall; you, 
 you take the rod ! 
 
8o BLIX 
 
 "Not for a thousand dollars! Steady, there; he s 
 away again ! Oh, talk about sport !" 
 
 Yard by yard Blix reeled in until they began to see 
 the silver glint of the trout s flanks through the green 
 water. She brought him nearer. Swimming parallel 
 with the boat, he was plainly visible from his wide-open 
 mouth the hook and fly protruding from his lower jaw 
 to the red, quivering flanges of the tail. His sides 
 were faintly speckled, his belly white as chalk. He was 
 almost as long as Condy s forearm. 
 
 "Oh, he s a beauty! Oh, isn t he a beauty!" mur 
 mured Condy. " Now, careful; careful; bring him up to 
 the boat where I can reach him; e-easy, Blix. If he 
 bolts again, let him run." 
 
 Twice the trout shied from the boat s shadow, and 
 twice, as Blix gave him his head, the reel sang and 
 hummed like a watchman s rattle. But the third time 
 he came to the surface and turned slowly on his side, the 
 white belly and one red fin out of the water, the gills 
 opening and shutting. He was tired out. A third time 
 Blix drew him gently to the boat s side. Condy reached 
 out and down into the water till his very shoulder was 
 wet, hooked two fingers under the distended gills, and 
 with a long, easy movement of the arm swung him into 
 the boat. 
 
 Their exultation was that of veritable children. 
 Condy whooped like an Apache, throwing his hat into 
 the air; Blix was hardly articulate, her hands clasped, 
 her hair in disarray, her eyes swimming with tears of 
 sheer excitement. They shook each other s hands; 
 they talked wildly at the same time; they pounded on 
 the boat s thwarts with their fists; they laughed at their 
 own absurdity ; they looked at the trout again and again, 
 guessed at his weight, and recalled to each other details 
 of the struggle. 
 
BLIX 81 
 
 "When he broke that time, wasn t it grand?" 
 
 " And when I first felt him bite ! It was so sudden 
 why, it actually frightened me. I never no, never in 
 my life ! " exclaimed Blix, "was so happy as I am at this 
 moment ! Oh, Condy, to think just to think /" 
 
 "Isn t it glory hallelujah?" 
 
 Isn t it better than teas, and dancing, and functions ? 
 
 "Blix how old are we?" 
 
 " I don t care how old we are; I think that trout will 
 weigh two pounds." 
 
 When they were calm again they returned to their 
 fishing. The morning passed, and it was noon before 
 they were aware of it. By half-past twelve Blix had 
 caught three trout, though the first was by far the 
 heaviest. Condy had not had so much as a bite. At 
 one o clock they rowed ashore and had lunch under a 
 huge live oak in a little amphitheatre of manzanita. 
 
 Never had a lunch tasted so delicious. What if the 
 wine was warm and the stuffed olives oily ? What if the 
 pepper for the hard-boiled eggs had sifted all over the 
 "devilish" ham sandwiches? What if the eggs them 
 selves had not been sufficiently cooked, and the corkscrew 
 forgotten ? They could not be anything else but inordi 
 nately happy, sublimely gay. Nothing short of actual 
 tragedy could have marred the joy of that day. 
 
 But after they were done eating, and Blix had put 
 away the forks and spoons, and while Condy was 
 stretched upon his back smoking a cigar, she said to him: 
 
 "Now, Condy, what do you say to a little game of 
 cards with me?" 
 
 The cigar dropped from Condy s lips, and he sat sud 
 denly upright, brushing the fallen leaves fiom his hair. 
 Blix had taken a deck of cards from the lunch-basket, 
 and four rolls of chips wrapped in tissue paper. He 
 stared at her in speechless amazement. 
 
S 2 BLIX 
 
 "What do you say?" she repeated, looking at him 
 and smiling. 
 
 "Why, Blix!" he exclaimed in amazement, "what 
 do you mean?" 
 
 "Just what I say. I want you to play cards with me. " 
 
 "I ll not do it," he declared, almost coldly. 
 
 "Listen to me, Condy, " answered Blix; and for quite 
 five minutes, while he interrupted and protested and 
 pshawed and argued, she talked to him calmly and 
 quietly. 
 
 "I don t ask you to stop playing, Condy," she said, 
 as she finished ; I just ask you that when you feel you 
 must play or I mean, when you want to very bad 
 you will come and play with me, instead of playing at 
 your club." 
 
 "But it s absurd, it s preposterous. I hate to see a 
 girl gambling and you of all girls ! " 
 
 " It s no worse for me than it is for you and well, do 
 you suppose I would play with any one else ? Maybe 
 you think I can t play well enough to make it interesting 
 for you/ she said gaily. " Is that it ? I can soon show 
 you, Condy Rivers never mind when I learned how. " 
 
 " But, Blix, you don t know how often we play, those 
 men and I. Why, it is almost every you don t know 
 how often we play. " 
 
 "Condy, whenever you want to play, and will play 
 with me, no matter what I ve got in hand, I ll stop every 
 thing and play with you." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Because I think, Condy, that this way perhaps you 
 won t play quite so often at first ; and then little by little 
 perhaps perhaps well, never mind that now. / want 
 to play; put it that way. But I want you to promise 
 me never to play with any one else say for six months. " 
 
 And in the end, whipped by a sense of shame, Condy 
 
BLIX 83 
 
 made her the promise. They became very gay upon the 
 instant. 
 
 "Hoh!" exclaimed Condy; "what do you know of 
 poker ? I think we had best play old sledge or casino. " 
 
 Blix had dealt a hand and partitioned the chips. 
 
 " Straights and flushes before the draw, " she announced 
 calmly. 
 
 Condy started and stared. Then looking at her 
 askance, he picked up his hand. 
 
 "It s up to you. " 
 
 "I ll make it five to play. " 
 
 "Five? Very well. How many cards?" 
 
 "Three." 
 
 "I ll take two." 
 
 "Bet you five more." 
 
 Blix looked at her hand. Then, without trace of 
 expression in her voice or face, said: 
 
 "There s your five, and I ll raise you five." 
 
 " Five better. " 
 
 "And five better than that. " 
 
 "Call you." 
 
 "Full house. Aces on tens," said Blix, throwing 
 down her cards. 
 
 " Heavens ! They re good as gold ! " muttered Condy 
 as Blix gathered in the chips. 
 
 An hour later she had won all the chips but five. 
 
 "Now we ll stop and get to fishing again; don t you 
 want to?" 
 
 He agreed, and she counted the chips. 
 
 "Condy, you owe me seven dollars and a half," she 
 announced. 
 
 Condy began to smile. "Well," he said jocosely, 
 "I ll send you around a check to-morrow. " 
 
 But at this Blix was cross upon the instant. "You 
 wouldn t do that wouldn t talk that way with one of 
 
84 BLIX 
 
 your friends at the club !" she exclaimed; "and it s not 
 right to do it with me. Condy, give me seven dollars 
 and a half. When you play cards with me it s just as 
 though it were with another man. I would have paid 
 you if you had won. " 
 
 "But I haven t got more than nine dollars. Who ll 
 pay for the supper to-night at Luna s, and our railroad 
 fare going home?" 
 
 "I ll pay." 
 
 "But I I can t afford to lose money this way. " 
 
 "Shouldn t have played, then ; I took the same chances 
 as you. Condy, I want my money. " 
 
 "You you why, you ve regularly flimflammed me. " 
 
 "Will you give me my money ? " 
 
 "Oh, take your money, then!" 
 
 Blix shut the money in her purse, and rose, dusting 
 her dress. 
 
 "Now," she said "now that the pastime of card- 
 playing is over, we will return to the serious business of 
 life, which is the catching no, killing of lake trout. " 
 
 At five o clock in the afternoon Condy pulled up the 
 anchor of railroad iron and rowed back to Richardson s. 
 Blix had six trout to her credit, but Condy s ill-luck 
 had been actually ludicrous. 
 
 "I can hold a string in the water as long as anybody, " 
 he complained, "but I d like to have the satisfaction of 
 merely changing the bait occasionally. I ve not had a 
 single bite not a nibble, y know, all day. Never mind, 
 you got the big trout, Blix; that first one. That five 
 minutes was worth the whole day. It s been glorious, 
 the whole thing. We ll come down here once a week 
 right along now." 
 
 But the one incident that completed the happiness 
 of that wonderful day occurred just as they were getting 
 out of the boat on the shore at Richardson s. In a 
 
BLIX 85 
 
 mudhole between two rocks they discovered a tiny 
 striped snake, hardly bigger than a lead pencil, in the 
 act of swallowing a little green frog, and they passed a 
 rapt ten minutes in witnessing the progress of this 
 miniature drama, which culminated happily in the 
 victim s escape and triumph of virtue. 
 
 "That," declared Blix, as they climbed into the old 
 buggy which was to take them to the train, "was the 
 one thing necessary. That made the day perfect. " 
 
 They reached the city at dusk, and sent their fish, 
 lunch -basket, and rods up to the Bessemers flat by a 
 messenger boy with an explanatory note for Blix s 
 father. 
 
 "Now," said Condy, "for Luna s and the Matri 
 monial Objects. " 
 
VII 
 
 LUNA S Mexican restaurant has no address. It is on 
 no particular street, at no particular corner; even its 
 habitue s, its most enthusiastic devotees, are unable to 
 locate it upon demand. It is " over there in the quarter, 
 "not far from the cathedral there." One could find it 
 if one started out with that intent ; but to direct another 
 there no, that is out of the question. It can be 
 reached by following the alleys of Chinatown. You 
 will come out of the last alley the one where the slave 
 girls are upon the edge of the Mexican quarter, and 
 by going straight forward a block or two, and by 
 keeping a sharp lookout to right and left, you will 
 hit upon it. It is always to be searched for always 
 to be discovered. 
 
 On that particular Monday evening Blix and Condy 
 arrived at Luna s some fifteen minutes before seven. 
 Condy had lost himself and all sense of direction in the 
 strange streets of the quarter, and they were on the very 
 brink of despair when Blix discovered the sign upon an 
 opposite corner. 
 
 As Condy had foretold, they had the place to them 
 selves. They went into the back room, with its one 
 mirror, six tables and astonishing curtains of Nottingr 
 ham lace; and the waiter, whose name was Richard or 
 Riccardo, according to taste, began to officiate at the 
 solemn rites of the "supper Mexican. " Condy and Blix 
 ate with their eyes continually wandering to the door; 
 and as the frijoles were being served, started simul 
 taneously and exchanged glances. 
 
 86 
 
BLIX 87 
 
 A man wearing two marguerites in the lapel of his coat 
 had entered abruptly, and sat down at a table close at 
 hand. 
 
 Condy drew a breath of suppressed excitement. 
 
 "There he is, " he whispered " Captain Jack ! " 
 
 They looked at the newcomer with furtive anxiety, 
 and told themselves that they were disappointed. For 
 a retired sea captain he was desperately commonplace. 
 His hair was red, he was younger than they had expected, 
 and, worst of all, he did look tough. 
 
 "Oh, poor K. D. B !" sighed Blix, shaking her head. 
 "He ll never do, I m afraid. Perhaps he has a good 
 heart, though; red-headed people are sometimes affec 
 tionate." 
 
 "They are impulsive," hazarded Condy. 
 
 As he spoke the words, a second man entered the little 
 room. He, too, sat down at a nearby table. He, too, 
 ordered the "supper Mexican." He, too, wore mar 
 guerites in his buttonhole. 
 
 "Death and destruction!" gasped Condy, turning 
 pale. 
 
 Blix collapsed helplessly in her chair, her hands drop 
 ping in her lap. They stared at each other in utter 
 confusion. 
 
 "Here s a how-do-you-do," murmured Condy, pre 
 tending to strip a tamale that Richard had just set 
 before him. But Blix had pushed hers aside. 
 
 "What does it mean?" whispered Condy across the 
 table. "In Heaven s name, what does it mean?" 
 
 "It can only mean one thing," Blix declared; "one 
 of them is the Captain and one is a coincidence. Any 
 body might wear a marguerite ; we ought to have thought 
 of that." 
 
 " But which is which ?" 
 
 " If K. D. B. should come now ! " 
 
88 BLIX 
 
 "But the last man looks more like the Captain." 
 
 The last man was a sturdy, broad-shouldered fellow, 
 who might have been forty. His heavy mustache was 
 just touched with gray, and he did have a certain vague 
 "sober and industrious" appearance. But the differ 
 ence between the two men was slight, after all; the red 
 headed man could easily have been a sea captain, and he 
 certainly was over thirty-five. 
 
 Which ? which ? which ? how can we tell ? We 
 might think of some way to get rid of the coincidence, 
 if we could only tell which the coincidence was. We 
 owe it to K. D. B. In a way, Condy, it s our duty. 
 We brought her here, or we are going to, and we ought 
 to help her all we can; and she may be here at any 
 moment. What time is it now?" 
 
 "Five minutes after seven. But, Blix, I should think 
 the right one the captain would be all put out himself 
 by seeing another chap here wearing marguerites. Does 
 either one of them seem put out to you? Look. I 
 should think the Captain, whichever one he is, would 
 kind of glare at the coincidence." 
 
 Stealthily they studied the two men for a moment. 
 
 "No, no," murmured Blix, "you can t tell. Neither 
 of them seems to glare much. Oh, Condy" her voice 
 dropped to a faint whisper. "The red-headed one has 
 put his hat on a chair, just behind him notice ? Do 
 you suppose if you stood up you could see inside ?" 
 
 "What good would that do ?" 
 
 "He might have his initials inside the crown, or his 
 whole name even; and you could see if he had a Captain 
 before it." 
 
 Condy made a pretense of rising to get a match in a 
 ribbed, truncated cone of china that stood upon an 
 adjacent table, and Blix held her breath as he glanced 
 down into the depths of the hat. He resumed his seat. 
 
BLIX 89 
 
 "Only initials," he breathed "W. J. A. It might 
 be Jack, that J., and it might be Joe, or Jeremiah, or 
 Joshua; and even if he was a captain he might not use 
 the title. We re no better off than we were before." 
 
 "And K. D. B. may come at any moment. Maybe 
 she has come already and looked through the windows, 
 and saw two men with marguerites and went away. 
 She d be just that timid. What can we do ?" 
 
 "Wait a minute. Look here," murmured Condy. 
 "I ve an idea. / // find out which the captain is. You 
 see that picture, that chromo, on the wall opposite?" 
 
 Blix looked as he indicated. The picture was a 
 gorgeously coloured lithograph of a pilot-boat, schooner- 
 rigged, all sails set, dashing bravely through seas of 
 emerald green colour. 
 
 "You mean that schooner?" asked Blix. 
 
 "That schooner, exactly. Now listen. You ask 
 me in a loud voice what kind of a boat that is; and 
 when I answer, you keep your eye on the two men." 
 
 "Why, what are you going to do?" 
 
 "You ll see. Try it now; we ve no time to lose." 
 
 Blix shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. Then: 
 
 "What a pretty boat that is up there, that picture on 
 the wall. See over there, on the wall opposite? Do 
 you notice it? Isn t she pretty? Condy, tell me, what 
 kind of a boat is that ?" 
 
 Condy turned about in his place with great delibera 
 tion, fixed the picture with a judicial eye, and announced 
 decisively: 
 
 "That? why, that s a barkentine" 
 
 Condy had no need to wait for Blix s report. The 
 demonstration came far too quickly for that. The 
 red-headed man at his loud declaration merely glanced 
 in the direction of the chromo and returned to his 
 enchellados. But he of the black mustache followed 
 
90 BLIX 
 
 Condy s glance, noted the picture of which he spoke, 
 and snorted contemptuously. They even heard him 
 mutter beneath his mustache : 
 
 "Barkentine your eye!" 
 
 "No doubt as to which is the captain now," whispered 
 Condy so soon as the other had removed from him a 
 glance of withering scorn. 
 
 They could hardly restrain their gaiety; but their 
 gravity promptly returned when Blix kicked Condy s 
 foot under the table and murmured: "He s looking at 
 his watch, the Captain is. K. D. B. isn t here yet, 
 and the red-headed man, the coincidence, is. We 
 must get rid of him. Condy, can t you think of some 
 thing?" 
 
 "Well, he won t go till he s through his supper, you 
 can depend upon that. If he s here when K. D. B. 
 arrives, it will spoil everything. She wouldn t stay 
 a moment. She wouldn t even come in." 
 
 "Isn t it disappointing? And I had so counted upon 
 bringing these two together? And Captain Jack is a 
 nice man !" 
 
 "You can see that with one hand tied behind you," 
 whispered Condy. "The other chap s tough." 
 
 "Looks just like the kind of man to get into jail 
 sooner or later." 
 
 "Maybe he s into some mischief now; you never can 
 tell. And the Mexican quarter of San Francisco is just 
 the place for affairs. I ll warrant he s got pals." 
 
 "Well, here he is that s the main point just keeping 
 those people apart spoiling a whole romance. Maybe 
 ruining their lives. It s quite possible; really it is. 
 Just stop and think. This is a positive crisis we re 
 looking at now." 
 
 "Can t we get rid of him somehow?" 
 
 "O-oh !" whispered Blix, all at once, in a quiver of 
 
BLIX 9 i 
 
 excitement. "There is a way, if we d ever have the 
 courage to do it. It might work; and if it didn t, he d 
 never know the difference, never would suspect us. Oh ! 
 but we wouldn t dare." 
 
 "What? what? In Heaven s name what is it, Blix?" 
 
 "We wouldn t dare we couldn t. Oh ! but it would 
 be such " 
 
 "K. D. B. may come in that door at any second." 
 
 "I m half afraid, but all the same Condy, let 
 
 me have a pencil." She dashed off a couple of lines 
 on the back of the bill of fare, and her hand trembled 
 like a leaf as she handed him what she had written. 
 
 "Send him the red-headed man that telegram. 
 There s an office just two doors below here, next the 
 drug store. I saw it as we came by. You know his 
 initials; remember you saw them in his hat. W. J. A., 
 Luna s restaurant. That s all you want." 
 
 "Lord," muttered Condy, as he gazed upon what 
 Blix had written. 
 
 "Do you dare?" she whispered, with a little hysterical 
 shudder. 
 
 "If it failed we ve nothing to lose." 
 
 "And K. D. is coming nearer every instant !" 
 
 "But would he go that is, at once?" 
 
 "We can only try. You won t be gone a hundred 
 seconds. You can leave me here that length of time. 
 Quick, Condy; decide one way or the other. It s getting 
 desperate." 
 
 Condy reached for his hat. 
 
 "Give me some money, then," he said. "You won 
 all of mine." 
 
 A few moments later he was back again; and the 
 two sat, pretending to eat their chili peppers, their hearts 
 in their throats, hardly daring to raise their eyes from 
 their plates. Condy was actually sick with excite- 
 
92 BLIX 
 
 ment, and all but tipped the seltzer bottle to the floor 
 when a messenger boy appeared in the outer room. 
 The boy and the proprietor held a conference over the 
 counter. Then Richard appeared between the portieres 
 of Nottingham lace, the telegram in his hand and the 
 boy at his heels. 
 
 Evidently Richard knew the red-headed man, for he 
 crossed over to him at once with the words : 
 
 I guess this is for you, Mr. Atkins." 
 
 He handed him the despatch and retired. The red 
 headed man signed the receipt. The boy departed. 
 Blix and Condy heard the sound of torn paper as the 
 red-headed man opened the telegram. 
 
 Ten seconds passed, then fifteen, then twenty. There 
 was a silence. Condy dared to steal a glance at the red 
 headed man s reflection in the mirror. He was studying 
 the despatch, frowning horribly. He put it away in his 
 pocket, took it out again with a fierce movement of 
 impatience, and consulted it a second time. His " supper 
 Mexican" remained untasted before him; Condy and 
 Blix heard him breathing loud through his nose. That 
 he was profoundly agitated they could not doubt for a 
 single moment. All at once a little panic terror seemed 
 to take possession of him. He rose, seized his hat, 
 jammed it over his ears, slapped a half-dollar upon the 
 table, and strode from the restaurant. 
 
 This is what the red-headed man had read in the 
 despatch ; this is what Blix had written : 
 
 "All is discovered. Fly at once." 
 
 And never in all their subsequent rambles about the 
 city did Blix or Condy set eyes upon the red-headed man 
 again; nor did Luna s restaurant, where he seemed to 
 have been a habitue, ever afterward know his presence. 
 He disappeared; he was swallowed up. He had left the 
 restaurant, true. Had he also left that neighbourhood? 
 
BLIX 93 
 
 Had he fled the city, the State, the country even? 
 What skeleton in the red-headed man s closet had those 
 six words called to life and the light of day ? Had they 
 frightened him forth to spend the rest of his days fleeing 
 from an unnamed, unknown avenger a veritable 
 wandering Jew ? What mystery had they touched upon 
 there in the bald, bare back room of the Quarter s 
 restaurant? What dark door had they opened, what 
 red-headed phantom had they evoked? Had they 
 broken up a plot, thwarted a conspiracy, prevented a 
 crime ? They never knew. One thing only was certain. 
 The red-headed man had had a past. 
 
 Meanwhile the minutes were passing, and K. D. B. 
 still failed to appear. Captain Jack was visibly growing 
 impatient, anxious. By now he had come to the fiery 
 liquor called mescal. He was nearly through his supper. 
 At every moment he consulted his watch and fixed the 
 outside door with a scowl. It was already twenty 
 minutes after seven. 
 
 "I know the red-headed man spoiled it, after all," 
 murmured Blix. " K. D. B. saw the two of them in 
 here and was frightened. " 
 
 "We could send Captain Jack a telegram from her," 
 suggested Condy. "I m ready for anything now. " 
 
 "What could you say ? " 
 
 "Oh, that she couldn t come. Make another appoint 
 ment. " 
 
 "He d be offended with her. He d never make 
 another appointment. Sea captains are always so 
 punctilious, y know." 
 
 Richard brought them their coffee and kirsch, and 
 Condy showed Blix how to burn a lump of sugar and 
 sweeten the coffee with syrup. But they were disap 
 pointed. Captain Jack was getting ready to leave. 
 K. D. B. had evidently broken the appointment. 
 
94 BLIX 
 
 Then all at once she appeared. 
 
 They knew it upon the instant by a brisk opening and 
 shutting of the street door, and by a sudden alertness on 
 the part of Captain Jack, which he immediately followed 
 by a quite inexplicable move. The street door in the 
 outside room had hardly closed before his hand shot to 
 his coat lapel and tore out the two marguerites. 
 
 The action was instinctive; Blix knew it for such 
 immediately. The retired Captain had not premeditated 
 it. He had not seen the face of the newcomer. She 
 had not time to come into the back room, or even to close 
 the street door But the instant that the Captain had 
 recognized a bunch of white marguerites in her belt he 
 had, without knowing why, been moved to conceal his 
 identity. 
 
 " He s afraid, " whispered Blix. " Positively, I believe 
 he s afraid. How absolutely stupid men are." 
 
 But meanwhile, K. D. B., the looked-for, the planned- 
 for, and intrigued -for; the object of so much diplomacy > 
 such delicate manoeuvering; the pivot upon which all 
 plans were to turn, the storm-centre round which so 
 many conflicting currents revolved, and for whose 
 benefit the peace of mind of the red-headed man had 
 been forever broken up had entered the room. 
 
 "Why, she s pretty!" was Blix s first smothered 
 exclamation, as if she had expected a harridan. 
 
 K. D. B. looked like a servant girl of the better sort, 
 and was really very neatly dressed. She was small, 
 little even. She had snappy black eyes, a resolute 
 mouth, and a general air of being very quiet, very matter- 
 of-fact and complacent. She would be disturbed at 
 nothing; Blix was sure of that. She was placid, but it 
 was the placidity not of the absence of emotion, but of 
 emotion disdained; not the placidity of the mollusk t 
 but that of a mature and contemplative cat. 
 
BLIX 95 
 
 Quietly she sat down at a corner table, quietly she 
 removed her veil and gloves, and quietly she took in the 
 room and its three occupants. 
 
 Condy and Blix glued their eyes upon their coffee cups 
 like guilty conspirators; but a crash of falling crockery 
 called their attention to the Captain s table. 
 
 Captain Jack was in a tremour. Hitherto he had acted 
 the role of a sane and sensible gentleman of middle age, 
 master of himself and of the situation. The entrance 
 of K. D. B. had evidently reduced him to a semi-idiotic 
 condition. He enlarged himself; he eased his neck in 
 his collar with a rotary movement of head and shoulders. 
 He frowned terribly at trifling objects in corners of the 
 room. He cleared his throat till the glassware jingled. 
 He pulled at his mustache. He perspired, fumed, 
 fretted, and was suddenly seized with an insane desire to 
 laugh. Once only he caught the eye of K. D. B., calmly 
 sitting in her corner picking daintily at her fish, where 
 upon he immediately overturned the vinegar and pepper 
 casters upon the floor. Just so might have behaved an 
 overgrown puppy in the presence of a sleepy, unper 
 turbed chessy-cat, dozing by the fire. 
 
 " He ought to be shaken, " murmured Blix at the end 
 of her patience. Does he think she is going to make 
 the first move?" 
 
 "Ha, ah m!" thundered the Captain, clearing his 
 throat for the twentieth time, twirling his mustache, 
 and burying his scarlet face in an enormous pocket 
 handkerchief. 
 
 Five minutes passed and he was still in his place. 
 From time to time K. D. B. fixed him with a quiet, 
 deliberate look, and resumed her delicate picking. 
 
 "Do you think she knows it s him, now that he s 
 taken off his marguerites?" whispered Condy. 
 
 "Know it? Of course she does! Do you think 
 
96 BLIX 
 
 women are absolutely blind, or so imbecile as men are? 
 And then, if she didn t think it was him, she d go away. 
 And she s so really pretty, too. He ought to thank his 
 stars alive. Think what a fright she might have been ! 
 She doesn t look thirty-one." 
 
 "Huh!" returned Condy. "As long as she said she 
 was thirty-one, you can bet everything you have that 
 she is; that s as true as revealed religion." 
 
 "Well, it s something to have seen the kind of people 
 who write the personals," said Blix. "I had always 
 imagined that they were kind of tough." 
 
 "You see they are not," he answered. "I told you 
 they were not. Maybe, however, we have been excep 
 tionally fortunate. At any rate, these are respectable 
 enough." 
 
 "Not the least doubt about that. But why don t he 
 do something, that captain?" murmured Blix. "Why 
 will he act like such a ninny?" 
 
 " He s waiting for us to go," said Condy; " I m sure of 
 it. They ll never meet so long as we re here. Let us 
 go and give em a chance. If you leave the two alone 
 here, one or the other will have to speak. The suspense 
 would become too terrible. It would be as though they 
 were on a desert island." 
 
 "But I wanted to see them meet," she protested. 
 
 "You wouldn t hear what they said." 
 
 "But we d never know if they did meet, and oh 
 and who spoke first?" 
 
 "She ll speak first," declared Condy. 
 
 "Never!" returned Blix, in an indignant whisper. 
 
 "I tell you what. We could go and then come 
 back in five minutes. I ll forget my stick here. 
 Savvy?" 
 
 "You would probably do it anyhow," she told him. 
 
 They decided this would be the better course. They 
 
BLIX 97 
 
 got together their things, and Condy neglected his stick, 
 hanging upon a hook on the wall. 
 
 At the counter in the outside room, Blix, to the stupe 
 faction of Richard, the waiter, paid the bill. But as she 
 was moving toward the door, Condy called her back. 
 
 "Remember the waiter, * he said severely, while 
 Richard grinned and bobbed. "Fifty cents is the very 
 least you could tip him." Richard actually protested, 
 but Condy was firm, and insisted upon a half-dollar tip. 
 
 Noblesse oblige he declared with vast solemnity. 
 
 They walked as far as the cathedral, listened for a 
 moment to the bell striking the hour of eight; then as 
 they remembered that the restaurant closed at that 
 time, hurried back and entered the outside room in 
 feigned perturbation. 
 
 "Did I, could I possibly have left my stick here! 
 exclaimed Condy to Richard, who was untying his apron 
 behind the counter. But Richard had not noticed. 
 
 "I think I must have left it back here where we were 
 sitting." 
 
 Condy stepped into the back room, Blix following. 
 They got his stick and returned to the outside room. 
 
 "Yes, yes, I did leave it," he said, as he showed it to 
 Richard. " I m always leaving that stick wherever I go." 
 
 "Come again," said Richard, as he bowed them out 
 of the door. 
 
 On the curb outside Condy and Blix shook hands 
 and congratulated each other on the success of all their 
 labours. In the back room, seated at the same table, 
 a bunch of wilting marguerites between them, they had 
 seen their "Matrimonial Objects conferring earnestly 
 together, absorbed in the business of getting acquainted. 
 
 Blix heaved a sigh of relief and satisfaction, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 "At last K. D. B. and Captain Jack have met!" 
 
VIII 
 
 "Bur," she added, as they started to walk, "we will 
 never know which one spoke first." 
 
 But Condy was already worrying. 
 
 "I don t know, I don t know," he murmured anx 
 iously. "Perhaps we ve done an awful thing. Suppose 
 they aren t happy together after they re married? I 
 wish we hadn t; I wish we hadn t now. We ve been 
 playing a game of checkers with human souls. We ve 
 an awful responsibility. Suppose he kills her some 
 time?" 
 
 "Fiddlesticks, Condy! And, besides, if we ve done 
 wrong with our matrimonial objects, we ve offset it by 
 doing well with our red-headed coincidence How do 
 you know, you may have foiled a villain* with that 
 telegram prevented a crime?" 
 
 Condy grinned at the recollection of the incident. 
 "Fly at once, " he repeated. "I guess he s flying 
 yet. All is discovered. I d give a dollar and a 
 half " 
 
 "If you had it?" 
 
 "Oh, well, if I had it to know just what it was we 
 have discovered." 
 
 Suddenly Blix caught his arm. 
 
 " Condy, here they come ! " 
 
 "Who? Who?" 
 
 "Our objects, Captain Jack and K. D B." 
 
 "Of course, of course They couldn t stay. The 
 restaurant shuts up at eight." 
 
 Blix and Condy had been walking slowly in the direc- 
 
BLIX 99 
 
 tion of Pacific Street, and K. D. B. and her escort soon 
 overtook them going in the same direction. As they 
 passed, the Captain was saying: 
 
 jumped on my hatches, and says we ll make it an 
 international affair. That didn t 
 
 A passing wagon drowned the sound of his voice. 
 
 "He was telling her of his adventures!" cried Blix. 
 "Splendid! Othello and Desdemona. They re getting 
 on." 
 
 "Let s follow them!" exclaimed Condy. 
 
 "Should we? Wouldn t it be indiscreet?" 
 
 " No. We are the arbiters of their fate; we must take 
 an interest." 
 
 They allowed their objects to get ahead some half a 
 block and then fell in behind. There was little danger 
 of their being detected. The Captain and K. D. B. 
 were absorbed in each other. She had even taken his 
 arm. 
 
 "They make a fine-looking couple, really," said Blix. 
 "Where do you suppose they are going? To another 
 restaurant?" 
 
 But this was not the case. Blix and Condy followed 
 them as far as Washington Square, where the Geodetic 
 Survey stone stands, and the enormous flagstaff; and 
 there in front of a commonplace little house, two doors 
 above the Russian church with its minarets like inverted 
 balloons, K. D. B. and the Captain halted. For a few 
 moments they conversed in low tones at the gate, then 
 said good -night. K. D. B. entering the house, the 
 Captain bowing with great deference, his hat in his 
 hand. Then he turned about, glanced once or twice at 
 the house, set his hat at an angle, and disappeared 
 across the square, whistling a tune, his chin in the air. 
 
 "Very good, excellent, highly respectable," approved 
 Blix; and Condy himself fetched a sigh of relief. 
 
ioo BLIX 
 
 "Yes, yes, it might have been worse." 
 
 "We ll never see them again, our Matrimonial 
 Objects, said Blix, "and they ll never know about us; 
 but we have brought them together. We ve started a 
 romance. Yes, I think we ve done a good day s work. 
 And now, Condy, I think we had best be thinking of home 
 ourselves. I m just beginning to get most awfully 
 sleepy. What a day we ve had. " 
 
 A sea fog, or rather the sea fog San Francisco s old 
 and inseparable companion had gathered by the time 
 they reached the top of the Washington Street hill. 
 Everything was wet with it. The asphalt was like 
 varnished ebony. Indistinct masses and huge dim 
 shadows stood for the houses on either side. From the 
 eucalyptus trees and the palms the water dripped like 
 rain. Far off, oceanward, the fog horn was lowing like 
 a lost gigantic bull. The gray bulk of a policeman 
 the light from the street lamp reflected in his star 
 loomed upon the corner as they descended from the car. 
 
 Condy had intended to call his diver s story "A 
 Submarine Romance," but Blix had disapproved. 
 
 " It s too Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 
 she had said. "You want something much more digni 
 fied. There is that about you, Condy, you like to be too 
 showy; you don t know when to stop. But you have 
 left off red-and- white scarfs, and I am very glad to see 
 you wearing white shirt-fronts instead of pink ones. " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I thought it would be quieter," he had 
 answered, as though the idea had come from him. Blix 
 allowed him to think so. 
 
 But "A Victory Over Death, " as the story was finally 
 called, was a success. Condy was too much of a born 
 story-teller not to know when he had done something 
 distinctly good. When the story came back from the 
 
BLIX 101 
 
 typewriter s, with the additional strength that print 
 lends to fiction, and he had read it over, he could not 
 repress a sense of jubilation. The story rang true. 
 
 "Bully, bully!" he muttered between his teeth as he 
 finished the last paragraph. "It s a corker! If it s 
 rejected everywhere, it s an out-of -sight yarn just the 
 same. " 
 
 And there Condy s enthusiasm in the matter began to 
 dwindle. The fine fire which had sustained him during 
 the story s composition had died out. He was satis 
 fied with his work. He had written a good story, and 
 that was the end of it. No doubt he would send it east 
 to the Centennial Company to-morrow or the day 
 after some time that week. To mail the manuscript 
 meant quite half an hour s effort. He would have to 
 buy stamps for return postage ; a letter would have to be 
 written, a large envelope procured, the accurate address 
 ascertained. For the moment his supplement work 
 demanded his attention. He put off sending the story 
 from day to day. His interest in it abated. And for 
 the matter he soon discovered he had other things to 
 think of. 
 
 It had been easy to promise Blix that he would no 
 longer gamble at his club with the other men of his 
 acquaintance; but it was "death and the devil," as he 
 told himself, to abide by that promise. More than once 
 in the fortnight following upon his resolution he had 
 come up to the little flat on the Washington Street hill as 
 to a place of refuge; and Blix, always pretending that it 
 was all a huge joke and part of their good times, had 
 brought out the cards and played with him. But she 
 knew very well the fight he was making against the 
 enemy, and how hard it was for him to keep from the 
 round, green tables and group of silent, shirt-sleeved 
 men in the card-rooms of his club. She looked forward 
 
102 BLIX 
 
 to the time when Condy would cease to play even with 
 her. But she was too sensible and practical a girl to 
 expect him to break a habit of years standing in a couple 
 of weeks. The thing would have to be accomplished little 
 by little. At times she had misgivings as to the honesty 
 of the course she had adopted. But nowadays, playing 
 as he did with her only, Condy gambled but two or three 
 evenings in the week, and then not for more than two 
 hours at a time. Heretofore hardly an evening that had 
 not seen him at the round table in his club s card-room, 
 whence he had not risen until long after midnight. 
 
 Condy had told young Sargeant that he had "re 
 formed " in the matter of gambling, and intended to 
 swear off for a few months. Sargeant, like the 
 thoroughbred he was, never urged him to play after 
 that, and never spoke of the previous night s game 
 when Condy was about. The other men of his 
 "set" were no less thoughtful, and, though they 
 rallied him a little at first upon his defection, soon 
 let the matter drop. Condy told himself that there 
 were plenty of good people in the world, after all. 
 Every one seemed conspiring to make it easy for 
 him, and he swore at himself for a weak-kneed cad. 
 
 On a certain Tuesday, about a week after the fishing 
 excursion and the affair of the "Matrimonial Objects," 
 toward half-past six in the evening, Condy was in his 
 room, dressing for a dinner engagement. Young 
 Sargeant s sister had invited him to be one of a party 
 who were to dine at the University Club, and later on 
 fill a box at a charity play, given by amateurs at one of 
 the downtown theatres. But as he was washing his 
 linen shirt-studs with his tooth-brush, his eye fell upon a 
 note, in Laurie Flagg s handwriting, that lay on his 
 writing-desk, and that he had received some ten days 
 previous. Condy turned cold upon the instant, hurled 
 
BLIX 103 
 
 the tooth-brush across the room, and dropped into a 
 chair with a groan of despair. Miss Flagg was giving a 
 theatre party for the same affair, and he remembered 
 now that he had promised to join her party as well, 
 forgetting all about the engagement he had made with 
 Miss Sargeant. It was impossible at this late hour to 
 accept either one of the young women s invitations 
 without offending the other. 
 
 "Well, I won t go to either, that s all, " he vociferated 
 -aloud to the opposite wall. "I ll send em each a wire, 
 and say that I m sick or have got to go down to the 
 office, and, by George ! I ll go up and see Blix, and we ll 
 read and make things to eat. " 
 
 And no sooner had this alternative occurred to him 
 than it appeared too fascinating to be resisted. A 
 weight seemed removed from his mind. When it came 
 to that, what amusement would he have at either affair? 
 
 "Sit up there with your shirt-front starched like a 
 board," he blustered, "and your collar throttling you, 
 and smile till your face is sore, and reel off small talk to 
 a girl whose last name you can t remember ! Do I have 
 any fun; does it do me any good; do I get ideas for 
 yarns? What do I do it for? / don t know." 
 
 While speaking he had been kicking off his tight shoes 
 -and such of his full-dress as he had already put on, and 
 with a feeling of enormous relief turned again to his 
 sack suit of tweed. "Lord, these feel better!" he 
 exclaimed, as he substituted the loose business suit for 
 the formal rigidity of his evening dress. It was with a 
 sensation of positive luxury that he put on a "soft" 
 :shirt of blue cheviot and his tan walking-shoes. 
 
 "But no more red scarfs," he declared, as he knotted 
 his black satin "club" before the mirror. "She was 
 right there." He put his cigarettes in his pocket, 
 caught up his hat, and started for the Bessemers flat 
 
io 4 BLIX 
 
 with a feeling of joyous expectancy he had not known 
 for days. 
 
 Evidently Blix had seen him coming, for she opened 
 the door herself; and it suited her humour for the 
 moment to treat him as a peddler or book-agent. 
 
 "No, no," she said airily, her head in the air as she 
 held the door. "No, we don t want any to-day. We 
 have the biography of Abraham Lincoln. Don t want 
 to subscribe to any Home Book of Art. We re not 
 artistic; we use drapes in our parlours. Don t want 
 The Wives and Mothers of Great Men. " 
 
 But Condy had noticed a couple of young women on 
 the lower steps of the adjacent flat, quite within ear-shot, 
 and at once he began in a loud, harsh voice : 
 
 "Well, y know, we can t wait for our rent forever; 
 I m only the collector, and I ve nothing to do with 
 repairs. Pay your rent that s three months overdue, 
 and then " 
 
 But Blix pulled him within the house and clapped to 
 the door. 
 
 "Condy Rivers!" she exclaimed, her cheeks flaming, 
 "those are our neighbours. They heard every word. 
 What do you suppose they think?" 
 
 "Huh! I d rather have em think I was a rent 
 collector than a book-agent. You began it. Evenin , 
 Miss Lady." 
 
 Evenin , Mister Man." 
 
 But Condy s visit, began thus gaily, soon developed 
 along much more serious lines. After supper, while the 
 light still lasted, Blix read stories to him while he smoked 
 cigarettes in the bay window of the dining-room. But 
 as soon as the light began to go she put the book aside, 
 and the two took their accustomed places in the window, 
 and watched the evening burning itself out over the 
 Golden Gate. 
 
BLIX 
 
 105 
 
 It was just warm enough to have one of the windows 
 opened, and for a long time after the dusk they sat 
 listening to the vague clamour of the city, lapsing by 
 degrees, till it settled into a measured, soothing murmur, 
 like the breathing of some vast monster asleep. Condy s 
 cigarette was a mere red point in the half-darkness. 
 The smoke drifted out of the open window in long, blue 
 strata. At his elbow Blix was leaning forward, looking 
 down upon the darkening, drowsing city, her round, 
 strong chin propped upon her hand. She was just close 
 enough for Condy to catch the sweet, delicious feminine 
 perfume that came indefinitely from her clothes, her 
 hair, her neck. From where Condy sat he could see 
 the silhouette of her head and shoulders against the dull 
 golden blur of the open window; her round, high fore 
 head, with the thick yellow hair rolling back from her 
 temples and ears, her pink, clean cheeks, her little dark- 
 brown, scintillating eyes, and her firm red mouth, made 
 all the firmer by the position of her chin upon her hand. 
 As ever, her round, strong neck was swathed high and 
 tight in white satin; but between the topmost fold of 
 the satin and the rose of one small ear-lobe was a little 
 triangle of white skin, that was partly her neck and partly 
 her cheek, and that Condy knew should be softer than 
 down, smoother than satin, warm and sweet and redolent 
 as new apples. Condy imagined himself having the right 
 to lean toward her there and kiss that little spot upon 
 her neck or her cheek; and as he fancied it, was surprised 
 to find his breath come suddenly quick, and a barely 
 perceptible qualm, as of a certain faintness, thrill him 
 to his finger-tips; and then, he thought, how would 
 it be if he could, without fear of rebuff, reach out his 
 arm and put it about her trim, firm waist, and draw 
 her very close to him, till he should feel the satiny cool 
 ness of her smooth cheek against his; till he could sink 
 
io6 BLIX 
 
 his face in the delicious, fragrant confusion of her hair, 
 then turn that face to his that face with its strong, 
 calm mouth and sweet, full lips the face of this dear 
 young girl of nineteen, and then 
 
 "I say I shall we let s read again. Let s let s 
 do something." 
 
 "Condy, how you frightened me!" exclaimed Blix, 
 with a great start. "No, listen: I want to talk to you, 
 to tell you something. Papum and I have been having 
 some very long and serious talks since you were last 
 here. What do you think I may go away." 
 
 "The deuce you say!" exclaimed Condy, sitting 
 suddenly upright. "Where to, in Heaven s name?" 
 he added "and when? and what for?" 
 
 "To New York to study medicine." 
 
 There was a silence; then Condy exclaimed, waving 
 his hands at her: 
 
 "Oh, go right on! Don t mind me. Little thing 
 like going to New York to study medicine. Of course, 
 that happens every day, a mere detail. I presume 
 you ll go back and forth for your meals ?" 
 
 Then Blix began to explain. It appeared that she 
 had two aunts, both sisters of her father one a widow, 
 the other unmarried. The widow, a certain Mrs. 
 Kihm, lived in New York, and was wealthy, and had 
 views on "women s sphere of usefulness." The other, 
 Miss Bessemer, a little old maid of fifty, Condy had on 
 rare occasions seen at the flat, where every one called 
 her Aunt Dodd. She lived in that vague region of the 
 city known as the Mission, where she owned a little 
 property. 
 
 From what Blix told him that evening, Condy learned 
 that Mrs. Kihm had visited the Coast a few winters 
 previous and had taken a great fancy to Blix. Even 
 then she had proposed to Mr. Bessemer to take Blix 
 
BLIX 107 
 
 back to New York with her, and educate her to some 
 woman s profession; but at that time the old man would 
 not listen to it. Now it seemed that the opportunity 
 had again presented itself. 
 
 "She s a dear old lady," Blix said; "not a bit strong- 
 minded, as you would think, and ever so much cleverer 
 than most men. She manages all her property herself. 
 For the last month she s been writing again to Papum 
 for me to come on and stay with her three or four years. 
 She hasn t a chick nor a child, and she don t entertain 
 or go out any, so maybe she feels lonesome. Of course, 
 if I studied there, Papum wouldn t think of Aunt Kihm 
 don t you know paying for it at all. I wouldn t 
 go if it was that way. But I could stay with her and 
 she could make a home for me while I was there if I 
 should study anything study medicine." 
 
 "But why?" he exclaimed. "What do you want to 
 study to be a doctor for ? It isn t as though you had to 
 support yourself." 
 
 " I know, I know I ve not got to support myself. But 
 why shouldn t I have a profession just like a man- 
 just like you, Condy ? You stop and think. It seemed 
 strange to me when I first thought of it ; but I got think 
 ing about it and talking it over with Papum, and I 
 should love it. I d do it, not because I would have 
 to do it, but because it would interest me. Condy, 
 you know that I m not a bit strong-minded, and that 
 I hate a masculine, unfeminine girl as much as you do." 
 
 " But a medical college, Blix ! You don t know what 
 you are talking about." 
 
 "Yes, I do. There s a college in New York just for 
 women. Aunt Kihm sent me the prospectus, and it s 
 one of the best in the country. I don t dream of prac 
 tising, you know; at least, I don t think about that now. 
 But one must have some occupation; and isn t studying 
 
io8 BLIX 
 
 medicine, Condy, better than piano-playing, or French 
 courses, or literary classes and Browning circles ? Oh, 
 I ve no patience with that kind of girl! And look at 
 the chance I have now ; and Aunt Kihm is such a dear ! 
 Think, she writes, I could go to and from the college in 
 her coups every day, and I would see New York; and 
 just being in a big city like that is an education." 
 
 "You re right, it would be a big thing for you," 
 assented Condy, "and I like the idea of you studying 
 something. It would be the making of such a girl as 
 you, Blix." 
 
 And then Blix, seeing him thus acquiescent, said: 
 
 "Well, it s all settled; Papum and I both wrote last 
 night." 
 
 "When are you going?" 
 
 "The first week in January." 
 
 "Well, that s not so awfully soon. But who will 
 take your place here? However in the world would 
 your father get along without you and Snooky and 
 Howard?" 
 
 "Aunt Dodd is going to come." 
 
 "Sudden enough," said Condy, "but it is a great 
 thing for you, Blix, and I m mighty glad for you. 
 Your future is all cut out for you now. Of course your 
 aunt, if she s so fond of you and hasn t any children, will 
 leave you everything maybe settle something on you 
 right away; and you ll marry some one of those New 
 York chaps, and be great big people before you 
 know it." 
 
 "The idea, Condy!" she protested. "No; I m 
 going there to study medicine. Oh, you don t know 
 how enthusiastic I am over the idea ! I ve bought 
 some of the first-year books already, and have been 
 reading them. Really, Condy, they are even better 
 than Many Inventions. " 
 
BLIX 109 
 
 "Wish I could get east," muttered Condy gloomily. 
 Blix forgot her own good fortune upon the instant. 
 
 "I do so wish you could, Condy!" she exclaimed. 
 "You are too good for a Sunday supplement. / know 
 it and you know it, and I ve heard ever so many people 
 who have read your stories say the same thing. You 
 could spend twenty years working as you are now, and 
 at the end what would you be? Just an assistant 
 editor of a Sunday supplement, and still in the same 
 place; and worse, you d come to be contented with 
 that, and think you were only good for that and nothing 
 better. You ve got it in you, Condy, to be a great story 
 teller. I believe in you, and I ve every confidence in 
 you. But just as long as you stay here and are willing 
 to do hack work, just so long you will be a hack writer. 
 You must break from it; you must get away. I know 
 you have a good time here; but there are so many 
 things better than that and more worth while. You 
 ought to make up your mind to get east, and work for 
 that and nothing else. I know you want to go, but 
 wanting isn t enough. Enthusiasm without energy 
 isn t enough. You have enthusiasm, Condy; but you 
 must have energy. You must be willing to give 
 up things; you must make up your mind that you 
 will go east, and then set your teeth together and do 
 it. Oh, I love a man that can do that make up his 
 mind to a thing and then put it through !" 
 
 Condy watched her as she talked, her brown-black 
 eyes coruscating, her cheeks glowing, her small hands 
 curled into round pink fists. 
 
 "Blix, you re splendid!" he exclaimed; "you re 
 fine ! You could put life into a dead man. You re a 
 girl that would be the making of a man. By Jove, 
 you d back a man up, wouldn t you? You d stand by 
 him till the last ditch. Of course," he went on after a 
 
no BLIX 
 
 pause "of course I ought to go to New York. 
 Blix, suppose I went well, then what ? It isn t as 
 though I had an income of my own, or rich aunt. 
 Suppose I didn t find something to do and the chances 
 are that I wouldn t for three or four months what 
 would I live on in the meanwhile? What would the 
 robin do then, poor thing? I m a poor young man, 
 Miss Bessemer, and I ve got to eat. No; my chance 
 is to be discovered by a magazine or a publishing 
 house or somebody, and get a bid of some kind." 
 
 "Well, there is the Centennial Company. They have 
 taken an interest in you, Condy. You must follow 
 that right up and keep your name before them all the 
 time. Have you sent them A Victory Over Death" 
 yet?" 
 
 Condy sat down to his eggs and coffee the next morn 
 ing in the hotel, harried with a certain sense of depres 
 sion and disappointment for which he could assign no 
 cause. Nothing seemed to interest him. The news 
 paper was dull. He could look forward to no pleasure 
 in his day s work. And what was the matter with the 
 sun that morning? As he walked down to the office 
 he noted no cloud in the sky, but the brightness was 
 gone from the day. He sat down to his desk and 
 attacked his work, but "copy" would not come. The 
 sporting editor and his inane jokes harassed him beyond 
 expression. Just the sight of the clipping editor s back 
 was an irritation. The office-boy was a mere incentive 
 to profanity. There was no spring in Condy that 
 morning, no elasticity, none of his natural buoyancy. 
 As the day wore on, his ennui increased; his luncheon 
 at the club was tasteless; tobacco had lost its charm. 
 He ordered a cocktail in the wine-room, and put it 
 aside with a wry face. 
 
 The afternoon was one long tedium. At every hour 
 
BLIX in 
 
 he flung his pencil down, utterly unable to formulate 
 the next sentence of his article, and, his hands in his 
 pockets, gazed gloomily out of the window over the 
 wilderness of roofs grimy, dirty, ugly roofs that spread 
 out below. He craved diversion, amusement, excite 
 ment. Something there was that he wanted with all 
 his heart and soul, yet he was quite unable to say what 
 it was. Something was gone from him to-day that he 
 had possessed yesterday, and he knew he would not 
 regain it on the morrow, nor the next day, nor the day 
 after that. What was it? He could not say. For 
 half an hour he imagined he was going to be sick. His 
 mother was not to be at home that evening, and Condy 
 dined at his club in the hopes of finding some one with 
 whom he could go to the theatre later on in the evening. 
 Sargeant joined him over his coffee and cigarette, but 
 declined to go with him to the theatre. 
 
 "Another game on to-night?" asked Condy. 
 
 " I suppose so, " admitted the other. 
 
 "I guess I ll join you to-night," said Condy. "I ve 
 had the blue devils since morning, and I ve got to have 
 something to drive them off. " 
 
 "Don t let me urge you, you know," returned 
 Sargeant. 
 
 "Oh, that s all right!" Condy assured him. "My 
 time s about up, anyway. " 
 
 An hour later, just as he, Sargeant, and the other men 
 of their "set" were in the act of going upstairs to the 
 card-rooms, a hall-boy gave Condy a note, at that 
 moment brought by a messenger, who was waiting for 
 an answer. It was from Blix. She wrote: 
 
 "Don t you want to come up and play cards 
 with me to-night ? We haven t had a game in over a 
 week." 
 
112 
 
 BLIX 
 
 "How did she know?" thought Condy to himself 
 "how could she tell ? " Aloud, he said : 
 
 "I can t join you fellows, after all. Despatch from 
 the managing editor. Some special detail or other." 
 
 For the first time since the previous evening Condy 
 felt his spirits rise as he set off toward the Washington 
 Street hill. But though he and Blix spent as merry an 
 evening as they remembered in a long time, his nameless, 
 formless irritation returned upon him almost as soon as 
 he had bade her good-night. It stayed with him all 
 through the week, and told upon his work. As a result, 
 three of his articles were thrown out by the editor. 
 
 "We can t run such rot as that in the paper," the 
 chief had said. "Can t you give us a story ? " 
 
 " Oh, I ve got a kind of a yarn you can run if you like, " 
 answered Condy, his week s depression at its very 
 lowest. 
 
 "A Victory Over Death" was published in the follow 
 ing Sunday s supplement of The Daily Times, with 
 illustrations by one of the staff artists. It attracted 
 not the least attention. 
 
 Just before he went to bed the Sunday evening of its 
 appearance, Condy read it over again for the last time. 
 
 "It s a rotten failure," he muttered gloomily as he 
 cast the paper from him. "Simple drivel. I wonder 
 what Blix will think of it. I wonder if I amount to a 
 hill of beans. I wonder what she wants to go east for, 
 anyway," 
 
IX 
 
 THE old-fashioned Union Street cable car, with its 
 low, comfortable outside seats, put Blix and Condy 
 down just inside the Presidio Government Reservation. 
 Condy asked a direction of a sentry nursing his Krag- 
 Jorgensen at the terminus of the track, and then with 
 Blix set off down the long boardwalk through the tunnel 
 of overhanging evergreens. 
 
 The day could not have been more desirable. It was a 
 little after ten of a Monday morning, Condy s weekly 
 holiday. The air was neither cool nor warm, efferves 
 cent merely, brisk and full of the smell of grass and of 
 the sea. The sky was a speckless sheen of pale blue. 
 To their right, and not far off, was the bay, blue as 
 indigo. Alcatraz seemed close at hand; beyond was 
 the enormous green, red and purple pyramid of 
 Tamalpais climbing out of the water, head and shoul 
 ders above the little foothills, and looking out to the 
 sea and to the west. 
 
 The reservation itself was delightful. There were 
 rows of the officers houses, all alike, drawn up in lines 
 like an assembly of the staff ; there were huge barracks, 
 most like college dormitories; and on their porches 
 enlisted men in shirt sleeves and overalls were cleaning 
 saddles and polishing the brass of head-stalls and bridles, 
 whistling the whiles or smoking corncob pipes. Here on 
 the parade-ground a soldier, his coat and vest removed, 
 was batting grounders and flies to a half-dozen of his 
 fellows. Over by the stables, strings of horses, all of the 
 same colour, were being curried and cleaned. A young 
 
ii 4 BLIX 
 
 lieutenant upon a bicycle spun silently past. An officer 
 came from his front gate, his coat unbuttoned and a 
 briar in his teeth. The walks and roads were flanked 
 with lines of black-painted cannon balls ; inverted pieces 
 of abandoned ordnance stood at corners. From a dis 
 tance came the mellow snarling of a bugle. 
 
 Blix and Condy had planned a long walk for that day. 
 They were to go out through the Presidio Reservation, 
 past the barracks and officers quarters, and on to the 
 old fort at the Golden Gate. Here they would turn and 
 follow the shore-line for a ways, then strike inland across 
 the hills for a short half-mile, and regain the city and the 
 street-car lines by way of the golf-links. Condy had 
 insisted upon wearing his bicycle outfit for the occasion, 
 and, moreover, carried a little satchel, which, he said, 
 contained a pair of shoes. 
 
 But Blix was as sweet as a rose that morning, all in 
 tailor-made black but for the inevitable bands of white 
 satin wrapped high and tight about her neck. The 
 St. Bernard s dog collar did duty as a belt. She had 
 disdained a veil, and her yellow hair was already blowing 
 about her smooth pink cheeks. She walked at his side, 
 her step as firm and solid as his own, her round, strong 
 arms swinging, her little brown eyes shining with good 
 spirits and vigour, and the pure, clean animal joy of 
 being alive on that fine cool Western morning. She 
 talked almost incessantly. She was positively garrulous. 
 She talked about the fine day that it was, about the 
 queer new forage caps of the soldiers, about the bare 
 green hills of the reservation, about the little cemetery 
 they passed just beyond the limits of the barracks, about 
 a rabbit she saw, and about the quail they both heard 
 whistling and calling in the hollows under the bushes. 
 
 Condy walked at her side in silence, yet no less happy 
 than she, smoking his pipe and casting occasional glances 
 
BLIX 115 
 
 at a great ship a four-master that was being towed 
 out toward the Golden Gate. At every moment and at 
 every turn they noted things that interested them, and 
 to which they called each other s attention. 
 
 "Look, Blix!" 
 
 "Oh, Condy, look at that !" 
 
 They were soon out of the miniature city of the post, 
 and held on down through the low reach of tulles and 
 sand dunes that stretch between the barracks and the 
 old red fort. 
 
 "Look, Condy!" said Blix. "What s that building 
 down there on the shore of the bay the one with the 
 flagstaff?" 
 
 "I think that must be the life-boat station." 
 
 "I wonder if we could go down and visit it. I think 
 it would be good fun. " 
 
 " Idea ! " exclaimed Condy. 
 
 The station was close at hand. To reach it they had 
 but to leave the crazy boardwalk that led on toward 
 the fort, and cross a few hundred yards of sand dune. 
 Condy opened the gate that broke the line of evergreen 
 hedge around the little two-story house, and promptly 
 unchained a veritable pandemonium of dogs. 
 
 Inside, the place was not without a certain charm of 
 its own. A brick walk, bordered with shells, led to the 
 front of the station, which gave directly upon the bay; 
 a little well-kept lawn opened to right and left, and six 
 or eight gaily painted old rowboats were set about, 
 half filled with loam in which fuchsias, geraniums, 
 and mignonettes were flowering. A cat or two dozed 
 upon the window-sills in the sun. Upon a sort of porch 
 overhead, two of the crew paced up and down in a 
 manner that at once suggested the poop. Here and 
 there was a gleam of highly polished red copper or 
 brass trimmings. The bay was within two steps of 
 
n6 BLIX 
 
 the front door, while a little farther down the beach 
 was the house where the surf -boat was kept, and the 
 long runway leading down from it to the water. Condy 
 rapped boldly at the front door. It was opened by 
 Captain Jack. 
 
 Captain Jack, and no other; only now he wore a 
 blue sweater and a leather-visored cap, with the letters 
 U. S. L. B. S. around the band. 
 
 Not an instant was given them for preparation. The 
 thing had happened with the abruptness of a trans 
 formation scene at a theatre. Condy s knock had 
 evoked a situation. Speech was stricken from their 
 mouths. For a moment they were bereft even of action, 
 and stood there on the threshold, staring open-mouthed 
 and open-eyed at the sudden reappearance of their 
 "Matrimonial Object." Condy was literally dumb; 
 in the end it was Blix who tided them over the crisis. 
 
 "We were just going by just taking a walk," she 
 explained, "and we thought we d like to see the station. 
 Is it all right ? Can we look around ?" 
 
 "Why, of course," assented the Captain with great 
 cordiality. "Come right in. This is visitors day. 
 You just happened to hit it; only it s mighty few 
 visitors we ever have," he added. 
 
 While Condy was registering for himself and Blix, 
 they managed to exchange a lightning glance. It was 
 evident the Captain did not recognize them. The 
 situation readjusted itself even promised to be of 
 extraordinary interest. And for that matter it made 
 little difference whether the Captain remembered them 
 or not. 
 
 "No, we don t get many visitors," the Captain went 
 on, as he led them out of the station and down the 
 small gravel walk to the house where the surf-boat 
 was kept. "This is a quiet station. People don t 
 
BLIX 117 
 
 fetch out this way very often, and we re not called 
 out very often either. We re an inside post, you see, 
 and usually we don t get a call unless the sea s so high 
 that the Cliff House Station can t launch their boat. 
 So, you see, we don t go out much; but when we do, it 
 means business with a great big B. Now this here, 
 you see," continued the Captain, rolling back the sliding 
 doors of the house, "is the surf -boat. By the way, 
 let s see; I ain t just caught your names yet." 
 
 "Well, my name s Rivers," said Condy, "and this is 
 Miss Bessemer. We re both from the city." 
 
 "Happy to know you, sir; happy to know you, miss," 
 he returned, pulling off his cap. "My name s Hoskins, 
 but you just call me Captain Jack. I m so used to it 
 that I don t kind of answer to the other. Well, now, 
 Miss Bessemer, this here s the surf -boat; she s self- 
 rightin , self-bailin , she can t capsize, and if I was 
 to tell you how many thousands of dollars she cost, you 
 wouldn t believe me." 
 
 Condy and Blix spent a delightful half-hour in the 
 boat-house while Captain Jack explained and illustrated, 
 and told them anecdotes of wrecks, escapes, and rescues 
 till they held their breaths like ten-year-olds. 
 
 It did not take Condy long to know that he had 
 discovered what the story-teller so often tells of but so 
 seldom finds, and what, for want of a better name, 
 he elects to call "a character." 
 
 Captain Jack had been everywhere, had seen every 
 thing, and had done most of the things worth doing, 
 including a great many things that he had far better 
 have left undone. But on this latter point the Captain 
 seemed to be innocently and completely devoid of a 
 moral sense of right and wrong. It was quite evident 
 that he saw no matter for conscience in the smuggling 
 of Chinamen across the Canadian border at thirty 
 
n8 BLIX 
 
 dollars a head a venture in which he had had the 
 assistance of the prodigal son of an American divine of 
 international renown. The trade to Peruvian insurgents 
 of condemned rifles was to be regretted only because 
 the ring manipulating it was broken up. The appropria 
 tion of a schooner in the harbour of Callao was a story 
 in itself; while the robbery of thirty thousand dollars 
 worth of sea-otter skins from a Russian trading-post in 
 Alaska, accomplished chiefly through the agency of a 
 barrel of rum manufactured from sugar-cane, was a 
 veritable achievement. 
 
 He had been born, so he told them, in Winchester, 
 in England, and Heaven save the mark ! had been 
 brought up with a view of taking orders. For some time 
 he was a choir-boy in the great Winchester Cathedral; 
 then, while yet a lad, had gone to sea. He had 
 been boat-steerer on a New Bedford whaler, and struck 
 his first whale when only sixteen. He had filibustered 
 down to Chili; had acted as ice pilot on an Arctic relief 
 expedition; had captained a crew of Chinamen shark- 
 fishing in Magdalena Bay, and had been nearly murdered 
 by his men; had been a deep-sea diver, and had burst 
 his ear-drums at the business, so that now he could 
 blow tobacco smoke out of his ears; he had been ship 
 wrecked in the Gilberts, fought with the Seris on the 
 lower California Islands, sold champagne made from 
 rock candy, effervescent salts, and Reisling wine to 
 the Coreans, had dreamed of holding up" a Cunard 
 liner, and had ridden on the Strand in a hansom with 
 William Ewart Gladstone. But the one thing of which 
 he was proud, the one picture of his life he most delighted 
 to recall, was himself as manager of a negro minstrel 
 troupe, in a hired drum-major s uniform, marching 
 down the streets of Sacramento, at the head of the 
 brass band, in burnt cork and regimentals. 
 
BLIX 
 
 119 
 
 "The star of the troupe," he told them, "was the 
 lady with the iron jore. We busted in Stockton, and 
 she gave me her diamonds to pawn. I pawned em, 
 and kept back something in the hand for myself and 
 hooked it to San Francisco. Strike me straight if she 
 didn t follow me, that iron-jored piece; met me one 
 day in front of the Bush Street Theatre and horse 
 whipped me properly. Now just think of that !" 
 and he laughed as though it was the best kind of a joke. 
 
 "But," hazarded Blix, "don t you find it rather dull 
 out here lonesome? I should think you would want 
 to have some one with you to keep you company to 
 to do your cooking for you. " 
 
 But Condy, ignoring her diplomacy and thinking only 
 of possible stories, blundered off upon another track. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "you ve led such a life of action, I 
 should think this station would be pretty dull for you. 
 How did you happen to choose it?" 
 
 "Well, you see," answered the Captain, leaning 
 against the smooth white flank of the surf -boat, his 
 hands in his pockets, "I m lying low just now. I got 
 into a scrape down at Libertad, in Mexico, that made 
 talk, and I m waiting for that to die down some. You 
 see, it was this way." 
 
 Mindful of their experience with the mate of the 
 whaleback, Condy and Blix were all attention in an 
 instant. Blix sat down upon an upturned box, her 
 elbows on her knees, leaning forward, her little eyes 
 fixed and shining with interest and expectation ; Condy, 
 the story-teller all alive and vibrant in him, stood at 
 her elbow, smoking cigarette after cigarette, his fingers 
 dancing with excitement and animation as the Captain 
 spoke. 
 
 And then it was that Condy and Blix, in that isolated 
 station, the bay lapping at the shore within ear-shot, 
 
120 BLIX 
 
 in that atmosphere redolent of paint and oakum and 
 of seaweed decaying upon the beach outside, first heard 
 the story of "In Defiance of Authority." 
 
 Captain Jack began it with his experience as a 
 restaurant keeper during the boom days in Seattle, 
 Washington. He told them how he was the cashier of 
 a dining-saloon whose daily net profits exceeded eight 
 hundred dollars; how its proprietor suddenly died, and 
 how he, Captain Jack, continued the management of 
 the restaurant pending a settlement of the proprietor s 
 affairs and an appearance of heirs ; how in the confusion 
 and excitement of the boom no settlement was ever 
 made; and how, no heirs appearing, he assumed charge 
 of the establishment himself, paying bills, making con 
 tracts, and signing notes, until he came to consider the 
 business and all its enormous profits as his own; and 
 how at last, when the restaurant was burned, he 
 found himself some forty thousand dollars ahead of 
 the game." 
 
 Then he told them of the strange club of the place, 
 called "The Exiles," made up chiefly of "younger sons" 
 of English and British-Canadian families, every member 
 possessed of a "past" more or less disreputable; men 
 who had left their country for their country s good, and 
 for their family s peace of mind adventurers, wan 
 derers, soldiers of fortune, gentlemen-vagabonds, men 
 of hyphenated names and even noble birth, whose 
 appellations were avowedly aliases. He told them of 
 his meeting with Billy Isham, one of the club s directors, 
 and of the happy-go-lucky, reckless, unpractical char 
 acter of the man; of their acquaintance, intimacy, and 
 subsequent partnership; of how the filibustering project 
 was started with Captain Jack s forty thousand, and 
 the never-to-be-forgotten interview in San Francisco 
 with Sefiora Estrada, the agent of the insurgents; of the 
 
BLIX 121 
 
 incident of her calling-card how she tore it in two 
 and gave one half to Isham; of their outfitting, and 
 the broken sextant that was to cause their ultimate 
 discomfiture and disaster, and of the voyage to the 
 rendezvous on a Panama liner. 
 
 "Strike me!" continued Captain Jack, "you should 
 have seen Billy Isham on that Panama dough-dish; a 
 passenger ship she was, and Billy was the life of her from 
 stem to stern-post. There was a church pulpit aboard 
 that they were taking down to Mazatlan for some chapel 
 or other, and this here pulpit was lashed on deck aft. 
 Well, Billy had been most kinds of a fool in his life, and 
 amongst others a play-actor; called hisself Gaston 
 Maunderville, and was clean daft on his knowledge of 
 Shakespeare and his own power of interpretin the hidden 
 meanin of the lines. I ain t never going to forgit the 
 day he gave us Portia s speech. We were just under 
 the tropic, and the day was a scorcher. There was 
 mostly men folk aboard, and we lay around the deck 
 in our pajamas, while Billy Gaston Maunderville, 
 dressed in striped red-and- white pajamas clum up in 
 that bally pulpit, with the ship s Shakespeare in his 
 hands, an let us have The quality o mercy isn t 
 strained; it droppeth as the genteel dew from heavun. 
 Laugh, I tell you I was sore with it. Lord, how we 
 guyed him ! An the more we guyed and the more we 
 laughed, the more serious he got and the madder he 
 grew. He said he was interpretin the hidden meanin 
 of the lines." 
 
 And so the Captain ran through that wild, fiery tale 
 of fighting and loving, buccaneering and conspiring; 
 mandolins tinkling, knives clicking; oaths mingling 
 with sonnets, and spilled wine with spilled blood. He 
 told them of Isham s knife duel with the Mexican 
 lieutenant, their left wrists lashed together; of the 
 
122 BLIX 
 
 "battle of thirty" in the pitch dark of the Custom 
 House cellar; of Sefiora Estrada s love for Isham; and 
 all the roll and plunge of action that make up the story 
 of "In Defiance of Authority." 
 
 At the end, Blix s little eyes were snapping like sparks ; 
 Condy s face was flaming, his hands were cold, and he 
 was shifting his weight from foot to foot, like an excited 
 thoroughbred horse. 
 
 "Heavens and earth, what a yarn!" he exclaimed 
 almost in a whisper. 
 
 Blix drew a long, tremulous breath and sat back upon 
 the upturned box, looking around her as though she had 
 but that moment been awakened. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the Captain, rolling a cigarette. 
 "Yes, sir, those were great days. Get down there 
 around the line in those little, out-o -the-way republics 
 along the South American coast, and things happen to 
 you. You hold a man s life in the crook of your fore 
 finger, an nothing s done by halves. If you hate a 
 man, you lay awake nights biting your mattress, just 
 thinking how you hate him; an if you love a woman 
 good Lord, how you do love her!" 
 
 "But but!" exclaimed Condy, "I don t see how 
 you can want to do anything else. Why, you re living 
 sixty to the minute when you re playing a game like 
 that!" 
 
 "Oh, I ain t dead yet!" answered the Captain. "I 
 got a few schemes left that I could get fun out of." 
 
 "How can you wait a minute!" exclaimed Blix 
 breathlessly. "Why don t you get a ship right away 
 to-morrow and go right off on some other adventure ? " 
 
 "Well, I can t just now," returned the Captain, 
 blowing the smoke from his cigarette through his ears. 
 "There s a good many reasons; one of em is that I ve 
 just been married." 
 
X 
 
 "MuM MAR MARRIED!" gasped Condy, swallowing 
 something in his throat. 
 
 Blix rose to her feet. 
 
 "Just been married I " she repeated, a little frightened. 
 "Why why why, how delightful!" 
 
 "Yes yes," mumbled Condy. "How delightful. I 
 congratulate you ! " 
 
 " Come in come back to the station, " said the Captain 
 jovially, "and I ll introduce you to m wife. We were 
 married only last Sunday." 
 
 "Why, yes yes, of course, we d be delighted," 
 vociferated the two conspirators a little hysterically. 
 
 "She s a mighty fine little woman," declared the 
 Captain, as he rolled the door of the boat-house to its 
 place and preceded them up the gravel walk to the 
 station. 
 
 "Of course she is," responded Blix. Behind Captain 
 Jack s back she fixed Condy with a wide-eyed look, and 
 nudged him fiercely with an elbow to recall him to him 
 self; for Condy s wits were scattered like a flock of 
 terrified birds, and he was gazing blankly at the Captain s 
 coat collar with a vacant, maniacal smile. 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, Condy ! " she had time to whisper 
 before they arrived in the hallway of the station. 
 
 But fortunately they were allowed a minute or so to 
 recover themselves and prepare for what was coming. 
 Captain Jack ushered them into what was either the 
 parlour, office, or sitting-room of the station, and left 
 them with the words: 
 
 123 
 
i2 4 BLIX 
 
 "Just make yourselves comfortable here, an I ll go 
 fetch the little woman. " 
 
 No sooner had he gone than the two turned to each 
 other. 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "WeUl" 
 
 "We re in for it now. " 
 
 "But we must see it through, Condy; act just as 
 natural as you can, and we re all right. " 
 
 "But supposing she recognizes us?" 
 
 "Supposing she does what then? How are they to 
 know that we wrote the letters ? " 
 
 " Sh, Blix, not so loud ! They know by now that they 
 didn t." 
 
 "But it seems that it hasn t made any difference to 
 them; they are married. And besides, they wouldn t 
 speak to us about putting personals in the paper. They 
 would never let anybody know that. " 
 
 "Do you suppose they could possibly suspect ? " 
 
 " I m sure they couldn t. " 
 
 "Here they come. " 
 
 "Keep perfectly calm, and we re saved. " 
 
 "Suppose it isn t K. D. B., after all?" 
 
 But it was, of course, and she recognized them in an 
 instant. She and the Captain the latter all grins 
 came in from the direction of the kitchen, K. D. B. 
 wearing a neat blue calico gown and an apron that was 
 really a marvel of cleanliness and starch. 
 
 "Kitty!" exclaimed Captain Jack, seized again with 
 an unexplainable mirth, "here s some young folks come 
 out to see the place, an I want you to know em. Mr. 
 Rivers, this is m wife, Kitty, and lessee, miss, I don t 
 rightly remember your name." 
 
 " Bessemer ! " exclaimed Condy and Blix in a breath. 
 
 "Oh !" exclaimed K. D. B., "vou were in the restau- 
 
BLIX 125 
 
 rant the night that the Captain and I I that is yes, 
 I m quite sure I ve seen you before. " She turned from 
 one to the other, beginning to blush furiously. 
 
 "Yes, yes, in Luna s restaurant, wasn t it?" said 
 Condy desperately. "It seems to me I do just barely 
 remember. " 
 
 "And wasn t the Captain there?" Blix ventured. 
 
 "I forgot my stick, I remember," continued Condy. 
 "I came back for it ; and just as I was going out, it seems 
 to me I saw you two at a table near the door. " 
 
 He thought it best to allow their "Matrimonial 
 Objects" to believe he had not seen them before. 
 
 " Yes, yes, we were there, " answered K. D. B. tactfully. 
 "We dine there almost every Monday night. " 
 
 Blix guessed that K. D. B. would prefer to have the 
 real facts of the situation ignored, and determined she 
 should have the chance to change the conversation if 
 she wished. 
 
 "What a delicious supper one has there ! " she said. 
 
 "Can t say I like Mexican cooking myself," answered 
 K. D. B., forgetting that they dined there every Monday 
 night. "Plain United States is good enough for me. " 
 
 Suddenly Captain Jack turned abruptly to Condy, 
 exclaiming: "Oh, you was the chap that called the 
 picture of that schooner a barkentine. " 
 
 "Yes; wasn t that a barkentine?" he answered inno 
 cently. 
 
 "Barkentine your eye!" spluttered the Captain. 
 "Why, that was a schooner as plain as a pie plate. " 
 
 But ten minutes later the ordeal was over, and Blix 
 and Condy, once more breathing easy, were on their 
 walk again. The Captain and K. D. B. had even 
 accompanied them to the gate of the station, and had 
 strenuously urged them to "come in and see them 
 again the next time they were out that way." 
 
126 BLIX 
 
 "Married !" murmured Condy, putting both hands to 
 his head. "We ve done it; we ve done it now. " 
 
 "Well, what of it?" declared Blix, a little defiantly. 
 "I think it s all right. You can see the Captain is in 
 love with her, and she with him. No, we ve nothing to 
 reproach ourselves with." 
 
 "But but but so sudden!" whispered Condy, all 
 aghast. "That s what makes me faint the suddenness 
 of it." 
 
 "It shows how much they are in love, how how 
 readily they adapted themselves to each other. No,, 
 it s all right." 
 
 "They seemed to like us actually. " 
 
 "Well, they had better if they knew the truth. 
 Without us they never would have met. " 
 
 " They both asked us to come out and see them again ^ 
 did you notice that ? Let s do it, Blix, " Condy suddenly 
 exclaimed; "let s get to know them." 
 
 "Of course we must. Wouldn t it be fun to call on 
 them to get regularly acquainted with them!" 
 
 "They might ask us to dinner some time. " 
 
 "And think of the stories he could tell you !" 
 
 They enthused immediately upon this subject, both 
 talking excitedly at the same time, going over the 
 details of the Captain s yarns, recalling the incidents ta 
 each other." 
 
 "Fancy!" exclaimed Condy "fancy Billy Isham in 
 his pajamas, red-and-white stripes, reading Shakespeare 
 from that pulpit on board the ship, and the other men 
 guying him ! Isn t that a scene for you ? Can t you 
 just see it?" 
 
 "I wonder if the Captain wasn t making all those 
 things up as he went along. He don t seem to have any 
 sense of right and wrong at all. He might have been 
 lying, Condy." 
 
BLIX 127 
 
 "What difference would that make?" 
 
 And so they went along in that fine, clear, western 
 morning, on the edge of the continent, both of them 
 young and strong and vigourous, the Pacific under 
 their eyes, the great clean Trades blowing in their 
 faces, the smell of the salt sea coming in long aromatic 
 whiffs to their nostrils. Young and strong and fresh, 
 their imaginations thronging with pictures of vigour 
 ous action and adventure, buccaneering, filibustering, 
 and all the swing, the leap, the rush and gallop, the 
 exuberant, strong life of the great, uncharted world 
 of Romance. 
 
 And all unknowingly they were a romance in them 
 selves. Cynicism, old age, and the weariness of all 
 things done had no place in the world in which they 
 walked. They still had their illusions, all the keenness 
 of their sensations, all the vividness of their impressions. 
 The simple things of the world, the great, broad, primal 
 emotions of the race stirred in them. As they swung 
 along, going toward the ocean, their brains were almost 
 as empty of thought or of reflection as those of two 
 fine, clean animals. They were all for the immediate 
 sensation; they did not think they felt. The intellect 
 was dormant; they looked at things, they heard things, 
 they smelt the smell of the sea, and of the seaweed, 
 of the fat, rank growth of cresses in the salt marshes; 
 they turned their cheeks to the passing wind, and filled 
 their mouths and breasts with it. Their life was sweet 
 to them; every hour was one glad effervescence. The 
 fact that the ocean was blue was a matter for rejoicing. 
 It was good to be alive on that royal morning. Just to 
 be young was an exhilaration; and everything was 
 young with them the day was young, the country 
 was young, and the civilization to which they belonged, 
 teeming there upon the green, western fringe of the 
 
i28 BLIX 
 
 continent, was young and heady and tumultuous 
 with the boisterous, red blood of a new race. 
 
 Condy even forgot, or rather disdained on such a 
 morning as that, to piece together and rearrange Captain 
 Jack s yarns into story form. To look at the sea and 
 the green hills, to watch the pink on Blix s cheek and 
 her yellow hair blowing across her eyes and lips, was 
 better than thinking. Life was better than literature. 
 To live was better than to read; one live human being 
 was better than ten thousand Shakespeares ; an act 
 was better than a thought. Why, just to love 
 Blix, to be with her, to see the sweet, clean flush 
 of her cheek, to know that she was there at his 
 side, and to have the touch of her elbow as they 
 walked, was better than the best story, the greatest 
 novel he could ever hope to write. Life was 
 better than literature, and love was the best thing 
 in life. To love Blix and to be near her what 
 else was worth while? Could he ever think of rinding 
 anything in life sweeter and finer than this dear young 
 girl of nineteen ? 
 
 Suddenly Condy came to himself with an abrupt 
 start. What was this he was thinking what was this 
 he was telling himself ? Love Blix ! He loved Blix ! 
 Why, of course he loved her loved her so that with 
 the thought of it there came a great, sudden clutch at 
 the heart and a strange sense of tenderness, so vague 
 and yet so great that it eluded speech and all expression. 
 Love her ! Of course he loved her ! He had, all 
 unknowing, loved her even before this wonderful 
 morning; had loved her that day at the lake, and 
 that never-to-be-forgotten, delicious afternoon in the 
 Chinese restaurant; all those long, quiet evenings 
 spent in the window of the little dining-room, looking 
 down upon the darkening city, he had loved her. 
 
BLIX 129 
 
 Why, all his days for the last few months had been 
 full of the love of her. 
 
 How else had he been so happy ? How else did it come 
 about that little by little he was withdrawing from the 
 society and influence of his artificial world, as repre 
 sented by such men as Sargeant ? How else was he 
 slowly loosening the grip of the one evil and vicious 
 habit that had clutched him so long ? How else was his 
 ambition stirring ? How else was his hitherto aimless 
 enthusiasm hardening to energy and determination ? 
 She had not always so influenced him. In the days 
 when they had just known each other, and met each 
 other in the weekly course of their formal life, it had not 
 been so, even though they pretended a certain amount 
 of affection. He remembered the evening when Blix had 
 brought those days to an abrupt end, and how at the 
 moment he had told himself that after all he had never 
 known the real Blix. Since then, in the charming, 
 unconventional life they had led, everything had been 
 changed. He had come to know her for what she was, 
 to know her genuine goodness, her sincerity, her contempt 
 of affectations, her comradeship, her calm, fine strength 
 and unbroken good nature; and day by day, here a little 
 and there a little, his love for her had grown so quietly, 
 so evenly, that he had never known it, until now, behold ! 
 it was suddenly come to flower, full and strong a flower 
 whose fragrance had suddenly filled all his life and all 
 his world with its sweetness. 
 
 Half an hour after leaving the life-boat station, Condy 
 and Blix reached the old, red-brick fort, deserted, 
 abandoned, and rime-encrusted, at the entrance of the 
 Golden Gate. They turned its angle, and there rolled 
 the Pacific, a blue floor of shifting water, stretching 
 out there forever and forever over the curve of 
 the earth, over the shoulder of the world, with 
 
130 BLIX 
 
 never a sail in view and never a break from horizon 
 to horizon. 
 
 They followed down the shore, sometimes upon 
 the old and broken flume that runs along the seaward 
 face of the hills that rise from the beach, or sometimes 
 upon the beach itself, stepping from boulder to boulder, 
 or holding along at the edge of the water upon reaches 
 of white, hard sand. 
 
 The beach was solitary; not a soul was in sight. Close 
 at hand, to landward, great hills, bare and green, shut 
 off the sky ; and here and there the land came tumbling 
 down into the sea in great, jagged, craggy rocks, knee- 
 deep in swirling foam, and all black with wet. The 
 air was full of the prolonged thunder of the surf, and at 
 intervals sea-birds passed overhead with an occasional, 
 piping cry. Wreckage was tumbled about here and 
 there; and innumerable cocoanut shards, huge, brown 
 cups of fuzzy bark, lay under foot and in the crevices 
 of the rocks. They found a jellyfish a pulpy, trans 
 lucent mass; and once even caught a sight of a seal in 
 the hollow of a breaker, with sleek and shining head, 
 his barbels bristling, and heard his hoarse croaking 
 bark as he hunted the off-shore fish. 
 
 Blix refused to allow Condy to help her in the least. 
 She was quite as active and strong as he, and clambered 
 from rock to rock and over the shattered scantling of 
 the flume with the vigour and agility of a young boy. 
 She muddied her shoes to the very tops, scratched her 
 hands, tore her skirt, and even twisted her ankle; but 
 her little eyes were never so bright, nor was the pink 
 flush of her cheeks ever more adorable. And she was 
 never done talking a veritable chatterbox. She saw 
 everything and talked about everything she saw, quite 
 indifferent as to whether or not Condy listened. Now it 
 was a queer bit of seaweed, now it was a group of gulls 
 
BLIX 131 
 
 clamouring over a dead fish, now a purple starfish, now 
 a breaker of unusual size. Her splendid vitality carried 
 her away. She was excited, alive to her very finger 
 tips, vibrant to the least sensation, quivering to the 
 least impression. 
 
 "Let s get up here and sit down somewhere/ said 
 Condy, at length. 
 
 They left the beach and climbed up the slope of the 
 hills, near a point where a long arm of land thrust out 
 into the sea and shut off the wind ; a path was there, and 
 they followed it for a few yards, till they had come to a 
 little amphitheatre surrounded with blackberry bushes. 
 
 Here they sat down, Blix settling herself on an old 
 log with a little sigh of contentment, Condy stretching 
 himself out, a new-lit pipe in his teeth, his head resting 
 on the little handbag he had persistently carried ever 
 since morning. Then Blix fell suddenly silent, and for 
 a long time the two sat there without speaking, absorbed 
 in the enjoyment of looking at the enormous green hills 
 rolling down to the sea, the breakers thundering at the 
 beach, the gashed pinnacles of rock, the vast reach of 
 the Pacific, and the distant prospect of the old fort at 
 the entrance of the Golden Gate. 
 
 "We might be a thousand miles away from the city, 
 for all the looks of it, mightn t we, Condy?" said Blix, 
 after awhile. "And I m that hungry! It must be 
 nearly noon." 
 
 For answer, Condy sat up with profound gravity, 
 and with a great air of nonchalance opened the hand 
 bag, and, instead of shoes, took out, first, a pint bottle 
 of claret, then "devilish" ham sandwiches in oiled 
 paper, a bottle of stuffed olives, a great bag of salted 
 almonds, two little tumblers, a paper-covered novel, 
 and a mouth organ. 
 
 Blix fairly crowed with delight, clasping her hands 
 
BLIX 
 
 upon her knees, and rocking to and fro where she sat 
 upon the log. 
 
 "Oh, Condy, and you thought of a lunch you said 
 it was shoes and you remembered I loved stuffed 
 olives, too; and a book to read. What is it The 
 Seven Seas. No, I never was so happy. But the 
 mouth-organ what s that for?" 
 
 "To play on. What did you think think it was a 
 can-opener?" 
 
 Blix choked with merriment over this foolery, and 
 Condy added proudly: 
 
 "Look there! / made those sandwiches!" 
 
 They looked as though he had great, fat chunks of 
 bread, the crust still on; the "devilish" ham in thick 
 strata between; and, positively, he had buttered the 
 bread. But it was all one with them ; they ate as though 
 at a banquet, and Blix even took off her hat and hung 
 it upon one of the nearby bushes. Of course Condy 
 had forgotten a corkscrew. He tried to dig out the 
 cork of the claret bottle with his knife, until he had 
 broken both blades and was about to give up in despair, 
 when Blix, at the end of her patience, took the bottle 
 from him and pushed the cork in with her finger. 
 
 "Wine, music, literature and feasting," observed 
 Condy. "We re getting regularly luxurious, just like 
 Sardanapalus." 
 
 But Condy himself had suddenly entered into an 
 atmosphere of happiness the like of which he had never 
 known or dreamed of before. He loved Blix he had 
 just discovered it. He loved her because she was so 
 genuine, so radiantly fresh and strong; loved her 
 because she liked the things that he liked, because they 
 two looked at the world from precisely the same point 
 of view, hating shams and affectations, happy in the 
 things that were simple and honest and natural. He 
 
BLIX 133 
 
 loved her because she liked his books, appreciating the 
 things therein that he appreciated, liking what he liked, 
 disapproving of what he condemned. He loved her 
 because she was nineteen, and because she was so 
 young and unspoiled and was happy just because the 
 ocean was blue and the morning fine. He loved her 
 because she was so pretty, because of the softness of 
 her yellow hair, because of her round, white forehead 
 and pink cheeks, because of her little, dark-brown eyes, 
 with that look in them as if she were just done smiling 
 or just about to smile, one could not say which; loved 
 her because of her good, firm mouth and chin, because 
 of her full neck and its high, tight bands of white satin. 
 And he loved her because her arms were strong and 
 round, and because she wore the great dog-collar 
 around her trim, firm, corseted waist, and because there 
 emanated from her with every movement a barely 
 perceptible, delicious, feminine odour, that was in part 
 perfume, but mostly a subtle, vague aroma, charming 
 beyond words, that came from her mouth, her hair, her 
 neck, her arms, her whole sweet personality. And he 
 loved her because she was herself, because she was Blix, 
 because of that strange, sweet influence that was dis 
 engaged from her in those quiet moments when she 
 seemed so close to him, when some unnamed, mysteri 
 ous sixth sense in him stirred and woke and told him of 
 her goodness, of her clean purity and womanliness; and 
 that certain, vague tenderness in him went out toward 
 her, a tenderness not for her only, but for all the good 
 things of the world; and he felt his nobler side rousing 
 up and the awakening of the desire to be his better self. 
 Covertly he looked at her, as she sat near him, her 
 yellow hair rolling and blowing back from her forehead, 
 her hands clasped over her knee, looking out over the 
 ocean, thoughtful, her eyes wide. 
 
i 3 4 BLIX 
 
 She had told him she did not love him. Condy 
 remembered that perfectly well. She was sincere in 
 the matter; she did not love him. That subject had 
 been once and for all banished from their intercourse. 
 And it was because of that very reason that their 
 companionship of the last three or four months had 
 been so charming. She looked upon him merely as a 
 chum. She had not changed in the least from that 
 time until now, whereas he why, all his world was 
 new for him that morning ! Why, he loved her so, she 
 had become so dear to him, that the very thought of 
 her made his heart swell and leap. 
 
 But he must keep all this to himself. If he spoke to 
 her, told her of how he loved her, it would spoil and end 
 their companionship upon the instant. They had both 
 agreed upon that; they had tried the other, and it had 
 worked out. As lovers they had wearied of each other; 
 as chums they had been perfectly congenial, thoroughly 
 and completely happy. 
 
 Condy set his teeth. It was a hard situation. He 
 must choose between bringing an end to this charming 
 comradeship of theirs, or else fight back all show of love 
 for her, keep it down and under hand, and that at a time 
 when every nerve of him quivered like a smitten harp- 
 string. It was not in him or in his temperament to love 
 her calmly, quietly, or at a distance; he wanted the touch 
 of her hand, the touch of her cool, smooth cheek, the 
 delicious aroma of her breath in his nostrils, her lips 
 against his, her hair and all its fragrance in his face. 
 
 "Condy, what s the matter?" Blix was looking at 
 him with an expression of no little concern. "What are 
 you frowning so about, and clenching your fists ? And 
 you re pale, too. What s gone wrong ? " 
 
 He shot a glance at her, and bestirred himself 
 sharply. 
 
BLIX 135 
 
 " Isn t this a jolly little corner ? " he said. " Blix, how 
 long is it before you go ? " 
 
 "Six weeks from to-morrow." 
 
 "And you re going to be gone four years four years ! 
 Maybe you never will come back. Can t tell what will 
 happen in four years. Where s the blooming mouth- 
 organ?" 
 
 But the mouth-organ was full of crumbs. Condy 
 could not play on it. To all his efforts it responded only 
 by gasps, mournfulest death-rattles, and lamentable 
 wails. Condy hurled it into the sea. 
 
 "Well, where s the blooming book, then?" he de 
 manded. "You re sitting on it, Blix. Here, read 
 something in it. Open it anywhere. " 
 
 "No; you read to me." 
 
 "I will not. Haven t I done enough? Didn t I buy 
 the book, and get the lunch, and make the sandwiches, 
 and pay the carfare. I think this expedition will cost 
 me pretty near three dollars before we re through with 
 the day. No; the least you can do is to read to me. 
 Here, we ll match for it. " 
 
 Condy drew a dime from his pocket, and Blix a quarter 
 from her purse. 
 
 "You re matching me," she said. 
 
 Condy tossed the coin and lost, and Blix said, as he 
 picked up the book: 
 
 " For a man that has such unvarying bad luck as you, 
 gambling is just simple madness. You and I have never 
 played a game of poker yet that I ve not won every cent 
 of money you had. " 
 
 "Yes; and what are you doing with it all?" 
 
 "Spending it," she returned loftily; "gloves and veils 
 and lace-pins all kinds of things. " 
 
 But Condy knew from the way she spoke that this 
 "was not true. 
 
136 BLIX 
 
 For the next hour or so he read to her from "The 
 Seven Seas," while the afternoon passed, the wind 
 stirring the chapparal and blackberry bushes in the 
 hollows of the huge, bare hills, the surf rolling and 
 grumbling on the beach below, the sea-birds wheeling 
 overhead. Blix listened intently, but Condy could not 
 have told of what he was reading. Living was better 
 than reading, life was better than literature, and his 
 new-found love for her was poetry enough for him. 
 He read so that he might not talk to her or look at 
 her, for it seemed to him at times as though some 
 second self in him would speak and betray him in 
 spite of his best efforts. Never before in all his life 
 had he been so happy; never before had he been 
 so troubled. He began to jumble the lines and words 
 as he read, overrunning periods, even turning two 
 pages at once. 
 
 "What a splendid line ! " Blix exclaimed. 
 
 "What line what what are you talking about? 
 Blix, let s always remember to-day. Let s make a 
 promise, no matter what happens or where we are, let s 
 always write to each other on the anniversary of to-day. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 "Yes; I ll promise and you " 
 
 "I ll promise faithfully. Oh, I ll never forget to-day 
 nor yes, yes, I ll promise why, to-day Blix where s 
 that damn book gone?" 
 
 "Condy!" 
 
 "Well, I can t find the book. You re sitting on it 
 again. Confound the book, anyway ! Let s walk some 
 more. " 
 
 "We ve a long ways to go if we re to get home in time 
 for supper. Let s go to Luna s for supper. " 
 
 I never saw such a girl as you to think of ways for 
 spending money. What kind of a purse-proud plutocrat 
 
BLIX 137 
 
 do you think I am? I ve only seventy-five cents left. 
 How much have you got ? " 
 
 Blix had fifty-five cents in her purse, and they had a 
 grave council over their finances. They had just enough 
 for carfare and two "suppers Mexican," with ten cents 
 left over. 
 
 "That s for Richard s tip," said Blix. 
 
 "That s for my cigar," he retorted. 
 
 "You made me give him fifty cents. You said it was 
 the least I could offer him noblesse oblige. " 
 
 "Well, then, I couldn t offer him a dime, don t you see? 
 I ll tell him we are broke this time. " 
 
 They started home, not as they had come, but climb 
 ing the hill and going on across a breezy open down, 
 radiant with blue iris, wild heliotrope, yellow poppies, 
 and even a violet here and there. A little farther on 
 they gained one of the roads of the reservation, red 
 earth smooth as a billiard table; and just at an angle 
 where the road made a sharp elbow and trended cityward 
 they paused for a moment and looked down and back 
 at the superb view of the ocean, the vast half -moon of 
 land, and the rolling hills in the foreground tumbling 
 down toward the beach and all spangled with wild 
 flowers. 
 
 Some fifteen minutes later they reached the golf-links. 
 
 "We can go across the links," said Condy, "and 
 strike any number of car lines on the other side. " 
 
 They left the road and struck across the links, Condy 
 smoking his new-lit pipe. But as they came around the 
 edge of a long line of eucalyptus trees near the teeing 
 ground, a warning voice suddenly called out: 
 
 "Fore!" 
 
 Condy and Blix looked up sharply, and there in a group 
 not twenty feet away, in tweeds and "knickers," in 
 smart, short golfing-skirts and plaid cloaks, they saw 
 
138 BLIX 
 
 young Sargeant and his sister, two other girls 
 whom they knew as members of the fashionable 
 "set," and Jack Carter in the act of swinging his 
 driving-iron. 
 
XI 
 
 As the clock in the library of the club struck midnight 
 Condy laid down his pen, shoved the closely written 
 sheets of paper from him, and leaned back in his chair, 
 his fingers to his tired eyes. He was sitting at a desk 
 in one of the farther corners of the room and shut off 
 by a great Japanese screen. He was in his shirt-sleeves, 
 his hair was tumbled, his fingers ink-stained, and his 
 face a little pale. 
 
 Since late in the evening he had been steadily writing. 
 Three chapters of "In Defiance of Authority" were 
 done, and he was now at work on the fourth. The day 
 after the excursion to the Presidio that wonderful 
 event which seemed to Condy to mark the birthday of 
 some new man within him the idea had suddenly 
 occurred to him that Captain Jack s story of the club 
 of the exiles, the boom restaurant and the filibustering 
 expedition was precisely the novel of adventure of which 
 the Centennial Company had spoken. At once he had 
 set to work upon it with an enthusiasm that, with 
 shut teeth, he declared would not be lacking in energy. 
 The story would have to be written out of his business 
 hours. That meant he would have to give up his 
 evenings to it. But he had done this, and for nearly 
 a week had settled himself to his task in the quiet 
 corner of the club at eight o clock, and held to it 
 resolutely until twelve. 
 
 The first two chapters had run off his pen with delight 
 ful ease. The third came harder; the events and inci 
 dents of the story became confused and contradictory; 
 
 139 
 
1 40 BLIX 
 
 the character of Billy Isham obstinately refused to take 
 the prominent place which Condy had designed for him ; 
 and with the beginning of the fourth chapter, Condy 
 had finally come to know the enormous difficulties, 
 the exasperating complications, the discouragements 
 that begin anew with every paragraph, the obstacles 
 that refuse to be surmounted, and all the pain, the 
 labour, the downright mental travail and anguish that 
 fall to the lot of the writer of novels. 
 
 To write a short story with the end in plain sight from 
 the beginning was an easy matter compared to the 
 upbuilding, grain by grain, atom by atom, of the fabric 
 of "In Defiance of Authority." Condy soon found that 
 there was but one way to go about the business. He 
 must shut his eyes to the end of his novel that far-off, 
 divine event and take his task chapter by chapter, 
 even paragraph by paragraph; grinding out the tale, 
 as it were, by main strength, driving his pen from line 
 to line, hating the effort, happy only with the termina 
 tion of each chapter, and working away, hour by hour, 
 minute by minute, with the dogged, sullen, hammer- 
 and-tongs obstinacy of the galley slave, scourged to his 
 daily toil. 
 
 At times the tale, apparently out of sheer perversity, 
 would come to a full stop. To write another word 
 seemed beyond the power of human ingenuity, and for 
 an hour or more Condy would sit scowling at the half- 
 written page, gnawing his nails, scouring his hair, dipping 
 his pen into the ink well, and squaring himself to the 
 sheet of paper, all to no purpose. 
 
 There was no pleasure in it for him. A character 
 once fixed in his mind, a scene once pictured in his 
 imagination, and even before he had written a word 
 the character lost the charm of its novelty, the scene 
 the freshness of its original conception. Then, with 
 
BLIX 141 
 
 infinite painstaking and with a patience little short of 
 miraculous, he must slowly build up, brick by brick, 
 the plan his brain had outlined in a single instant. It 
 was all work hard, disagreeable, labourious work; 
 and no juggling with phrases, no false notions as to the 
 "delight of creation," could make it appear otherwise. 
 "And for what," he muttered as he rose, rolled up his 
 sheaf of manuscript, and put on his coat; "what do I do 
 it for, I don t know." 
 
 It was beyond question that, had he begun his 
 novel three months before this time, Condy would 
 have long since abandoned the hateful task. But 
 Blix had changed all that. A sudden male force 
 had begun to develop in Condy. A master emotion 
 had shaken him, and he had commenced to see 
 and to feel the serious, more abiding, and perhaps 
 the sterner side of life. Blix had steadied him, 
 there was no denying that. He was not quite the 
 same boyish, hair-brained fellow who had made "a 
 buffoon of himself" in the Chinese restaurant, three 
 months before. 
 
 The cars had stopped running by the time Condy 
 reached the street. He walked home and flung himself 
 to bed, his mind tired, his nerves unstrung, and all the 
 blood of his body apparently concentrated in his brain. 
 Working at night after writing all day long was telling 
 upon him, and he knew it. 
 
 What with his work and his companionship with 
 Blix, Condy soon began to drop out of his wonted 
 place in his "set." He was obliged to decline one 
 invitation after another that would take him out in 
 the evening, and instead of lunching at his club with 
 Sargeant or George Hands, as he had been accustomed 
 to do at one time, he fell into another habit of lunching 
 with Blix at the flat on Washington Street, and spending 
 
142 BLIX 
 
 the two hours allowed to him in the middle of the day 
 in her company. 
 
 Condy s desertion of them was often spoken of by the 
 men of his club with whom he had been at one time so 
 intimate, and the subject happened to be brought up 
 again one noon when Jack Carter was in the club as 
 George Hands guest. Hands, Carter and Eckert were 
 at one of the windows over their after-dinner cigars 
 and liquors. 
 
 "I say," said Eckert suddenly, "who s that girl across 
 the street there the one in black, just going by that 
 furrier s sign? I ve seen her somewhere before. Know 
 who it is?" 
 
 "That s Miss Bessemer, isn t it?" said George Hands,, 
 leaning forward. Rather a stunning-looking girl. 
 
 "Yes, that s Travis Bessemer," assented Jack Carter, 
 adding, a moment later: "It s too bad about that 
 girl." 
 
 "What s the matter?" asked Eckert. 
 
 Carter lifted a shoulder. "Isn t anything the matter 
 as far as I know, only somehow the best people have 
 dropped her. She used to be received everywhere." 
 
 "Come to think, I haven t seen her out much this 
 season," said Eckert. "But I heard she had bolted 
 from Society with the big S, and was going east 
 going to study medicine, I believe." 
 
 "I ve always noticed," said Carter, with a smile, 
 "that so soon as a girl is declassed she develops a purpose 
 in life, and gets earnest, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 "Oh, well, come," growled George Hands. "Travis 
 Bessemer is not declassed." 
 
 "I didn t say she was," answered Carter; "but she 
 has made herself talked about a good deal lately. 
 Going around with Rivers, as she does, isn t the most 
 discreet thing in the world. Of course it s all right, but 
 
BLIX 143 
 
 it all makes talk; and I came across them by a grove of 
 trees out on the links the other day " 
 
 "Yes," observed Sargeant, leaning on the back of 
 Carter s armchair; "yes; and I noticed, too, that she cut 
 you dead. You fellows should have been there," he 
 went on, in perfect good humour, turning to the others. 
 "You missed a good little scene. Rivers and Miss 
 Bessemer had been taking a tramp over the reservation 
 and, by the way, it s a great place to walk, so my 
 sister tells me; she and Dick Forsythe take a constitu 
 tional out there every Saturday morning. Well, as I 
 was saying, Rivers and Miss Bessemer came upon our 
 party rather unexpectedly. We were all togged out in 
 our golfmg-bags, and I presume we looked more like 
 tailor s models, posing for the gallery, than people who 
 were taking an outing; but Rivers and Miss Bessemer 
 had been regularly exercising; looked as though they 
 had done their fifteen miles since morning. They had 
 their old clothes on, and they were dusty and muddy. 
 
 "You would have thought that a young girl such as 
 Miss Bessemer is for she s very young would have 
 been a little embarrassed at running up against such a 
 spick and span lot as we were. Not a bit of it; didn t 
 lose her poise for a moment. She bowed to my sister 
 and to me, as though from the top of a drag, by Jove ! 
 and as though she were fresh from Redfern and Virot. 
 You know a girl that can manage herself that way is a 
 thoroughbred. She even remembered to cut little 
 Johnnie Carter here, because Johnnie forced himself 
 upon her one night at a dance when he was drunk; 
 didn t she, Johnnie? Johnnie came up to her there, 
 out on the links, fresh as a daisy, and put out his hand 
 with, Why, how do you do, Miss Bessemer? and 
 Wherever did you come from ? and I haven t seen you 
 in so long ; and she says, No, not since our last dance, 
 
144 BLIX 
 
 I believe, Mr. Carter, and looked at his hand as though 
 it was something funny. 
 
 "Little Johnnie mumbled and flushed and stammered 
 and backed off; and it was well that he did, because 
 Rivers had begun to get red around the wattles. / say 
 the little girl is a thoroughbred, and my sister wants 
 to give her a dinner as soon as she comes out. But 
 Johnnie says she s declassee, so maybe my sister had 
 better think it over." 
 
 "I didn t say she was declassee, 1 exclaimed Carter. 
 "I only said she would do well to be more careful." 
 
 Sargeant shifted his cigar to the other corner of his 
 mouth, one eye shut to avoid the smoke. 
 
 "One might say as much of lots of people," he 
 answered. 
 
 "I don t like your tone!" Carter flared out. 
 
 "Oh, go to the devil, Johnnie! Shall we all have a 
 drink?" 
 
 On the Friday evening of that week, Condy set him 
 self to work at his accustomed hour. But he had had 
 a hard day on the Times supplement, and his brain, 
 like an overdriven horse, refused to work. In half an 
 hour he had not written a paragraph. 
 
 "I thought it would be better, in the end, to loaf for 
 one evening," he explained to Blix, some twenty 
 minutes later, as they settled themselves in the little 
 dining-room. "I can go at it better to-morrow. See 
 how you like this last chapter." 
 
 Blix was enthusiastic over "In Defiance of Authority." 
 Condy had told her the outline of the story, and had 
 read to her each chapter as he finished it. 
 
 "It s the best thing you have ever done, Condy, and 
 you know it. I suppose it has faults, but I don t care 
 anything about them. It s the story itself that s so 
 interesting. After that first chapter of the boom 
 
BLIX 145 
 
 restaurant and the exiles club, nobody would want to 
 lay the book down. You re doing the best work of 
 your life so far, and you stick to it." 
 
 "It s grinding out copy for the supplement at the 
 same time that takes all the starch out of me. You ve 
 no idea what it means to write all day and then sit down 
 and write all evening." 
 
 "I wish you could get off the Times," said Blix. 
 "You re just giving the best part of your life to hack 
 work, and now it s interfering with your novel. I 
 know you could do better work on your novel if you 
 didn t have to work on the Times: couldn t you?" 
 
 "Oh, if you come to that, of course I could," he 
 answered. "But they won t give me a vacation. I 
 was sounding the editor on it day before yesterday. 
 No; I ll have to manage to swing the two somehow 
 together." 
 
 "Well, let s not talk shop now, Condy. You need a 
 rest. Do you want to play poker ? " 
 
 They played for upward of an hour that evening, 
 and Condy, as usual, lost. His ill-luck was positively 
 astonishing. During the last two months he had played 
 poker with Blix on an average of three or four evenings 
 in the week, and at the close of every game it was Blix 
 who had all the chips. 
 
 Blix had come to know the game quite as well, if not 
 better, than he. She could almost invariably tell when 
 Condy held a good hand, but on her part could assume 
 an air of indifference absolutely inscrutable. 
 
 "Cards?" said Condy, picking up the deck after the 
 deal. 
 
 "I ll stand pat, Condy." 
 
 "The deuce you say," he answered with a stare. "I ll 
 take three." 
 
 "I ll pass it up to you," continued Blix gravely. 
 
1 46 BLIX 
 
 "Well well, I ll bet you five chips." 
 
 "Raise you twenty." 
 
 Condy studied his hand, laid down the cards, 
 picked them up again, scratched his head, and moved 
 uneasily in his place. Then he threw down two high 
 pairs. 
 
 "No," he said; "I won t see you. What did you 
 have ? Let s see, just for the fun of it." 
 
 Blix spread her cards on the table. 
 
 " Not a blessed thing ! " exclaimed Condy. " I might 
 have known it. There s my last dollar gone, too. Lend 
 me fifty cents, Blix." 
 
 Blix shook her head. 
 
 "Why, what a little niggard!" he exclaimed aggriev- 
 edly. "I ll pay them all back to you." 
 
 "Now, why should I lend you money to play against 
 me? I ll not give you a chip; and besides, I don t want 
 to play any more. Let s stop." 
 
 " I ve a good mind to stop for good stop playing even 
 with you." 
 
 Blix gave a little cry of joy. 
 
 "Oh, Condy, will you, could you? and never, never 
 touch a card again? never play for money? I d be so 
 happy but don t, unless you know you would keep 
 your promise. I would much rather have you play 
 every night, down there at your club, than break your 
 promise." 
 
 Condy fell silent, biting thoughtfully at the knuckle 
 of a forefinger. 
 
 "Think twice about it, Condy," urged Blix; "because 
 this would be for always." 
 
 Condy hesitated; then, abstractedly, and as though 
 speaking to himself: 
 
 "It s different now. Before we took that three 
 months ago, I don t say. It was harder for me to quit 
 
BLIX 147 
 
 then, but now well, everything is different now; and 
 it would please you, Blixy!" 
 
 "More than anything else I can think of, Condy." 
 
 He gave her his hand. 
 
 "That settles it," he said quietly. " I ll never gamble 
 again, Blix." 
 
 Blix gripped his hand hard, then jumped up, and, 
 with a quick breath of satisfaction, gathered up the 
 cards and chips and flung them into the fireplace. 
 
 "Oh, I m so glad that s over with," she exclaimed, 
 her little eyes dancing. "I ve pretended to like it, but 
 I ve hated it all the time. You don t know how I ve 
 hated it ! What men can see in it to make them sit up 
 all night long is beyond me. And you truly mean, 
 Condy, that you will never gamble again ? Yes, I know 
 you mean it this time. Oh, I m so happy I could 
 sing!" 
 
 "Good heavens, don t do that!" he cried quickly. 
 41 You re a nice, amiable girl, Blix, even if you re not 
 pretty, and you 
 
 "Oh, bother you !" she retorted; "but you promise?" 
 
 "On my honour." 
 
 "That s enough" she said quietly. 
 
 But even when "loafing" as he was this evening, 
 Condy could not rid himself of the thought and recol 
 lection of his novel; resting or writing, it haunted him. 
 Otherwise he would not have been the story-writer that 
 he was. From now on until he should set down the last 
 sentence, the "thing" was never to let him alone, never 
 to allow him a moment s peace. He could think of 
 nothing else, could talk of nothing else; every faculty 
 of his brain, every sense of observation or imagination 
 incessantly concentrated themselves upon this one 
 point. 
 
 As they sat in the bay window watching the moon 
 
i 4 8 BLIX 
 
 rise, his mind was still busy with it, and he suddenly 
 broke out: 
 
 " I ought to work some kind of a treasure into the yarn. 
 What s a story of adventure without a treasure? By 
 Jove, Blix, I wish I could give my whole time to this 
 stuff ! It s ripping good material, and it ought to be 
 handled as carefully as glass. Ought to be worked up, 
 you know." 
 
 "Condy," said Blix, looking at him intently, "what 
 stands in your way of leaving the Times? Would they 
 take you back if you left them long enough to write 
 your novel? You could write it in a month, couldn t 
 you, if you had nothing else to do? Suppose you left 
 them for a month would they hold your place for you ? " 
 
 "Yes yes, I think they would; but in the meanwhile, 
 Blix there s the rub. I ve never saved a cent out of 
 my salary. When I stop, my pay stops, and where 
 withal would I be fed? What are you looking for in 
 that drawer matches? Here, I ve got a match." 
 
 Blix faced about at the sideboard, shutting the 
 drawer by leaning against it. In both hands she held 
 one of the delft sugar-bowls. She came up to the table 
 and emptied its contents upon the blue denim table- 
 cover two or three gold pieces, some fifteen silver 
 dollars, and a handful of small change. 
 
 Disregarding all Condy s inquiries, she counted it, 
 making little piles of the gold and silver and nickel 
 pieces. 
 
 "Thirty-five and seven is forty-two," she murmured, 
 counting off on her fingers, "and six is forty-eight, and 
 ten is fifty-eight, and ten is sixty-eight; and here is ten, 
 twenty, thirty, fifty-five cents in change." She thrust 
 it all toward him, across the table. "There," she said, 
 "is your wherewithal." 
 
 Condy stared. "My wherewithal!" he muttered. 
 
BLIX 149 
 
 " It ought to be enough for over a month." 
 
 1 Where did you get all that ? Whose is it ? " 
 
 "It s your money, Condy. You loaned it to me, and 
 now it has come in very handy." 
 
 4 I loaned it to you ? 
 
 "It s the money I won from you during the time you ve 
 been playing poker with me. You didn t know it would 
 amount to so much, did you?" 
 
 "Pshaw, I ll not touch it!" he exclaimed, drawing 
 back from the money as though it was red-hot. 
 
 "Yes, you will," she told him. "I ve been saving it 
 up for you, Condy, every penny of it, from the first day 
 we played down there at the lake; and I always told 
 myself that the moment you made up your mind to 
 quit playing, I would give it back to you." 
 
 "Why, the very idea ! " he vociferated, his hands deep 
 in his pockets, his face scarlet. " It s it s preposterous, 
 Blix ! I won t let you talk about it, even I won t 
 touch a nickel of that money. But, Blix, you re 
 you re the finest woman I ever knew. You re a 
 man s woman, that s what you are." He set his teeth. 
 "If you loved a man, you d be a regular pal to him; 
 you d back him up, you d stand by him till the last 
 gun was fired. I could do anything if a woman like 
 you cared for me. Why, Blix, I you haven t any 
 idea " He cleared his throat, stopping abruptly. 
 
 "But you must take this money," she answered; 
 "your money. If you didn t, Condy, it would make 
 me out nothing more nor less than a gambler. I 
 wouldn t have dreamed of playing cards with you if I had 
 ever intended to keep one penny of your money. From 
 the very start I intended to keep it for you, and give it 
 back to you as soon as you would stop; and now you 
 have a chance to put this money to good use. You 
 don t have to stay on the Times now. You can t do 
 
1 50 BLIX 
 
 your novel justice while you are doing your hack work 
 at the same time, and I do so want In Defiance of 
 Authority to be a success. I ve faith in you, Condy. 
 I know if you got the opportunity you would make a 
 success." 
 
 "But you and I have played like two men playing," 
 exclaimed Condy. "How would it look if Sargeant, 
 say, should give me back the money he had won from 
 me? What a cad I would be to take it !" 
 
 "That s just it we ve not played like two men. 
 Then I would have been a gambler. I ve played with 
 you because I thought it would make a way for you 
 to break off with the habit; and knowing as I did how 
 fond you were of playing cards and how bad it was for 
 you, how wicked it would have been for me to have 
 played with you in any other spirit ! Don t you see ? 
 And as it has turned out, you ve given up playing, and 
 you ve enough money to make it possible for you to 
 write your novel. The Centennial Company have 
 asked you to try a story of adventure for them, you ve 
 found one that is splendid, you re just the man who could 
 handle it, and now you ve got the money to make it 
 possible. Condy!" she exclaimed suddenly, "don t 
 you see your chance? Aren t you a big enough man to 
 see your chance when it comes? And, besides, do you 
 think I would take money from you ? Can t you under 
 stand? If you don t take this money that belongs to 
 you, you would insult me. That is just the way I would 
 feel about it. You must see that. If you care for me 
 at all, you ll take it." 
 
 The editor of the Sunday supplement put his tooth 
 pick behind his ear and fixed Condy with his eye-glasses. 
 
 "Well, it s like this, Rivers," he said. "Of course, 
 you know your own business best. If you stay on here 
 
BLIX 151 
 
 with us, it will be all right. But I may as well tell you 
 that I don t believe I can hold your place for a month. 
 I can t get a man in here to do your work for just a 
 month, and then fire him out at the end of that time. 
 I don t like to lose you, but if you have an opportunity 
 to get in on another paper during this vacation of yours, 
 you re at liberty to do so, for all of me." 
 
 "Then you think my chance of coming back here 
 would be pretty slim if I leave for a month now ?" 
 
 That s right." 
 
 There was a silence. Condy hesitated; then he rose. 
 
 "I ll take the chance," he announced. 
 
 To Blix that evening, as he told her of the affair, 
 he said: 
 
 "It s neck or nothing now, Blix." 
 
XII 
 
 BUT did Blix care for him ? 
 
 In the retired corner of his club, shut off by the 
 Japanese screen, or going up and down the city to and 
 from his work, or sitting with her in the bay window 
 of the little dining-room looking down upon the city, 
 blurred in the twilight or radiant with the sunset, Condy 
 asked himself the question. A score of times each day 
 he came to a final, definite, negative decision; and a 
 score of times reopened the whole subject. Beyond the 
 fact that Blix had enjoyed herself in his company 
 during the last months, Condy could find no sign or 
 trace of encouragement; and for that matter, he told 
 himself that the indications pointed rather in the other 
 direction. She had no compunction in leaving him to 
 go away to New York, perhaps never to return. In 
 less than a month now all their companionship was to 
 end, and he would probably see the last of her. 
 
 He dared not let her know that at last he had really 
 come to love her that it was no pretense now; for he 
 knew that with such declaration their "good times" 
 would end even before she should go away. But every 
 day, every hour that they were together made it harder 
 for him to keep himself within bounds. 
 
 What with this trouble on his mind and the grim 
 determination with which he held to his work, Condy 
 changed rapidly. Blix had steadied him, and a certain 
 earnestness and seriousness of purpose, a certain strength 
 he had not known before, came swiftly into being. 
 
 Was Blix to go away, leave him, perhaps for all time, 
 
 IS 2 
 
BLIX 153 
 
 and not know how much he cared? Would he speak 
 before she went ? Condy did not know. It was a 
 question that circumstances would help him to decide. 
 He would not speak, so he resolved, unless he was sure 
 that she cared herself; and if she did, she herself would 
 give him a cue, a hint whereon to speak. But days 
 went by, the time set for Blix s departure drew nearer 
 and nearer, and yet she gave him not the slightest sign. 
 
 These two interests had now absorbed his entire life 
 for the moment his love for Blix, and his novel. Little 
 by little "In Defiance of Authority" took shape. The 
 boom restaurant and the club of the exiles were disposed 
 of, Billy Isham began to come to the front, the filibuster 
 ing expedition and Senora Estrada (with her torn 
 calling-card) had been introduced, and the expedition 
 was ready to put to sea. But here a new difficulty was 
 encountered. 
 
 "What do I know about ships?" Condy confessed 
 to Blix. "If Billy Isham is going to command the 
 filibustering schooner, I ve got to know something 
 about a schooner appear to, anyhow. I ve got to 
 know nautical lingo the real thing, you know. I 
 don t believe a real sailor ever in his life said belay 
 there, or avast. We ll have to go out and see Captain 
 Jack get some more technical detail." 
 
 This move was productive of the most delightful 
 results. Captain Jack was all on fire with interest the 
 moment that Condy and Blix told him of the idea. 
 
 "An you re going to put Billy Isham in a book. 
 Well, strike me straight, that s a snorkin good idea ! 
 I ve always said that all Billy needed was a ticket- 
 seller an an advance agent, an he was a whole show 
 in himself." 
 
 "We re going to send it east," said Blix, "as soon as 
 it s finished, and have it published." 
 
154 BLIX 
 
 "Well, it ought to make prime readin , miss; an 1 
 that s a good fetchin title, In Defiance of Authority. " 
 
 Regularly Wednesday and Sunday afternoons, Blix 
 and Condy came out to the life-boat station. Captain 
 Jack received them in sweater and visored cap, and 
 ushered them into the front room. 
 
 "Well, how s the yarn getting on?" Captain Jack 
 would ask. 
 
 Then Condy would read the last chapter while the 
 Captain paced the floor, frowning heavily, smoking 
 cigars, listening to every word. Condy told the story 
 in the first person, as if Billy Isham s partner were 
 narrating scenes and events in which he himself had 
 moved. Condy called this protagonist "Burke Casso- 
 wan," and was rather proud of the name. But the 
 Captain would none of it. Cassowan, the protagonist, 
 was simply "Our Mug." 
 
 "Now," Condy would say, note-book in hand, "now, 
 Cap, we ve got down to Mazatlan. Now I want to 
 sort of organize the expedition in this next chapter." 
 
 "I see, I see," Captain Jack would exclaim, interested 
 at once. "Wait a bit till I take off my shoes. I can 
 think better with my shoes off;" and having removed 
 his shoes, he would begin to pace the room in his stocking 
 feet, puffing fiercely on his cigar as he warmed to the 
 tale, blowing the smoke out through either ear, gesturing 
 savagely, his face flushed and his eyes kindling. 
 
 "Well, now, lessee. First thing Our Mug does when 
 he gets to Mazatlan is to communicate his arrival to 
 Senora Estrada telegraphs, you know; and, by the 
 way, have him use a cipher." 
 
 "What kind of cipher." 
 
 "Count three letters on from the right letter, see. 
 If you were spelling boat, for instance, you would 
 begin with an e, the third letter after 6; then r for the o, 
 
BLIX 155 
 
 r being the third letter from o. So you d spell boat/ 
 erdw; and Senora Estrada knows when she gets that 
 dispatch that she must count three letters back from each 
 letter to get the right ones. Take now such a cipher 
 word as ulioh. That means rifle. Count three letters 
 back from each letter of ulioh, and it ll spell rifle. You 
 can make up a lot of despatches like that, just to have 
 the thing look natural; savvy ?" 
 
 "Out of sight !" muttered Condy, making a note. 
 
 "Then Our Mug and Billy Isham start getting a crew. 
 And Our Mug, he buys the sextant there in Mazatlan 
 the sextant that got out of order and spoiled every 
 thing. Or, no; don t have it a sextant; have it a 
 quadrant an old-fashioned, ebony quadrant. Have 
 Billy Isham buy it because it was cheap." 
 
 "How did it get out of order, Captain Jack?" inquired 
 Blix. "That would be a good technical detail, wouldn t 
 it, Condy?" 
 
 "Well, it s like this. Our Mug an Billy get a schooner 
 that s so bally small that they have to do their cooking 
 in the cabin; quadrant s on a rack over the stove, and 
 the heat warps the joints, so when Our Mug takes his 
 observation he gets fifty miles off his course and raises 
 the land where the government forces are watching for 
 him." 
 
 "And here s another point, Cap," said Condy. "We 
 ought to work some kind of a treasure into this yarn; 
 can t you think up something new and original in the 
 way of a treasure? I don t want the old game of a 
 buried chest of money. Let s have him get track of 
 something that s worth a fortune something novel." 
 
 "Yes, yes; I see the idea," answered the Captain, 
 striding over the floor with great thuds of his stockinged 
 feet. "Now, lessee; let me think," he began, rubbing 
 all his hair the wrong way. "We want something 
 
156 BLIX 
 
 new and queer something that ain t ever been written 
 up before. I tell you what ! Here it is ! Have Our 
 Mug get wind of a little river schooner that sunk fifty 
 years before his time in one of the big South American 
 rivers, during a flood I heard of this myself. Schooner 
 went down and was buried twenty feet under mud and 
 sand; and since that time you know how the big 
 rivers act the whole blessed course of the river has 
 changed at that point, and that schooner is on dry land, 
 or rather twenty feet under it, and as sound as the day 
 she chartered." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, have it that when she sank she had aboard of 
 her a cargo of five hundred cases of whisky, prime 
 stuff, seven thousand quart bottles, sealed up tight as 
 drums. Now Our Mug nor Billy Isham, either they 
 ain t born yesterday. No, sir; they re right next to 
 themselves ! They figure this way. This here whisky s 
 been kept fifty years without being moved. Now, 
 what do you suppose seven thousand quart bottles of 
 fifty-year-old whisky would be worth? Why, twenty 
 dollars a quart wouldn t be too fancy. So there you 
 are; there s your treasure. Our Mug and Billy Isham 
 have only got to dig through twenty feet of sand to pick 
 up a hundred thousand dollars, if they can find the 
 schooner." 
 
 Blix clapped her hands with a little cry of delight, 
 and Condy smote a knee, exclaiming: 
 
 "By Jove! That s as good as Loudon Dodds opium 
 ship ! Why, Cap, you re a treasure in yourself for a 
 fellow looking for stories." 
 
 Then after the notes were taken and the story talked 
 over, Captain Jack, especially if the day happened to 
 be Sunday, would insist upon their staying to dinner 
 boiled beef and cabbage, smoking coffee and pickles 
 
BLIX 157 
 
 that K. D. B. served in the little, brick-paved kitchen 
 in the back of the station. The crew messed in their 
 quarters overhead. 
 
 K. D. B. herself was not uninteresting. Her respecta 
 bility encased her like armour plate, and she never 
 laughed without putting three fingers to her lips. She 
 told them that she had at one time been a "costume 
 reader." 
 
 "A costume reader?" 
 
 "Yes; reading extracts from celebrated authors in the 
 appropriate costume of the character. It used to pay 
 very well, and it was very refined. I used to do In a 
 Balcony, by Mister Browning, and Laska, the same 
 evening, and it always made a hit. I d do In a Balcony 
 first, and I d put on a Louis-Quinze-the-fifteenth gown 
 and wig to match over a female cowboy outfit. When 
 I d finished In a Balcony, I d do an exit, and shunt 
 the gown and wig to match, and come on as Laska, 
 with thunder noises off. It was one of the strongest 
 effects in my repertoire, and it always got me a curtain 
 call." 
 
 And Captain Jack would wag his head and murmur: 
 
 "Extraordinary ! extraordinary !" 
 
 Blix and Condy soon noted that upon the occasion 
 of each one of their visits, K. D. B. found means to 
 entertain them at great length with long discussions 
 upon certain subjects of curiously diversified character. 
 Upon their first visit she elected to talk upon the Alps 
 Mountains. The Sunday following it was bacteriology; 
 on the next Wednesday it was crystals; while for two 
 hours during their next visit to the station, Condy and 
 Blix were obliged to listen to K. D. B. s interminable 
 discourse on the origin, history and development of the 
 kingdom of Denmark. Condy was dumbfounded. 
 
 "I never met such a person, man or woman, in all my 
 
158 BLIX 
 
 life. Talk about education ! Why, I think she knows 
 everything!" 
 
 "In Defiance of Authority" soon began to make good 
 progress, but Condy, once launched upon technical 
 navigation, must have Captain Jack at his elbow con 
 tinually to keep him from foundering. In some sea 
 novel he remembered to have come across the expression 
 "garboard streak," and from the context guessed it was 
 to be applied to a detail of a vessel s construction. In 
 an unguarded moment he had written that his schooner s 
 name "was painted in showy gilt letters upon her gar- 
 board streak." 
 
 "What s the garboard streak, Condy ?" Blix had asked, 
 when he had read the chapter to her. 
 
 "That s where they paint her name," he declared 
 promptly. "I don t know exactly, but I like the sound 
 of it." 
 
 But the next day, when he was reading this same 
 chapter to Captain Jack, the latter suddenly inter 
 rupted with an exclamation as of acute physical anguish. 
 
 "What s that? Read that last over again," he 
 demanded. 
 
 " When they had come within a few boat-length," 
 read Condy, " they were able to read the schooner s 
 name, painted in showy gilt letters upon her garboard 
 streak. " 
 
 "My God!" gasped the Captain, clasping his head. 
 Then, with a shout: "Garboard streak! Garboard 
 streak ! Don t you know that the garboard streak is 
 the last plank next the keel? You mean counter, not 
 garboard streak. That regularly graveled me, that 
 did!" 
 
 They stayed to dinner with the couple that afternoon, 
 and for half an hour afterward K. D. B. told them of the 
 wonders of the caves of Elephantis. One would have 
 
BLIX 
 
 believed that she had actually been at the place. But 
 when she changed the subject to the science of fortifi 
 cation, Blix could no longer restrain herself. 
 
 41 But it is really wonderful that you should know all 
 these things ! Where did you find time to study so 
 much?" 
 
 "One must have an education," returned K. D. B. 
 primly. 
 
 But Condy had caught sight of a half-filled bookshelf 
 against the opposite wall, and had been suddenly 
 smitten with an inspiration. On a leaf of his note-book 
 he wrote: "Try her on the G s and H s," and found 
 means to show it furtively to Blix. But Blix was 
 puzzled, and at the earliest opportunity Condy himself 
 said to the retired costume reader: 
 
 "Speaking of fortifications, Mrs. Hoskins, Gibraltar 
 now that s a wonderful rock, isn t it?" 
 
 " Rock ! " she queried. I thought it was an island." 
 
 "Oh, no; it s a fortress. They have a castle there 
 a castle, something like well, like the old Schloss at 
 Heidelberg. Did you ever hear about or read about 
 Heidelberg University ? 
 
 But K. D. B. was all abroad now. Gibraltar and 
 Heidelberg were unknown subjects to her, as were also 
 inoculation, Japan and Kosciusko. Above the H s she 
 was sound; but below that point her ignorance was 
 benighted. 
 
 "But what is it, Condy?" demanded Blix, as soon as 
 they were alone. 
 
 "I ve the idea," he answered, chuckling. "Wait till 
 after Sunday to see if I m right; then I ll tell you. It s 
 a dollar to a paper dime, K. D. B. will have something 
 for us by Sunday beginning with an I." 
 
 And she had. It was Internal Revenue. 
 
 "Right! Right!" Condy shouted gleefully, as he and 
 
160 BLIX 
 
 Blix were on their way home. "I knew it. She s done 
 with Ash Bol, Bol Car, and all those, and has worked 
 through Cod Dem, and Dem Eve. She s down to 
 Hor Kin now, and she ll go through the whole lot 
 before she s done Kin Mag, Mag Mot, Mot Pal, 
 and all the rest." 
 
 "The encyclopedia?" 
 
 "Don t you see it ? No wonder she didn t know beans 
 about Gibraltar ! She hadn t come to the G s by then." 
 
 "She s reading the encyclopedia." 
 
 "And she gets the volumes on the instalment plan, 
 don t you see? Reads the leading articles, and then 
 springs em on us. To know things and talk about em, 
 that s her idea of being cultured. One must have an 
 education. Do you remember her saying that? Oh, 
 our Matrimonial Objects are panning out beyond all 
 expectation !" 
 
 What a delicious, never-to-be-forgotten month it was 
 for those two ! There in the midst of life they were as 
 much alone as upon a tropic island. Blix had deliber 
 ately freed herself from a world that had grown dis 
 tasteful to her; Condy little by little had dropped away 
 from his place among the men and women of his 
 acquaintance, and the two came and went together, 
 living in a little world of their own creation, happy 
 in each other s society, living only in the present, and 
 asking nothing better than to be left alone and to 
 their own devices. 
 
 They saw each other every day. In the morning from 
 nine till twelve, and in the afternoon until three, Condy 
 worked away upon his novel ; but not an evening passed 
 that did not see him and Blix in the dining-room of 
 the little flat. Thursday and Sunday afternoons they 
 visited the life-boat station, and at other times prowled 
 about the unfrequented corners of the city, now passing 
 
BLIX 161 
 
 an afternoon along the water-front, watching the depar 
 ture of a China steamer or the loading of the great steel 
 wheat-ships; now climbing the ladder-like streets of 
 Telegraph Hill, or revisiting the Plaza, Chinatown, 
 and the restaurant ; or taking long walks in the Presidio 
 Reservation, watching the cavalry and artillery drills; 
 or sitting for hours on the rocks by the seashore, watch 
 ing the ceaseless roll and plunge of the surf, the wheeling 
 sea-birds, and the sleek-headed seals hunting the off 
 shore fish, happy for a half -hour when they surprised 
 one with his prey in his teeth. 
 
 One day, some three weeks before the end of the year, 
 toward two in the afternoon, Condy sat in his usual 
 corner of the club, behind the screen, writing rapidly. 
 His coat was off and the stump of a cigar was between 
 his teeth. At his elbow was the rectangular block of 
 his manuscript. During the last week the story had 
 run from him with a facility that had surprised and 
 delighted him; words came to him without effort, ranging 
 themselves into line with the promptitude of well- 
 drilled soldiery; sentences and paragraphs marched 
 down the clean-swept spaces of his paper like companies 
 and platoons defiling upon review; his chapters were 
 brigades that he marshaled at will, falling them in one 
 behind the other, each preceded by its chapter head, like 
 an officer in the space between two divisions. In the 
 guise of a commander-in-chief sitting his horse upon an 
 eminence that overlooked the field of operations, Condy 
 at last took in the entire situation at a glance, and, with 
 the force and precision of a machine, marched his forces 
 straight to the goal he had set for himself so long a time 
 before. 
 
 Then at length he took a fresh penful of ink, squared 
 his elbows, drew closer to the desk, and with a single 
 swift spurt of the pen wrote the last line of his novel, 
 
162 BLIX 
 
 dropping the pen upon the instant and pressing the 
 blotter over the words as though setting a seal of 
 approval upon the completed task. 
 
 "There !" he muttered, between his teeth; "I ve done 
 for you f" 
 
 That same afternoon he read the last chapter to Blix, 
 and she helped him to prepare the manuscript for 
 expressage. She insisted that it should go off that very 
 day, and herself wrote the directions upon the outside 
 wrapper. Then the two went down together to the 
 Wells-Fargo office, and "In Defiance of Authority" was 
 sent on its journey across the continent. 
 
 "Now," she said, as they came out of the express 
 office and stood for a moment upon the steps, "now 
 there s nothing to do but wait for the Centennial 
 Company. I do so hope we ll get their answer before 
 I go away. They ought to take it. It s just what 
 they asked for. Don t you think they ll take it, 
 Condy?" 
 
 "Oh, bother that!" answered Condy. "I don t care 
 whether they take it or not. How long now is it before 
 you go, Blix?" 
 
XIII 
 
 A WEEK passed; then another. The year was coming 
 to a close. In ten days Blix would be gone. Letters 
 had been received from Aunt Kihm, and also an exquisite 
 black leather traveling-case, a present to her niece, full 
 of cut-glass bottles, ebony-backed brushes and shell 
 combs. Blix was to leave on the second day of January. 
 In the meanwhile she had been reading far into her 
 first-year text-books, underscoring and annotating, 
 studying for hours upon such subjects as she did not 
 understand, so that she might get hold of her work the 
 readier when it came to classroom routine and lectures. 
 Hers was a temperament admirably suited to the study 
 she had chosen self-reliant, cool and robust. 
 
 But it was not easy for her to go. Never before had 
 Blix been away from her home; never for longer than a 
 week had she been separated from her father, nor from 
 Howard and Snooky. That huge city upon the Atlantic 
 seaboard, with its vast, fierce life, where beat the heart 
 of the nation, and where, beyond Aunt Kihm, she knew 
 no friend, filled Blix with a vague sense of terror and of 
 oppression. She was going out into a new life, a life of 
 work and of study, a harsher life than she had yet 
 known. Her father, her friends, her home all these 
 were to be left behind. It was not surprising that Blix 
 should be daunted at the prospect of so great a change 
 in her life, now so close at hand. But if the tears did 
 start at times, no one ever saw them fall, and with a 
 courage that was all her own Blix watched the last days 
 of the year trooping past, and the approach of the New 
 Year that was to begin the new life. 
 
 163 
 
i6 4 BLIX 
 
 But Condy was thoroughly unhappy. Those won 
 derful three months were at an end. Blix was going. 
 In less than a week now she would be gone. He would 
 see the last of her. Then what ? He pictured himself 
 when he had said good-by to her and the train had 
 lessened to a smoky blur in the distance facing about, 
 facing the life that must then begin for him, returning 
 to the city alone, picking up the routine again. There 
 would be nothing to look forward to then ; he would not 
 see Blix in the afternoon; would not sit with her in the 
 evening in the little dining-room of the flat overlooking 
 the city and the bay; would not wake in the morning 
 with the consciousness that before the sun would set 
 he would see her again, be with her, and hear the sound 
 of her voice. The months that were to follow would 
 be one long ache, one long, harsh, colourless grind with 
 out her. How was he to get through the first evening 
 that he must pass alone ? And she did not care for him. 
 Condy at last knew this to be so. Even the poor solace 
 of knowing that she, too, was unhappy, was denied him. 
 She had never loved him, and never would. He was a 
 chum to her, nothing more. Condy was too clear-headed 
 to deceive himself upon this point. The time was come 
 for her to go away, and she had given him no sign, no cue. 
 
 The last days passed; Blix s trunk was packed, her 
 half section engaged, her ticket bought. They said 
 good-by to the old places they had come to know so well 
 Chinatown, the Golden Balcony, the water-front, the 
 lake of San Andreas, Telegraph Hill, and Luna s and 
 had bade farewell to Riccardo and to old Richardson. 
 They had left K. D. B. and Captain Jack until the last 
 day. Blix was to go on the second of January. On 
 New Year s Day she and Condy were to take their last 
 walk were to go out to the life-boat station, and then 
 on around the shore to the little amphitheatre of black- 
 
BLIX 165 
 
 berry bushes, where they had promised always to write 
 each other on the anniversary of their first visit, 
 and then for the last time climb the hill and go across 
 the breezy downs to the city. 
 
 Then came the last day of the old year the last day 
 but one that they would be together. They spent it in 
 a long ramble along the water-front, following the line 
 of the shipping even as far as Meigg s Wharf. They had 
 come back to the flat for supper, and afterward, as soon 
 as the family had left them alone, had settled themselves 
 in the bay window to watch the New Year in. 
 
 The little dining-room was dark but for the indistinct 
 blur of light that came in through the window a light 
 that was a mingling of the afterglow, the new-risen 
 moon, and the faint haze that the city threw off into the 
 sky from its street-lamps and electrics. From where 
 they sat they could look down, almost as from a tower, 
 into the city s streets. Here a corner came into view; 
 farther on a great puff of green foliage palms and pines 
 side by side overlooked a wall. Here a street was 
 visible for almost its entire length, like a stream of 
 asphalt flowing down the pitch of the hill, dammed on 
 either side by rows upon rows of houses; while farther 
 on the vague confusion of roofs and facades opened out 
 around a patch of green lawn, the garden of some larger 
 residence. 
 
 As they looked and watched, the afterglow caught 
 window after window, till all that quarter of the city 
 seemed to stare up at them from a thousand ruddy eyes. 
 The windows seemed infinite in number, the streets 
 endless in their complications; yet everything was 
 deserted. At this hour the streets were empty, and 
 would remain so until daylight. Not a soul was stir 
 ring; no face looked from any of those myriads of glow 
 ing windows; no footfall disturbed the silence of those 
 
i66 BLIX 
 
 asphalt streets. There, almost within call behind those 
 windows, shut off from those empty streets, a thousand 
 human lives were teeming, each the centre of its own 
 circle of thoughts and words and actions; and yet the 
 solitude was profound, the desolation complete, the 
 stillness unbroken by a single echo. 
 
 The night the last night of the old year was fine; 
 the white, clear light from a moon they could not see 
 grew wide and clear over the city, as the last gleam of 
 the sunset faded. It was just warm enough for the 
 window to be open, and for nearly three hours Condy 
 and Blix sat looking down upon the city in these last 
 moments of the passing year, feeling upon their faces an 
 occasional touch of the breeze, that carried with it the 
 smell of trees and flowers from the gardens below them, 
 and the faint, fine taint of the ocean from far out beyond 
 the Heads. But the scene was not in reality silent. 
 At times when they listened intently, especially when 
 they closed their eyes, there came to them a subdued, 
 steady bourdon, profound, unceasing, a vast, numb 
 murmur, like no other sound in all the gamut of nature 
 the sound of the city at night, the hum of a great, 
 conglomerate life, wrought out there from moment to 
 moment under the stars and under the moon, while the 
 last hours of the old year dropped quietly away. 
 
 A star fell. 
 
 Sitting in the window, the two noticed it at once, 
 and Condy stirred for the first time in fifteen minutes. 
 
 "That was a very long one," he said in a low voice. 
 "Blix, you must write to me we must write each 
 other often." 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered. "We must not forget each 
 other; we have had too good a time for that." 
 
 "Four years is a long time," he went on. "Lots can 
 happen in four years. Wonder what I ll be doing at 
 
BLIX 167 
 
 the end of four years? We ve had a pleasant time 
 while it lasted, Blix." 
 
 "Haven t we!" she said, her chin on her hand, 
 the moonlight shining in her little, dark-brown eyes. 
 
 Well, he was going to lose her. He had found out 
 that he loved her only in time to feel the wrench of 
 parting from her all the more keenly. What was he 
 to do with himself after she was gone? What could he 
 turn to in order to fill up the great emptiness that her 
 going would leave in his daily life ? And was she never 
 to know how dear she was to him? Why not speak to 
 her why not tell her that he loved her? But Condy 
 knew that Blix did not love him, and the knowledge 
 of that must keep him silent; he must hug his secret to 
 him, like the Spartan boy with his stolen fox, no matter 
 how grievously it hurt him to do so. He and Blix had 
 lived through two months of rarest, most untroubled 
 happiness, with hardly more self -consciousness than two 
 young and healthy boys. To bring that troublous, 
 disquieting element of love between them unrequited 
 love, of all things would be a folly. She would tell 
 him must in all honesty tell him that she did not love 
 him, and all their delicious camaraderie would end in a 
 "scene." Condy, above everything, wished to look 
 back on those two months, after she had gone, without 
 being able to remember therein one single note that 
 jarred. If the memory of her was all that he was to 
 have, he resolved that at least that memory should be 
 perfect. 
 
 And the love of her had made a man of him he 
 could not forget that ; had given to him just the strength 
 that made it possible for him to keep that resolute, 
 grim silence now. In those two months he had grown 
 five years; he was more masculine, more virile. The 
 very set of his mouth was different; between the eye- 
 
1 68 BLIX 
 
 "brows the cleft had deepened; his voice itself vibrated 
 to a heavier note. No, no; so long as he should live, 
 he, man grown as he was, could never forget this girl 
 of nineteen who had come into his life so quietly, so 
 unexpectedly, who had influenced it so irresistibly and 
 so unmistakably for its betterment, and who had 
 passed out of it with the passing of the year. 
 
 For a few moments Condy had been absentmindedly 
 snapping the lid of his cigarette case, while he thought; 
 now he selected a cigarette, returned the case to his 
 pocket, and fumbled for a match. But the little gun- 
 metal safe he carried was empty. Blix rose and groped 
 for a moment upon the mantel-shelf, then returned and 
 handed him a match, and stood over him while he 
 scraped it under the arm of the chair wherein he sat. 
 Even when his cigarette was lit she still stood there, 
 looking at him, the fingers of her hands clasped in front 
 of her, her hair, one side of her cheek, her chin and 
 sweet, round neck outlined by the faint blur of light 
 that came from the open window. Then quietly she said : 
 
 "Well, Condy?" 
 
 "Well, Blix?" 
 
 "Just well ?" she repeated. "Is that all? Is that 
 all you have to say to me?" 
 
 He gave a great start. 
 
 "Blix !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Is that all? And you are going to let me go away 
 from you for so long, and say nothing more than that 
 to me? You think you have been so careful think 
 you have kept your secret so close ! Condy, don t you 
 suppose I know ? Do you suppose women are so blind ? 
 No, you don t need to tell me; I know. I ve known it 
 oh, for weeks !" 
 
 "You know know know what?" he exclaimed, 
 breathless. 
 
BLIX 169 
 
 "That you have been pretending that you did not 
 love me. I know that you do love me I know you 
 have been trying to keep it from me for fear it would 
 spoil our good times, and because we had made up our 
 minds to be chums, and have no more foolishness. 
 Once in those days when we first knew each other 
 I knew you did not love me when you said you did; but 
 now, since oh, since that afternoon in the Chinese 
 restaurant, remember? I ve known that you did love 
 me, although you pretended you didn t. It was the 
 pretense I wanted to be rid of; I wanted to be rid of it 
 when you said you loved me and didn t, and I want 
 to be rid of it now when you pretend not to love me 
 and I know you do," and Blix leaned back her head as 
 she spoke that "know," looking at him from under her 
 lids, a smile upon her lips. "It s the pretense that I 
 won t have," she added. "We must be sincere with 
 each other, you and I." 
 
 "Blix, do you love me f" 
 
 Condy had risen to his feet. His breath was coming 
 quick, his cigarette was flung away, and his hands 
 opened and shut swiftly. 
 
 "Oh, Blixy, little girl, do you love me f" 
 
 They stood there for a moment in the half dark, 
 facing one another, their hearts beating, their breath 
 failing them in the tension of the instant. There in 
 that room, high above the city, a little climax had come 
 swiftly to a head, a crisis in two lives had suddenly 
 developed. The moment that had been in prepara 
 tion for the last few months, the last few years, the last 
 few centuries, behold ! it had arrived. 
 
 "Blix, do you love me?" 
 
 Suddenly it was the New Year. Somewhere close 
 at hand a chorus of chiming church-bells sang together. 
 Far off in the direction of the wharves, where the great 
 
BLIX 
 
 ocean steamships lay, came the glad, sonorous shouting 
 of a whistle; from a nearby street a bugle called aloud. 
 And then from point to point, from street to roof-top, 
 and from roof to spire, the vague murmur of many 
 sounds grew and spread and widened, slowly, grandly; 
 that profound and steady bourdon, as of an invisible 
 organ, swelling, deepening and expanding to the full 
 male diapason of the city aroused and signaling the 
 advent of another year. 
 
 And they heard it they two heard it, standing there 
 face to face, looking into each other s eyes, that unan 
 swered question yet between them, the question that 
 had come to them with the turning of the year. It was 
 the old year yet when Condy had asked that question. 
 In that moment s pause, while Blix hesitated to answer 
 him, the New Year had come. And while the huge, 
 vast note of the city swelled and vibrated, she still 
 kept silent. But only for a moment. Then she came 
 closer to him and put a hand on each of his shoulders. 
 
 "Happy New Year, dear," she said. 
 
 On New Year s Day, the last day they were to be 
 together, Blix and Condy took "their walk," as they had 
 come to call it the walk that included the life-boat 
 station, the Golden Gate, the ocean beach beyond the 
 old fort, the green, bare, flower-starred hills and downs, 
 and the smooth levels of the golf-links. Blix had been 
 busy with the last details of her packing, and they did 
 not get started until two in the afternoon. 
 
 "Strike me!" exclaimed Captain Jack, as Blix 
 informed him that she had come to say good-by. " Why, 
 ain t this very sudden-like, Miss Bessemer? Hey, Kitty, 
 come in here. Here s Miss Bessemer come to say good- 
 by going to New York to-morrow." 
 
 "We ll regularly be lonesome without you, miss," said 
 
BLIX 171 
 
 K. D. B., as she came into the front room, bringing 
 with her a brisk, pungent odour of boiled vegetables. 
 " New York such a town as it must be ! It was called 
 Manhattan at first, you know, and was settled by the 
 Dutch." 
 
 Evidently K. D. B. had reached the N s. 
 
 With such deftness as she possessed, Blix tried to turn 
 the conversation upon the first meeting of the retired 
 sea captain and the one-time costume reader, but all to 
 no purpose. The "Matrimonial Objects" were perhaps 
 a little ashamed of their "personals" by now, and 
 neither Blix nor Condy were ever to hear their version 
 of the meeting in the back dining-room of Luna s 
 Mexican restaurant. Captain Jack was, in fact, anxious 
 to change the subject. 
 
 "Any news of the yarn yet?" he suddenly inquired of 
 Condy. "What do those Eastern publishin people 
 think of Our Mug and Billy Isham and the whisky 
 schooner?" 
 
 Condy had received the rejected manuscript of 
 "In Defiance of Authority" that morning, accompanied 
 by a letter from the Centennial Company. 
 
 "Well," he said in answer, "they re not, as you might 
 say, falling over themselves trying to see who ll be the 
 first to print it. It s been returned." 
 
 " The devil you say ! " responded the Captain. "Well, 
 that s kind of disappointin to you, ain t it?" 
 
 "But," Blix hastened to add, "we re not at all dis 
 couraged. We re going to send it off again right away." 
 
 Then she said good-by to them. 
 
 "I dunno as you ll see me here when you come back, 
 miss," said the Captain at the gate, his arm around 
 K. D. B. "I ve got to schemin again. Do you know," 
 he added in a low, confidential tone, "that all the mines 
 in California send their clean-ups and gold bricks down 
 
172 BLIX 
 
 to the Selby smeltin works once every week ? They send 
 em to San Francisco first, and they are taken up to 
 Selby s Wednesday afternoons on a little stern-wheel 
 steamer called the Monticello. All them bricks are in a 
 box dumped in like so much coal and that box sets 
 just under the wheel-house, for ard. How much money 
 do you suppose them bricks represent? Well, I ll tell 
 you; last week they represented seven hundred and 
 eighty thousand dollars. Well, now, I got a chart of the 
 bay near Vallejo; the channel s all right, but there are 
 mud-flats that run out from shore three miles. Enough 
 water for a Whitehall, but not enough for well, for the 
 patrol boat, for instance. Two or three slick boys, of a 
 foggy night of course, I m not in that kind of game, 
 but strike ! it would be a deal, now, wouldn t it ?" 
 
 "Don t you believe him, miss," put in K. D. B. 
 " He s just talking now to show off." 
 
 "I think your scheme of holding up a Cunard liner," 
 said Condy, with great earnestness, "is more feasible. 
 You could lay across her course and fly a distress signal. 
 She d have to heave to." 
 
 "Yes, I been thinkin o that; but look here what s 
 to prevent the liner taking right after your schooner 
 after you ve got the stuff aboard just followin you 
 right around an findin out where you land?" 
 
 "She d be under contract to carry government mails," 
 contradicted Condy. "She couldn t do that. You d 
 leave her mails aboard for just that reason. You 
 wouldn t rob her of her mails; just so long as she was 
 carrying government mails she couldn t stop." 
 
 The Captain clapped his palm down upon the gate 
 post. 
 
 "Strike me straight! I never thought of that." 
 
BLIX 
 
 BLIX and Condy went on; on along the narrow road 
 upon the edge of the salt marshes and tides that lay 
 between the station and the Golden Gate; on to the 
 Golden Gate itself, and around the old rime-encrusted 
 fort to the ocean shore, with its reaches of hard, white 
 sand, where the boulders lay tumbled and the surf 
 grumbled incessantly. 
 
 The world seemed very far away from them there on 
 the shores of the Pacific, on that first afternoon of the new 
 year. They were supremely happy, and they sufficed 
 to themselves. Condy had forgotten all about the next 
 day, when he must say good-by to Blix. It did not seem 
 possible, it was not within the bounds of possibility, 
 that she was to go away that they two were to be sepa 
 rated. And for that matter, to-morrow was to-morrow. 
 It was twenty-four hours away. The present moment 
 was sufficient. 
 
 The persistence with which they clung to the imme 
 diate moment, their happiness in living only in the 
 present, had brought about rather a curious condition 
 of things between them. 
 
 In their love for each other there was no thought of 
 marriage; they were too much occupied with the joy of 
 being together at that particular instant to think of the 
 future. They loved each other, and that was enough. 
 They did not look ahead further than the following day, 
 and then but furtively, and only in order that their 
 morrow s parting might intensify their happiness of 
 to-day. That New Year s Day was to be the end of 
 
 173 
 
174 BLIX 
 
 everything. Blix was going; she and Condy would 
 never see each other again. The thought of marriage 
 with its certain responsibilities, its duties, its gravity, its 
 vague, troublous seriousness, its inevitable disappoint 
 ments was even a little distasteful to them. Their 
 romance had been hitherto without a flaw; they had 
 been genuinely happy in little things. It was as well 
 that it should end that day, in all its pristine sweetness, 
 unsullied by a single bitter moment, undimmed by the 
 cloud of a single disillusion or disappointment. What 
 ever chanced to them in later years, they could at least 
 cherish this one memory of a pure, unselfish affection, 
 young and unstained and almost without thought of sex, 
 come and gone on the very threshold of their lives. 
 This was the end, they both understood. They were 
 glad that it was to be so. They did not even speak 
 again of writing to each other. 
 
 They found once more the little semicircle of black 
 berry bushes and the fallen log, half-way up the hill 
 above the shore, and sat there awhile, looking down 
 upon the long, green rollers marching incessantly toward 
 the beach, and there breaking in a prolonged explosion 
 of solid green water and flying spume. And their glance 
 followed their succeeding ranks farther and farther 
 out to sea, till the multitude blended into the mass 
 the vast, green, shifting mass that drew the eye on and 
 on, to the abrupt, fine line of the horizon. 
 
 There was no detail in the scene. There was nothing 
 but the great reach of the ocean floor, the unbroken 
 plane of blue sky, and the bare green slope of land 
 three immensities, gigantic, vast, primordial. It was 
 no place for trivial ideas and thoughts of little things. 
 The mind harked back unconsciously to the broad, 
 simpler, basic emotions, the fundamental instincts of 
 the race. The huge spaces of earth and air and water 
 
BLIX 175 
 
 carried with them a feeling of kindly but enormous 
 force elemental force, fresh, untutored, new, and 
 young. There was buoyancy in it; a fine, breathless 
 sense of uplifting and exhilaration; a sensation as of 
 bigness and a return to the homely, human, natural life, 
 to the primitive old impulses, irresistible, changeless, 
 and unhampered; old as the ocean, stable as the hills, 
 vast as the unplumbed depths of the sky. 
 
 Condy and Blix sat still, listening, looking, and 
 watching the intellect drowsy and numb; the emotions, 
 the senses all alive and brimming to the surface. Vaguely 
 they felt the influence of the moment. Something 
 was preparing for them. From the lowest, untouched 
 depths in the hearts of each of them something was 
 rising steadily to consciousness and the light of day. 
 There is no name for such things, no name for the mys 
 tery that spans the interval between man and woman 
 the mystery that bears no relation to their love for 
 each other, but that is something better than love, and 
 whose coming savours of the miraculous. 
 
 The afternoon had waned and the sun had begun to 
 set when Blix rose. 
 
 "We should be going, Condy," she told him. 
 
 They started up the hill, and Condy said: "I feel as 
 though I had been somehow asleep with my eyes wide 
 open. What a glorious sunset ! It seems to me as though 
 I were living double every minute; and, oh! Blix, 
 isn t it the greatest thing in the world to love each other 
 as we do?" 
 
 They had come to the top of the hill by now, and 
 went on across the open, breezy downs, all starred 
 with blue iris and wild heliotrope. Blix drew his arm 
 about her waist, and laid her cheek upon his shoulder 
 with a little caressing motion. 
 "And I do love you, dear," she said "love you with 
 
176 BLIX 
 
 all my heart. And it s for always, too; I know that. 
 I ve been a girl until within the last three or four days 
 just a girl, dearest; not very serious, I m afraid, and 
 not caring for anything else beyond what was happening 
 close around me don t you understand? But since 
 I ve found out how much I loved you and knew that you 
 loved me why, everything is changed for me. I m 
 not the same. I enjoy things that I never thought of 
 enjoying before, and I feel so oh, larger, don t you 
 know? and stronger, and so much more serious. Just 
 a little while ago I was only nineteen, but I think, dear, 
 that by loving you I have become all of a sudden 
 and without knowing it a woman." 
 
 A little trembling ran through her with the words. 
 She stopped and put both arms around his neck, her 
 head tipped back, her eyes half closed, her sweet yellow 
 hair rolling from her forehead. Her whole dear being 
 radiated with that sweet, clean perfume that seemed to 
 come alike from her clothes, her neck, her arms, her 
 hair and mouth the delicious, almost divine, feminine 
 aroma that was part of herself. 
 
 "You do love me, Condy, don t you, just as I love 
 you?" 
 
 Such words as he could think of seemed pitifully 
 inadequate. For answer he could only hold her the 
 closer. She understood. Her eyes closed slowly, and 
 her face drew nearer to his. Just above a whisper, she 
 said: 
 
 "I love you, dear !" 
 
 "I love you, Blix !" 
 
 And they kissed each other then upon the mouth. 
 
 Meanwhile the sun had been setting. Such a sunset ! 
 The whole world, the three great spaces of sea and land 
 and sky, were incarnadined with the glory of it. The 
 ocean floor was a blinding red radiance, the hills were 
 
BLIX 177 
 
 amethyst, the sky one gigantic opal, and they two 
 seemed poised in the midst of all the chaotic glory of a 
 primitive world. It was New Year s Day; the earth 
 was new, the year was new, and their love was new and 
 strong. Everything was before them. There was no 
 longer any present. Regrets and memories had no place 
 in their new world. It was Hope, Hope, Hope, that 
 sang to them and called to them and smote into life the 
 new keen blood of them. 
 
 Then suddenly came the miracle, like the flashing 
 out of a new star, whose radiance they felt but could 
 not see, like a burst of music whose harmony they felt 
 but could not hear. And as they stood there alone 
 in all that simple glory of sky and earth and sea, they 
 knew all in an instant that they were for each other, 
 forever and forever, for better or for worse, till death 
 should them part. Into their romance, into their 
 world of little things, their joys of the moment, their 
 happiness of the hour, had suddenly descended a great 
 and lasting joy, the happiness of the great, grave issues 
 of life a happiness so deep, so intense, as to thrill them 
 with a sense of solemnity and wonder. Instead of being 
 the end, that New Year s Day was but the beginning 
 the beginning of their real romance. All the fine, 
 virile, masculine energy of him was aroused and ram 
 pant. All her sweet, strong womanliness had been 
 suddenly deepened and broadened. In fine, he had 
 become a man, and she a woman. Youth, life, and the 
 love of man and woman, the strength of the hills, the 
 depth of the ocean, and the beauty of the sky at sunset; 
 that was what the New Year had brought to them. 
 
 "It s good-by, dear, isn t it?" said Blix. 
 
 But Condy would not have it so. 
 
 "No, no," he told her; "no, Blix; no matter how 
 
1 78 BLIX 
 
 often we separate after this wonderful New Year s Day, 
 no matter how far we are apart, we two shall never, 
 never say good-by." 
 
 "Oh, you re right, you re right !" she answered, the 
 tears beginning to shine in her little dark-brown eyes. 
 "No; so long as we love each other, nothing matters. 
 There s no such thing as distance for us, is there? 
 Just think, you will be here on the shores of the Pacific, 
 and I on the shores of the Atlantic, but the whole conti 
 nent can t come between us" 
 
 "And we ll be together again, Blix," he said; "and it 
 won t be very long now. Just give me time a few 
 years now." 
 
 "But so long as we love each other, time won t matter 
 either." 
 
 "What are the tears for, Blixy?" he asked, pressing 
 his handkerchief to her cheek. 
 
 "Because this is the saddest and happiest day of my 
 life," she answered. Then she pulled from him with a 
 little laugh, adding: "Look, Condy, you ve dropped 
 your letter. You pulled it out just now with your 
 handkerchief. 
 
 As Condy picked it up, she noted the name of the 
 Centennial Company upon the corner. 
 
 "It s the letter I got with the manuscript of the 
 novel when they sent it back," he explained. 
 
 "What did they say?" 
 
 "Oh, the usual thing. I haven t read it yet. Here s 
 what they say." He opened it and read: 
 
 "We return to you herewith the MS. of your novel, 
 In Defiance of Authority, and regret that our reader 
 does not recommend it as available for publication at 
 present. We have, however, followed your work with 
 considerable interest, and have read a story by you, 
 
BLIX 
 
 179 
 
 copied in one of our exchanges, under the title, A 
 Victory Over Death, which we would have been 
 glad to publish ourselves, had you given us the 
 chance. 
 
 "Would you consider the offer of the assistant editor 
 ship of our Quarterly, a literary and critical pamphlet, 
 that we publish in New York, and with which 
 we presume you are familiar? We do not believe 
 there would be any difficulty in the matter of financial 
 arrangements. In case you should decide to come on, 
 we enclose R.R. passes via the A., T. & S. F., C. & A., 
 and New York Central, 
 
 "Very truly, 
 "THE CENTENNIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 44 New York." 
 
 The two exchanged glances. But Blix was too 
 excited to speak, and could only give vent to a little, 
 quivering, choking sigh. The letter was a veritable god 
 from the machine, the one thing lacking to complete 
 their happiness. 
 
 "I don t know how this looks to you" Condy began, 
 trying to be calm, "but it seems to me that this is that 
 this this 
 
 But what they said then they could never afterward 
 remember. The golden haze of the sunset somehow 
 got into their recollection of the moment, and they 
 could only recall the fact that they had been 
 gayer in that moment than ever before in all their 
 lives. 
 
 Perhaps as gay as they ever were to be again. They 
 began to know the difference between gaiety and happi 
 ness. That New Year s Day, that sunset, marked for 
 them an end and a beginning. It was the end of their 
 gay, irresponsible, hour-to-hour life of the past three 
 
i8o BLIX 
 
 months ; and it was the beginning of a new life, whose 
 possibilities of sorrow and of trouble, of pleasure and of 
 happiness, were greater than aught they had yet experi 
 enced. They knew this they felt it instinctively, as 
 with a common impulse they turned and looked back 
 upon the glowing earth and sea and sky, the breaking 
 surf, the beach, the distant, rime-encrusted, ancient 
 fort all that scene that to their eyes stood for the 
 dear, free, careless companionship of those last few 
 months. Their new-found happiness was not without 
 its sadness already. All was over now; their solitary 
 walks, the long, still evenings in the little dining-room 
 overlooking the sleeping city, their excursions to Luna s, 
 their afternoons spent in the golden Chinese balcony, 
 their mornings on the lake, calm and still and hot. 
 Forever and forever they had said good-by to that life. 
 Already the sunset was losing its glory 
 
 Then, with one last look, they turned about and set 
 their faces from it to the new life, to the East, where lay 
 the Nation. Out beyond the purple bulwarks of the 
 Sierras, far off, the great, grim world went clashing 
 through its grooves the world that now they were to 
 know, the world that called to them, and woke them, 
 and roused them. Their little gaieties were done; the 
 life of little things was all behind. Now for the future. 
 The sterner note had struck work was to be done; that, 
 too, the New Year had brought to them work for each 
 of them, work and the world of men. 
 
 For a moment they shrank from it, loath to take the 
 first step beyond the confines of the garden wherein they 
 had lived so joyously and learned to love each other; 
 and as they stood there, facing the gray and darkening 
 Eastern sky, their backs forever turned to the sunset, 
 Blix drew closer to him, putting her hand in his, looking 
 a little timidly into his eyes. But his arm was around 
 
BLIX 181 
 
 her, and the strong young force that looked into her 
 eyes from his gave her courage. 
 
 "A happy New Year, dear," she said. 
 
 "A very, very happy New Year, Blix," he answered. 
 
MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
DfBicatfU to 
 
 CAPTAIN JOSEPH HODGSON 
 UNITED STATES LIFE SAVING SERVICE 
 
MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 SHANGHAIED 
 
 THIS is to be a story of a battle, at least one 
 murder, and several sudden deaths. For that 
 reason it begins with a pink tea and among the 
 mingled odours of many delicate perfumes and the 
 hale, frank smell of Caroline Test out roses. 
 
 There had been a great number of debutantes " coming 
 out that season in San Francisco by means of afternoon 
 teas, pink, lavender, and otherwise. This particular 
 tea was intended to celebrate the fact that Josie Herrick 
 had arrived at that time of her life when she was to wear 
 her hair high and her gowns long, and to have a "day" 
 of her own quite distinct from that of her mother. 
 
 Ross Wilbur presented himself at the Herrick house 
 on Pacific Avenue much too early upon the afternoon 
 of Miss Herrick s tea. As he made his way up the 
 canvased stairs he was aware of a terrifying array of 
 millinery and disquieting staccato chatter of feminine 
 voices in the parlours and reception-rooms on either side 
 of the hallway. A single high hat in the room that had 
 been set apart for the men s use confirmed him in his 
 suspicions. 
 
 "Might have known it would be a hen party till six 
 anyhow," he muttered, swinging out of his overcoat. 
 "Bet I don t know one girl in twenty down there now 
 all mamma s friends at this hour, and papa s maiden 
 
i88 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 sisters, and Jo s schoolteachers and governesses and 
 music teachers, and I don t know what all. " 
 
 When he went down he found it precisely as he 
 expected. He went up to Miss Herrick, where she 
 stood receiving with her mother and two of the 
 other girls, and allowed them to chaff him on his 
 forlornness. 
 
 Maybe I seem at my ease," said Ross Wilbur to 
 them, "but really I am very much frightened. I m 
 going to run away as soon as it is decently possible, even 
 before, unless you feed me." 
 
 " I believe you had luncheon not two hours ago, " said 
 Miss Herrick. "Come along, though, and I ll give you 
 come chocolate, and perhaps, if you re good, a stuffed 
 olive. I got them just because I knew you liked them. 
 I ought to stay here and receive, so I can t look after 
 you for long." 
 
 The two fought their way through the crowded 
 rooms to the luncheon-table, and Miss Herrick got 
 Wilbur his chocolate and his stuffed olives. They 
 sat down and talked in a window recess for a moment, 
 Wilbur toeing-in in absurd fashion as he tried to make a 
 lap for his plate. 
 
 " I thought, " said Miss Herrick, "that you were going 
 on the Ridgeways yachting party this afternoon. Mrs. 
 Ridge way said she was counting on you. They are 
 going out with the Petrel. " 
 
 "She didn t count above a hundred, though," an 
 swered Wilbur. " I got your bid first, so I regretted 
 the yachting party; and I guess I d have regretted it 
 anyhow, " and he grinned at her over his cup. 
 
 "Nice man," she said adding on the instant, "I 
 must go now, Ross." 
 
 " Wait till I eat the sugar out of my cup, " complained 
 Wilbur. "Tell me f " he added, scraping vigourously at 
 
SHANGHAIED 189 
 
 the bottom of the cup with the inadequate spoon; "tell 
 me you re going to the hoe-down to-night ?" 
 
 " If you mean the Assembly, yes, I am. " 
 
 " Will you give me the first and last ? " 
 
 "I ll give you the first, and you can ask for the last 
 then." 
 
 " Let s put it down ; I know you ll forget it. " Wilbur 
 drew a couple of cards from his case. 
 
 "Programmes are not good form any more," said 
 Miss Herrick. 
 
 "Forgetting a dance is worse." 
 
 He made out the cards, writing on the one he kept 
 for himself: " First waltz Jo. " 
 
 " I must go back now, " said Miss Herrick, getting up. 
 
 " In that case I shall run I m afraid of girls. " 
 
 "It s a pity about you. " 
 
 " I am; one girl, I don t say, but girl in the aggregate 
 like this," and he pointed his chin toward the thronged 
 parlours. " It unmans me. " 
 
 "Good-by, then." 
 
 "Good-by, until to-night, about ?" 
 
 "About nine. 
 
 "About nine, then." 
 
 Ross Wilbur made his adieu to Mrs. Herrick and the 
 girls who were receiving, and took himself away. As 
 he came out of the house and stood for a moment on the 
 steps, settling his hat gingerly upon his hair so as not to 
 disturb the parting, he was not by any means an ill- 
 looking chap. His good height was helped out by his 
 long coat and his high silk hat, and there was plenty of 
 jaw in the lower part of his face. Nor was his tailor 
 altogether answerable for his shoulders. Three years 
 before this time Ross Wilbur had pulled at No. 5 in 
 his varsity boat in an Eastern college that was not 
 accustomed to athletic discomfiture. 
 
1 90 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "I wonder what I m going to do with myself until 
 supper-time," he muttered, as he came down the steps, 
 feeling for the middle of his stick. He found no imme 
 diate answer to his question. But the afternoon was 
 fine, and he set off to walk in the direction of the town, 
 with a half -formed idea of looking in at his club. 
 
 At his club he found a letter in his box from his par 
 ticular chum, who had been spending the month shoot 
 ing elk in Oregon. 
 
 "Dear Old Man," it said, "will be back on the after 
 noon you receive this. Will hit the town on the three 
 o clock boat. Get seats for the best show going my 
 treat and arrange to assimilate nutriment at the 
 Poodle Dog also mine. I ve got miles of talk in me 
 that I ve got to reel off before midnight. 
 
 11 Yours, 
 
 " JERRY. 
 
 "I ve got a stand of horns for you, Ross, that are 
 Glory Hallelujah." 
 
 "Well, I can t go," murmured Wilbur, as he remem 
 bered the Assembly that was to come off that night and 
 his engaged dance with Jo Herrick. He decided that 
 it would be best to meet Jerry as he came off the boat 
 and tell him how matters stood. Then he resolved, 
 since no one that he knew was in the club, and the 
 instalment of the Paris weeklies had not arrived, that it 
 would be amusing to go down to the water-front and 
 loaf among the shipping until it was time for Jerry s 
 boat. 
 
 Wilbur spent an hour along the wharves, watching 
 the great grain ships consigned to "Cork for orders" 
 slowly gorging themselves with whole harvests of wheat 
 from the San Joaquin Valley ; lumber vessels for Durban 
 and South African ports settling lower and lower to the 
 
SHANGHAIED 191 
 
 water s level as forests of pine and redwood stratified 
 themselves along their decks and in their holds; coal 
 barges discharging from Nanaimo; busy little tugs 
 coughing and nuzzling at the flanks of deep-sea tramps, 
 while hay barges and Italian whitehalls came and went 
 at every turn. A Stockton River boat went by, her 
 stern wheel churning along behind, like a huge net -reel; 
 a tiny maelstrom of activity centred about an Alaska 
 commercial company s steamboat that would clear for 
 Dawson in the morning. 
 
 No quarter of one of the most picturesque cities in the 
 world had more interest for Wilbur than the water-front. 
 In the mile or so of shipping that stretched from the 
 docks where the China steamships landed, down past 
 the ferry slips and on to Meiggs s wharf, every maritime 
 nation in the world was represented. More than once 
 Wilbur had talked to the loungers of the wharves, 
 stevedores out of work, sailors between voyages, 
 caulkers and ship chandlers men looking not too 
 earnestly for jobs; so that on this occasion, when a 
 little, undersized fellow in dirty brown sweater and 
 clothes of Barbary-coast cut asked him for a match to 
 light his pipe, Wilbur offered a cigar and passed the 
 time of day with him. Wilbur had not forgotten that 
 he himself was dressed for an afternoon function. But 
 the incongruity of the business was precisely what 
 most amused him. 
 
 After a time the fellow suggested drinks. Wilbur 
 hesitated for a moment. It would be something to 
 tell about, however, so, "All right, I ll drink with you," 
 he said. 
 
 The brown sweater led the way to a sailor s boarding- 
 house hard by. The rear of the place was built upon 
 piles over the water. But in front, on the ground 
 floor, was a barroom. 
 
i 9 2 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Rum an gum/ announced the brown sweater, as 
 the two came in and took their places at the bar. 
 
 "Rum an gum, Tuck; wattle you have, sir?" 
 
 "Oh I don t know," hesitated Wilbur; "give me 
 a mild Manhattan." 
 
 While the drinks were being mixed the brown sweater 
 called Wilbur s attention to a fighting head-dress from 
 the Marquesas that was hung on the wall over the free 
 lunch counter and opposite the bar. Wilbur turned 
 about to look at it, and remained so, his back to the 
 barkeeper, till the latter told them their drinks were 
 ready. 
 
 "Well, mate, here s big blocks an taut hawse-pipes," 
 said the brown sweater cordially. 
 
 "Your very good health," returned Wilbur. 
 
 The brown sweater wiped a thin mustache in the 
 hollow of his palm, and wiped that palm upon his 
 trouser leg. 
 
 "Yessir," he continued, once more facing the Mar 
 quesas head-dress. "Yessir, they re queer game down 
 there." 
 
 "In the Marquesas Islands, you mean?" said Wilbur. 
 
 "Yessir, they re queer game. When they ain t 
 tattooin theirselves with Scripture tex s they get from 
 the missionairies, their pullin out the hair all over their 
 bodies with two clamshells. Hair by hair, y under- 
 stan ." 
 
 "Pull n out er hair?" said Wilbur, wondering what 
 was the matter with his tongue. 
 
 "They think it s clever think the women folk 
 like it." 
 
 Wilbur had fancied that the little man had worn a 
 brown sweater when they first met. But now, strangely 
 enough, he was not in the least surprised to see it 
 iridescent like a pigeon s breast. 
 
SHANGHAIED 193 
 
 "Y ever been down that way?" inquired the little 
 man next. 
 
 Wilbur heard the words distinctly enough, but some 
 how they refused to fit into the right place in his brain. 
 He pulled himself together frowning heavily. 
 
 "What did you say?" he asked with great delib 
 eration, biting off his words. Then he noticed that he 
 and his companion were no longer in the barroom, but 
 in a little room back of it. His personality divided 
 itself. There was one Ross Wilbur who could not 
 make his hands go where he wanted them, who said one 
 word when he thought another, and whose legs below 
 the knee were made of solid lead. Then there was 
 another Ross Wilbur Ross Wilbur the alert, who was 
 perfectly clear headed, and who stood off to one side 
 and watched his twin brother making a monkey of him 
 self, without power and without even the desire of 
 helping him. 
 
 This latter Wilbur heard the iridescent sweater say: 
 
 "Bust me, if y a n t squiffy, old man. Stand by a 
 bit an we ll have a ball." 
 
 "Can t have got return exceptionally and the 
 round table pull out hairs wi tu clamsh ls," gabbled 
 Wilbur s stupefied double ; and Wilbur the alert said to 
 himself: "You re not drunk, Ross Wilbur, that s 
 certain; what could they have put in your cocktail?" 
 
 The iridescent sweater stamped twice upon the floor 
 and a trapdoor fell away beneath Wilbur s feet like the 
 drop of a gallows. With the eyes of his undrugged self 
 Wilbur had a glimpse of water below. His elbow struck 
 the floor as he went down, and he fell feet first into a 
 Whitehall boat. He had time to observe two men at 
 the oars and to look between the piles that supported 
 the house above him and catch a glimpse of the bay and 
 a glint of the Contra Costa shore. He was not in the 
 
i 9 4 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 least surprised at what had happened, and made up his 
 mind that it would be a good idea to lie down in the 
 boat and go to sleep. 
 
 Suddenly but how long after his advent into the 
 boat he could not tell his wits began to return and 
 settle themselves, like wild birds flocking again after a 
 scare. Swiftly he took in the scene. The blue water 
 of the bay around him, the deck of a schooner on which 
 he stood, the Whitehall boat alongside, and an enor 
 mous man with a face like a setting moon wrangling 
 with his friend in the sweater no longer iridescent. 
 
 "What do you call it?" shouted the red man. "I 
 want able seamen I don t figger on working this boat 
 with dancing masters, do I ? W T e ain t exactly doing 
 quadrilles on my quarterdeck. If we don t look out 
 we ll step on this thing and break it. It ain t ought to 
 be let around loose without its ma." 
 
 "Rot that," vociferated the brown sweater. "I tell 
 you he s one of the best sailor men on the front. If he 
 ain t we ll forfeit the money. Come on, Captain 
 Kitchell, we made show enough gettin away as it was, 
 and this daytime business ain t our line. D you sign 
 or not ? Here s the advance note. I got to duck my 
 nut or I ll have the patrol boat after me." 
 
 "I ll sign this once, " growled the other, scrawling his 
 name on the note; "but if this swab ain t up to sample, 
 he ll come back by freight, an I ll drop in on mee dear 
 friend Jim when we come back and give him a real nice 
 time, an you can lay to that, Billy Trim. " 
 
 The brown sweater pocketed the note, went over the 
 side, and rowed off. 
 
 Wilbur stood in the waist of a schooner anchored in 
 the stream well off Fisherman s wharf. In the forward 
 part of the schooner a Chinaman in brown duck was 
 mixing paint. Wilbur was conscious that he still wore 
 
SHANGHAIED 195 
 
 his high hat and long coat, but his stick was gone and 
 one gray glove was slit to the button. In front of him 
 towered the enormous red-faced man. A pungent reek 
 of some kind of rancid fat or oil assailed his nostrils. 
 Over by the Alcatraz a ferry-boat whistled for its slip 
 as it elbowed its way through the water. 
 
 Wilbur had himself fairly in hand by now. His wits 
 were all about him; but the situation was beyond him 
 as yet. 
 
 "Git for rd," commanded the big man. 
 
 Wilbur drew himself up, angry in an instant. " Look 
 here," he began, "what s the meaning of this business? 
 I know I ve been drugged and mishandled. 1 demand 
 to be put ashore. Do you understand that ?" 
 
 "Angel child," whimpered the big man. "Oh, you 
 lilee of the vallee, you bright an mornin star. I m 
 reely pained, y know, that your vally can t come along, 
 but we ll have your piano set up in the lazarette. It 
 gives me genuine grief, it do, to see you bein obliged to 
 put your lilee white feet on this here vulgar an dirtee 
 deck. We ll have the Wilton carpet down by to-morr , 
 so we will, my dear. Yah-h !" he suddenly broke out, 
 as his rage boiled over. "Git for rd, d ye hear! I m 
 captain of this here bathtub, an that s all you need to 
 know for a good while to come. I ain t generally got to 
 tell that to a man but once; but I ll stretch the point 
 just for love of you, angel child. Now, then, move ! " 
 
 Wilbur stood motionless puzzled beyond expression. 
 No experience he had ever been through helped in this 
 situation. 
 
 " Look here, " he began, " I " 
 
 The Captain knocked him down with a blow of one 
 enormous fist upon the mouth, and while he was yet 
 stretched upon the deck kicked him savagely in the 
 stomach. Then he allowed him to rise, caught him by 
 
i 9 6 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 the neck and the slack of his overcoat, and ran him for 
 ward to where a hatchway, not two feet across, opened 
 in the deck. Without ado he flung him down into the 
 darkness below; and while Wilbur, dizzied by the fall, 
 sat on the floor at the foot of the vertical companion- 
 ladder, gazing about him with distended eyes, there 
 rained down upon his head, first an oilskin coat, then a 
 sou wester, a pair of oilskin breeches, woolen socks, and 
 a plug of tobacco. Above him, down the contracted 
 square of the hatch, came the bellowing of the Captain s 
 voice: 
 
 "There s your fit-out, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, which 
 the same our dear friend Jim makes a present of and no 
 charge, because he loves you so. You re allowed two 
 minutes to change, an it is to be hoped as how you 
 won t force me to come for to assist. " 
 
 It would have been interesting to have followed, step 
 by step, the mental process that now took place in Ross 
 Wilbur s brain. The Captain had given him two 
 minutes in which to change. The time was short enough 
 but even at that Wilbur changed more than his clothes 
 during the two minutes he was left to himself in the 
 reeking dark of the schooner s forecastle. It was more 
 than a change it was a revolution. What he made up 
 his mind to do precisely what mental attitude he 
 decided to adopt, just what new niche he elected wherein 
 to set his feet, it is difficult to say. Only by results could 
 the change be guessed at. He went down the forward 
 hatch at the toe of Kitchell s boot silk-hatted, melton- 
 overcoated, patent-booted, and gloved in suedes. Two 
 minutes later there emerged upon the deck a figure in 
 oilskins and a sou wester. There was blood upon the 
 face of him and the grime of an unclean ship upon his 
 bare hands. It was Wilbur, and yet not Wilbur. In 
 two minutes he had been, in a way, born again. The 
 
SHANGHAIED 197 
 
 only traces of his former self were the patent-leather 
 boots, still persistent in their gloss and shine, that 
 showed with grim incongruity below the vast compass 
 of the oilskin breeches. 
 
 As Wilbur came on deck he saw the crew of the 
 schooner hurrying forward, six of them, Chinamen 
 every one, in brown jeans and black felt hats. On the 
 quarter-deck stood the Captain, barking his orders. 
 
 " Consider the Lilee of the Vallee, " bellowed the latter 
 as his eye fell upon Wilbur the transformed. "Clap 
 on to that starboard windlass brake, sonny. " 
 
 Wilbur saw the Chinamen ranging themselves about 
 what he guessed was the windlass in the schooner s bow. 
 He followed and took his place among them, grasping 
 one of the bars. 
 
 "Break down!" came the next order. Wilbur and 
 the Chinamen obeyed, bearing up and down upon the 
 bars till the slack of the anchor-chain came home and 
 stretched taut and dripping from the hawse-holes. 
 
 " Vast heavin !" 
 
 And then as Wilbur released the brake and turned 
 about for the next order, he cast a glance out upon the 
 bay, and there, not a hundred and fifty yards away, her 
 spotless sails tense, her cordage humming, her immacu 
 late flanks slipping easily through the waves, the water 
 hissing and churning under her forefoot, clean, gleam 
 ing, dainty, and aristocratic, the Ridgeways yacht, 
 Petrel, passed like a thing of life. Wilbur saw Nat 
 Ridge way himself at the wheel. Girls in smart gowns 
 and young fellows in white ducks and yachting caps 
 all friends of his crowded the decks. A little orchestra 
 of musicians were reeling off a quickstep. 
 
 The popping of a cork and a gale of talk and laughter 
 came to his ears. Wilbur stared at the picture, his face 
 devoid of expression. The Petrel came on drew nearer 
 
i 9 8 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 was not a hundred feet away from the schooner s stern. 
 A strong swimmer, such as Wilbur, could cover the 
 distance in a few strokes. Two minutes ago Wilbur 
 might have 
 
 "Set your mains l," came the bellow of Captain 
 Kitchell. " Clap on to your throat and peak halyards. " 
 
 The Chinamen hurried aft. 
 
 Wilbur followed. 
 
II 
 
 A NAUTICAL EDUCATION 
 
 IN the course of the next few moments, while the 
 little vessel was being got underway, and while the 
 Ridge ways Petrel gleamed off into the blue distance, 
 Wilbur made certain observations. 
 
 The name of the boat on which he found himself was 
 the Bertha Millner. She was a two-topmast, twenty- 
 eight -ton keel schooner, forty feet long, carrying a large 
 spread of sail mainsail, foresail, jib, flying- jib, two 
 gaff -topsails, and a staysail. She was very dirty and 
 smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew 
 were Chinamen; there was no mate. But the cook 
 himself a Chinaman who appeared from time to time 
 at the door of the galley, a potato masher in his hand, 
 seemed to have some sort of authority over the hands. 
 He acted in a manner as a go-between for the Captain 
 and the crew, sometimes interpreting the former s 
 orders, and occasionally giving one of his own. 
 
 Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He 
 spoke pigeon English fairly. Of the balance of the crew 
 the five Chinamen Wilbur could make nothing. 
 They never spoke, neither to Captain Kitchell, to Charlie, 
 nor to one another ; and for all the notice they took of 
 Wilbur he might easily have been a sack of sand. Wilbur 
 felt that his advent on the Bertha Millner was by its very 
 nature an extraordinary event ; but the absolute indiffer 
 ence of these brown-suited Mongols, the blackness of 
 their flat, fat faces, the dullness of their slanting, fish- 
 
 199 
 
200 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 like eyes that never met his own or even wandered in 
 his direction, was uncanny, disquieting. In what 
 strange venture was he now to be involved ; toward what 
 unknown vortex was this new current setting, this 
 current that had so suddenly snatched him from the 
 solid ground of his accustomed life ? 
 
 He told himself grimly that he was to have a free 
 cruise up the bay, perhaps as far as Alviso; perhaps 
 the Bertha Millner would even make the circuit of 
 the bay before returning to San Francisco. He might 
 be gone a week. Wilbur could already see the scare- 
 heads of the daily papers next morning, chronicling 
 the disappearance of "One of Society s Most Popular 
 Members." 
 
 "That s well, y r throat halyards. Here, Lilee of the 
 Vallee, give a couple of pulls on y r peak halyard 
 purchase. " 
 
 Wilbur stared at the Captain helplessly. 
 
 "No can tell, hey?" inquired Charlie from the galley. 
 " Pullum disa lope, sabe ? " 
 
 Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated. 
 
 "That s well, y r peak halyard purchase," chanted 
 Captain Kitchell. 
 
 Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, 
 and hung slatting and flapping in the wind. Next the 
 for sail was set in much the same manner, and Wilbur 
 was ordered to "lay out on the ji boom and cast the 
 gaskets off the jib." He "lay out" as best he could 
 and cast off the gaskets he knew barely enough of 
 yachting to understand an order here and there and 
 by the time he was back on the fo c s le head the China 
 men were at the jib halyard and hoisting away. 
 
 "That s well, y r jib halyards. " 
 
 The Bertha Millner veered round and played off to 
 the wind, tugging at her anchor. 
 
A NAUTICAL EDUCATION 201 
 
 "Man y r windlass. " 
 
 Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes. 
 
 " Brake down, heave y r anchor to the cathead. " 
 
 The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then 
 cranked through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and 
 fell at the brakes. The anchor came home, dripping 
 gray slime. A nor west wind filled the schooner s sails, 
 a strong ebb tide caught her under-foot. 
 
 "We re off," muttered Wilbur, as the Bertha Millner 
 heeled to the first gust. 
 
 But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay. 
 
 " Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then, " hazarded Wilbur, 
 as the sails grew tenser and the water rippled ever 
 louder under the schooner s forefoot. " Maybe they re 
 going after hay or wheat. " 
 
 The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meigg s 
 wharf. She came in closer and closer, so close that 
 Wilbur could hear the talk of the fishermen sitting on 
 the string-pieces. He had just made up his mind that 
 they were to make a landing there, when 
 
 "Standby for stays," came the raucous bark of the 
 Captain, who had taken the wheel. The sails slatted 
 furiously as the schooner came about. Then the Bertha 
 Millner caught the wind again and lay over quietly and 
 contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the 
 schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, 
 the breeze grew stiff and smelt of the outside ocean. Out 
 beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a 
 bleak vista of gray-green water roughened with white- 
 caps. 
 
 " Stand by for stays. " 
 
 Once again, as the rudder went hard over, the Bertha 
 Millner fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling 
 impatiently for the wind, chafing at its absence like a 
 child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped the nor - 
 
202 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and 
 settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit 
 pointing straight toward the Presidio. 
 
 "We ll come about again soon," Wilbur told 
 himself, "and stand over toward the Contra Costa 
 shore. " 
 
 A fine, huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. 
 She heeled it on the instant, the water roaring along her 
 quarter, but she kept her course. Wilbur fell thoughtful 
 again, never more keenly observant. 
 
 "She must come about soon," he muttered uneasily, 
 " if she s going to stand up toward Vallejo. " His heart 
 sank with a sudden apprehension. A nervousness he 
 could not overcome seized upon him. The Bertha Millner 
 held tenaciously to the tack. Within fifty yards of 
 the Presidio came the command again : 
 
 " Stand by for stays. " 
 
 Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, 
 her sails flapping noisily, the schooner came about. 
 Anxiously Wilbur observed the bowsprit as it circled 
 like a hand on a dial, watching where now it would point. 
 It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then settled easily, 
 pointing toward Lime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden 
 coldness at his heart. 
 
 "This isn t going to be so much fun," he muttered 
 between his teeth. The schooner was not bound up the 
 bay for Alviso nor to Vallejo for grain. The track 
 toward Lime Point could mean but one thing. The wind 
 was freshening from the nor west, the ebb tide rushing 
 out to meet the ocean like a mill-race, at every moment 
 the Golden Gate opened out wider, and within two 
 minutes after the time of the last tack the Bertha Millner 
 heeled to a great gust that had come booming in between 
 the heads, straight from the open Pacific. 
 
 " Stand by for stays. " 
 
A NAUTICAL EDUCATION 203 
 
 As before, one of the Chinese hands stood bv the sail 
 rope of the jib. 
 
 "Draw y r jib." 
 
 The jib filled. The schooner came about on the port 
 tack; Lime Point fell away over the stern rail. The 
 huge ground-swells began to come in, and as she rose 
 and bowed to the first of these it was precisely as though 
 the Bertha Millner were making her courtesy to the 
 great gray ocean, now for the first time in full sight of her 
 starboard quarter. 
 
 The schooner was beating out to sea through the 
 Middle Channel. Once clear of the Golden Gate, she 
 stood over toward the Cliff House, then on the next 
 tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began building up 
 in deadly earnest they were about to cross the bar. 
 Everything was battened down, the scuppers were awash, 
 and the hawse-holes spouted like fountains after every 
 plunge. Once the Captain ordered all men aloft, just in 
 time to escape a gigantic dull-green roller that broke 
 like a Niagara over the schooner s bows, smothering the 
 decks knee-deep in a twinkling. 
 
 The wind blew violent and cold, the spray was flying 
 like icy small-shot. Without intermission the Bertha 
 Millner rolled and plunged and heaved and sank. 
 Wilbur was drenched to the skin and sore in every joint, 
 from being shunted from rail to mast and from mast 
 to rail again. The cordage sang like harp-strings, the 
 schooner s forefoot crushed down into the heaving water 
 with a hissing like that of steam, blocks rattled, the 
 Captain bellowed his orders, rope-ends flogged the hollow 
 deck till it reverberated like a drumhead. The crossing 
 of the bar was one long half -hour of confusion and dis 
 cordant sound. 
 
 When they were across the bar the Captain ordered 
 the cook to give the men their food. 
 
204 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Git for rd, sonny," he added, fixing Wilbur with his 
 eye. "Git for rd, this is tawble dee hote, savy?" 
 
 Wilbur crawled forward on the reeling deck, holding 
 on now to a mast, now to a belaying-pin, now to a stay, 
 watching his chance and going on between the inebriated 
 plunges of the schooner. 
 
 He descended the fo c s le hatch. The Chinamen were 
 already there, sitting on the edge of their bunks. On 
 the floor, at the bottom of the ladder, punk-sticks were 
 burning in an old tomato can. 
 
 Charlie brought in supper stewed beef and pork in a 
 bread-pan and a wooden kit and the Chinamen ate it 
 in silence with their sheath-knives and from tin plates. 
 A liquid that bore a distant resemblance to coffee was 
 served. Wilbur learned afterward to know the stuff as 
 Black Jack, and to be aware that it was made from bud 
 barley and was sweetened with molasses. A single 
 reeking lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner 
 over the centre of the group, and long afterward Wilbur 
 could remember the grisly scene the punk-sticks, the 
 bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid close and 
 oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied Chinese, 
 each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork 
 and holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet 
 against the rolling of the boat. 
 
 Wilbur looked fearfully at the mess in the pan, recall 
 ing the chocolate and stuffed olives that had been his last 
 luncheon. 
 
 "Well," he muttered, clenching his teeth, "I ve got 
 to come to it sooner or later. " His penknife was in the 
 pocket of his waistcoat underneath his oilskin coat. 
 He opened the big blade, harpooned a cube of pork, 
 and deposited it on his tin plate. He ate it slowly and 
 with savage determination. But the Black Jack was 
 more than he could bear. 
 
A NAUTICAL EDUCATION 205 
 
 "I m not hungry enough for that just now," 
 he told himself. "Say, Jim," he said, turning to 
 the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge, "say, 
 what kind of boat is this ? What you do where 
 you go ? " 
 
 The other moved away impatiently. 
 
 "No sabe, no sabe," he answered, shaking his head 
 and frowning. Throughout the whole of that strange 
 meal these were the only words spoken. 
 
 When Wilbur came on deck again he noted that the 
 Bertha Millner had already left the whistling buoy astern. 
 Off to the east, her sails just showing above the waves, 
 was a pilot -boat with the number " 7 " on her mainsail. 
 The evening was closing in ; the Farallones were in plain 
 sight dead ahead. Far behind, in a mass of shadow just 
 bluer than the sky, he could make out a few twinkling 
 lights San Francisco. 
 
 Half an hour later Kitchell came on deck from his 
 supper in cabin aft. He glanced in the direction of the 
 mainland, now almost out of sight, then took the wheel 
 from one of the Chinamen and commanded: "Ease off 
 y r fore an main sheets." The hands eased away and 
 the schooner played off before the wind. 
 
 The staysail was set. The Bertha Millner headed to 
 southwest, bowing easily ahead of a good eight -knot 
 breeze. 
 
 Next came the order "All hands aft!" and Wilbur 
 and his mates betook themselves to the quarterdeck. 
 Charlie took the wheel, and he and Kitchell began to 
 choose the men for their watches, just as Wilbur 
 remembered to have chosen sides for baseball during 
 his school-days. 
 
 "Sonny, I ll choose you; you re on my watch, "said 
 the Captain to Wilbur, "and I will assoom the ree- 
 sponsibility of your nautical eddoocation. " 
 
206 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 " I may as well tell you at once, " began Wilbur, "that 
 I m no sailor." 
 
 "But you will be soon," answered the Captain, at 
 once soothing and threatening; "you will be, Mister 
 Lilee of the Vallee, you can lay to it, as how you will be 
 one of the best sailor men along the front, as our dear 
 friend Jim says. Before I git throo with you, you ll be 
 a sailor man or shark-bait, I can promise you. You re 
 on my watch; step over here, son." 
 
 The watches were divided, Charlie and three other 
 Chinamen, on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two 
 Chinamen on the starboard. The men trooped forward 
 again. 
 
 The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet. 
 The Bertha Millner was now clear of land, that lay like a 
 blur of faintest purple smoke ever growing fainter 
 low in the east. The Farallones showed but their 
 shoulders above the horizon. The schooner was stand 
 ing well out from shore even beyond the track of the 
 coasters and passenger steamers to catch the trades 
 from the northwest. The sun was setting royally, and 
 the floor of the ocean shimmered like mosaic. The sea 
 had gone down and the fury of the bar was a, thing for 
 gotten. It was preceptibly warmer. 
 
 On board, the two watches mingled forward, smoking 
 opium and playing a game that looked like checkers. 
 Three of them were washing down the decks with kaiar 
 brooms. For the first time since he had come on board 
 Wilbur heard the sound of their voices. 
 
 The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilbur s 
 eyes had the Pacific appeared so vast, so radiant, so 
 divinely beautiful. A star or two burned slowly 
 through that part of the sky where the pink began to 
 fade into the blue. Charlie went forward and set the 
 side lights red on the port rigging, green on the star- 
 
A NAUTICAL EDUCATION 207 
 
 board. As he passed Wilbur, who was leaning over the 
 rail and watching the phosphorus flashing just under 
 the surface, he said: 
 
 "Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy 
 B oss chin-chin . 
 
 Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where 
 Kitchell stood at the wheel, smoking an inverted 
 "Tarrier s Delight." 
 
 "Now, son," began Kitchell, "I natch ly love you so 
 that I m goin to do you a reel favour, do you twig? 
 I m goin to allow you to berth aft in the cabin, long o 
 me an Charlie, an beesides you can make free of my 
 quarterdeck. Mebbee you ain t used to the ways of 
 sailor men just yet, but you can lay it to that those two 
 are reel concessions, savvy? I ain t a mush-head, like 
 mee dear friend Jim. You ain t no water-front swine, 
 I can guess that with one hand tied beehind me. You re 
 a toff, that s what you are, and your lines has been 
 laid for toffs. I ain t askin you no questions, but you 
 got brains, an I figger on gettin more out a you by 
 lettin you have y r head a bit. But mind, now, you get 
 gay once, sonny, or try to flimflam me, or forget that 
 I m the boss of the bathtub, an strike me blind, I ll cut 
 you open, an you can lay to that, son. Now, then, here s 
 the game: You work this boat long with the coolies, 
 an take my orders, an walk chalk, an I ll teach you 
 navigation, an make this cruise as easy as how-do- 
 you-do. You don t, an I ll man-handle you till y r 
 bones come throo y r hide." 
 
 "I ve no choice in the matter," said Wilbur. "I ve 
 got to make the best of a bad situation." 
 
 "I reemarked as how you had brains," muttered 
 the Captain. 
 
 "But there s one thing," continued Wilbur; "if I m 
 to have my head a little, as you say, you ll find we can 
 
208 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 get along better if you put me to rights about this 
 whole business. Why was I brought aboard, why are 
 there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are 
 we going to do, and how long are we going to be gone ?" 
 
 Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the 
 nicotine from his mustache. 
 
 "Well," he said, resuming his pipe, "it s like this, son. 
 "This ship belongs to one of the Six Chinese companies 
 of Chinatown in Frisco. Charlie, here, is one of the 
 shareholders in the business. We go down here twice a 
 year off Cape Sain* Lucas, Lower California, an fish for 
 blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch em. We get the 
 livers of these an try out the oil, an we bring back 
 that same oil, an the Chinamen sell it all over San 
 Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy? An it 
 pays like a nitrate bed. I come in because it s a Custom- 
 House regulation that no coolie can take a boat out of 
 Frisco." 
 
 "And how do I come in?" asked Wilbur. 
 
 "Mee dear friend Jim put a knock-me-out drop into 
 your Manhattan cocktail. It s a capsule filled with a 
 drug. You were shanghaied, son," said the Captain, 
 blandly. 
 
 About an hour later Wilbur turned in. Kitchell 
 showed him his bunk with its "donkey s breakfast" 
 and single ill-smelling blanket. It was located under 
 the companion-way that led down into the cabin. 
 Kitchell bunked on one side, Charlie on the other. A 
 hacked deal table, covered with oilcloth and ironed to 
 the floor, a swinging-lamp, two chairs, a rack of books, 
 a chest or two, and a flaring picture cut from the adver 
 tisement of a ballet, was the room s inventory in the 
 matter of furniture and ornament. 
 
 Wilbur sat on the edge of his bunk before undressing, 
 
A NAUTICAL EDUCATION 209 
 
 reviewing the extraordinary events of the day. In a 
 moment he was aware of a movement in one of the other 
 two bunks, and presently made out Charlie lying on his 
 side and holding in the flame of an alcohol lamp a skewer 
 on which some brown and sticky stuff boiled and sizzled. 
 He transferred the stuff to the bowl of a huge pipe and 
 drew on it noisily once or twice. In another moment 
 he had sunk back in his bunk, nearly senseless, but with 
 a long breath of an almost blissful contentment. 
 
 "Beast !" muttered Wilbur, with profound disgust. 
 
 He threw off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of 
 his waistcoat (which he had retained when he had 
 changed his clothes in the fo c s le) for his watch. He 
 drew it out. It was just nine o clock. All at once 
 an idea occurred to him. He fumbled in another pocket 
 of the waistcoat and brought out one of his calling-cards. 
 
 For a moment Wilbur remained motionless, seated on 
 the bunk-ledge, smiling grimly, while his glance wandered 
 now to the sordid cabin of the Bertha Millner and the 
 opium-drugged coolie sprawled on the donkey s break 
 fast," and now to the card in his hand on which a few 
 hours ago he had written: 
 
 "First waltz Jo." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE LADY LETTY 
 
 ANOTHER day passed, then two. Before Wilbur 
 knew it he had settled himself to his new life, and woke 
 one morning to the realization that he was positively 
 enjoying himself. Daily the weather grew warmer. 
 The fifth day out from San Francisco it was actually 
 hot. The pitch grew soft in the Bertha Millner s deck 
 seams, the masts sweated resin. The Chinamen went 
 about the decks wearing but their jeans and blouses. 
 Kitchell had long since abandoned his coat and vest. 
 Wilbur s oilskins became intolerable, and he was at 
 last constrained to trade his pocket-knife to Charlie for 
 a suit of jeans and wicker sandals, such as the coolies 
 wore and odd enough he looked in them. 
 
 The Captain instructed him in steering, and even 
 promised to show him the use of the sextant and how to 
 take an observation in the fake short and easy coasting 
 style of navigation. Furthermore, he showed him how 
 to read the log and the manner of keeping the dead 
 reckoning. 
 
 During most of his watches Wilbur was engaged in 
 painting the inside of the cabin, door panels, lintels, and 
 the few scattered moldings; and toward the middle of 
 the first week out, when the Bertha Millner was in the 
 latitude of Point Conception, he and three Chinamen, 
 under Kitchell s direction, ratlined down the forerigging 
 and affixed the crow s nest upon the for mast. The next 
 morning, during Charlie s watch on deck, a Chinaman was 
 
 210 
 
THE LADY LETTY 211 
 
 sent up into the crow s nest, and from that time there 
 was always a lookout maintained from the masthead. 
 
 More than once Wilbur looked around him at the 
 empty coruscating indigo of the ocean floor, wondering 
 at the necessity of the lookout, and finally expressed his 
 curiosity to Kitchell. The Captain had by now taken 
 not a little to Wilbur ; at first for the sake of a white man s 
 company, and afterward because he began to place a 
 certain vague reliance upon Wilbur s judgment. Kitchell 
 had ree-marked as how he had brains. 
 
 "Well, you see, son," Kitchell had explained to 
 Wilbur, os-tensiblee we are after shark-liver oil and 
 so we are; but also we are on any lay that turns up; 
 ready for any game, from wrecking to barratry. Strike 
 me, if I haven t thought of scuttling the dough-dish for 
 her insoorance. There s regular trade, son, to be done 
 in ships, and then there s pickin s, an pickin s. Lord, 
 the ocean s rich with pickin s. Do you know there s 
 millions made out of the day-bree and refuse of a big 
 city? How about an ocean s day-bree, just chew on 
 that notion a turn; an as fur a lookout, lemmee tell you, 
 son, cast your eye out yon, " and he swept the sea with a 
 forearm; "nothin , hey, so it looks, but lemmee tell you, 
 son, there ain t no manner of place on the ball of dirt 
 where you re likely to run up afoul of so many things 
 unexpected things as at sea. When you re clear o 
 land lay to this here pree-cep , A million to one on the 
 unexpected. 
 
 The next day fell almost dead calm. The hale, lusty- 
 lunged nor wester that had snorted them forth from the 
 Golden Gate had lapsed to a zephyr, the schooner rolled 
 lazily southward with the leisurely nonchalance of a 
 grazing ox. At noon, just after dinner, a few cat s-paws 
 cuddled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy surface, 
 and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow- 
 
2 1 2 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a 
 spinning brass discus over the mainmast. On the 
 fo c s le head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking 
 opium. It was Charlie s watch. Kitchell dozed in his 
 hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet. Wilbur was 
 below tinkering with his paint-pot about the cabin. 
 The stillness was profound. It was the stillness of the 
 summer sea at high noon. 
 
 The lookout in the crow s nest broke the quiet. 
 
 "Hy-yah, hy-yah !" he cried, leaning from the barrel 
 and calling through an arched palm. "Hy-yah, one, 
 two, plenty, many tortle, topside wattah; hy-yah, all- 
 same tortle. " 
 
 " Hallo, hallo!" cried the Captain, rolling from his 
 hammock . Turtle ? Wher e-away ? 
 
 "I tink-um bout quallah mile, meb-bee, four-piecee 
 tortle all-same weatha bow. " 
 
 "Turtle, hey? Down y r wheel, Jim; haul y r jib to 
 win ward," he commanded the man at the wheel; then 
 to the men forward: "Get the dory overboard. Son, 
 Charlie, and you, Wing, tumble in. Wake up, now, and 
 see you stay so." 
 
 The dory was swung over the side, and the men 
 dropped into her and took their places at the oars. 
 "Give way," cried the Captain, settling himself in 
 the bow with the gaff in his hand. "Hey, Jim!" he 
 shouted to the lookout far above, "hey, lay our course 
 for us." 
 
 The lookout nodded, the oars fell, and the dory 
 shot forward in the direction indicated by the lookout. 
 
 "Kin you row, son?" asked Kitchell, with sudden 
 suspicion. Wilbur smiled. 
 
 "You ask Charlie and Wing to ship their oars and 
 give me a pair. " 
 
 The Captain complied, hesitating. 
 
THE LADY LETTY 213 
 
 "Now, what," he said grimly, "now, what do you 
 think you re going to do, sonny?" 
 
 "I m going to show you the Bob Cook stroke we used 
 in our boat in 95, when we beat Harvard," answered 
 Wilbur. 
 
 Kitchell gazed doubtfully at the first few strokes, then 
 with growing interest watched the tremendous reach, 
 the powerful knee-drive, the swing, the easy catch, and 
 the perfect recover. The dory was cutting the water 
 like a gasoline launch, and between strokes there was the 
 least possible diminishing of the speed. 
 
 "I m a bit out of form just now," remarked Wilbur, 
 "and I m used to the sliding seat; but I guess it ll do." 
 Kitchell glanced at the human machine that once was 
 No. 5 in the Yale boat, and then at the water hissing from 
 the dory s bows. " My Gawd ! " he said, under his breath. 
 He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine from his 
 mustache, thoughtfully. "I ree-marked, " he observed, 
 "as how you had brains, my son. " 
 
 A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in 
 the dory s bow and alternately conning the ocean s sur 
 face and looking back to the Chinaman standing on the 
 schooner s masthead, uttered an exclamation: 
 
 "Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn 
 fools ! We re right on em four, by Gawd, an big as 
 dinin -tables !" 
 
 The oars were shipped. The dory s speed dwindled. 
 "Out your paddles, sit on the gun l, and paddle 
 ee-asy. " 
 
 The hands obeyed. The Captain s voice dropped to 
 a whisper. His back was toward them and he gestured 
 with one free hand. Looking out over the water from 
 his seat on the gun l, Wilbur could make out a round, 
 greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under 
 the surface, some sixty yards ahead. 
 
2 1 4 MORAN OF THE LADY LETT Y 
 
 "Easy sta board, " whispered the Captain under his 
 elbow. "Go ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady." 
 
 The affair began to assume the intensity of a little 
 drama a little drama of midocean. In spite of himself, 
 Wilbur was excited. He even found occasion to observe 
 that the life was not so bad, after all. This was as good 
 fun as stalking deer. The dory moved forward by 
 inches. Kitchen s whisper was as faint as a dying 
 infant s: "Steady all, s-stead-ee, sh-stead " 
 
 He lunged forward sharply with the gaff, and shouted 
 aloud: "I got him grab holt his tail nippers, you fool 
 swabs; grab holt quick don t you leggo got him 
 there, Charlie? If he gets away, you swine, I ll rip y 
 open with the gaff ! Heave now heave there there 
 soh, stand clear his nippers. Strike me ! he s a 
 whacker. I thought he was going to get away. Saw 
 me just as I swung the gaff, an ducked his nut." 
 
 Over the side, bundled without ceremony into the 
 boat, clawing, thrashing, clattering, and blowing like 
 the exhaust of a donkey-engine, tumbled the great 
 green turtle, his wet, green shield of shell three feet 
 from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, 
 just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell 
 protruded his snake-like head and neck, withered like 
 that of an old man. He was waving his head from 
 side to side, the jaws snapping like a snapped silk hand 
 kerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. 
 The turtle craned his neck, and, catching the bit of wood 
 in his jaw, bit it in two in a single grip. 
 
 "I to! you so, I tol you to stand clear his snapper. 
 If that had been your shin now, eh ? Hallo, what s that ?" 
 
 Faintly across the water came a prolonged hallooing 
 from the schooner. Kitchell stood up in the dory, 
 shading his eyes with his hat. 
 
 "What s biting em now?" he muttered, with the 
 
THE LADY LETTY 215 
 
 uneasiness of a captain away from his ship. "Oughta 
 left Charlie on board or you, son. Who s doin that 
 yellin , I can t make out." 
 
 "Up in the crow s nest," exclaimed Wilbur. "It s 
 Jim; see, he s waving his arms." 
 
 "Well, whaduz he wave his dam fool arms for?" 
 growled Kitchell, angry because something was going 
 forward he did not understand. 
 
 "There, he s shouting again. Listen I can t make 
 out what he s yelling." 
 
 "He ll yell to a different pipe when I get my grip of 
 him. I ll twist the head of that swab till he ll have 
 to walk back ard to see where he s goin . Whaduz 
 he wave his arms for whaduz he yell like a dam 
 phillyloo bird for? What s him say, Charlie?" 
 
 "Jim heap sing, no can tell. Mebbee tinkum sing, 
 come back chop-chop." 
 
 "We ll see. Oars out, men, give way. Now, son, put 
 a little o that Yale stingo in the stroke." 
 
 In the crow s nest Jim still yelled and waved like 
 one distraught, while the dory returned at a smart clip 
 toward the schooner. Kitchell lathered with fury. 
 
 "Oh-h," he murmured softly through his gritted 
 teeth. "Jess lemmee lay mee two hands afoul of you 
 wunst, you gibbering, yellow phillyloo bird, believe me, 
 you ll dance. Shut up !" he roared; "shut up, you crazy 
 do-do, ain t we coming fast as we can?" 
 
 The dory bumped alongside, and the Captain was over 
 the rail like quicksilver. The hands were all in the 
 bow, looking and pointing to the west. Jim slid down 
 the ratlines, bubbling over with suppressed news. 
 Before his feet had touched the deck Kitchell had 
 kicked him into the stays again, fulminating blasphemies. 
 
 "Sing!" he shouted, as the Chinaman clambered 
 away like a bewildered ape; "sing a little more. I 
 
2 i6 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 would if I were you. Why don t you sing and wave, 
 you dam fool phillyloo bird?" 
 
 "Yes, sah," answered the coolie. 
 
 "What you yell for? Charlie, ask him whaffo him 
 sing." 
 
 "I tink-um ship," answered Charlie calmly, looking 
 out over the starboard quarter. 
 
 "Ship !" 
 
 "Him velly sick," hazarded the Chinaman from 
 the ratlines, adding a sentence in Chinese to Charlie. 
 
 "He says he tink-um ship sick, all same; ask um 
 something ship velly sick." 
 
 By this time the Captain, Wilbur, and all on board 
 could plainly make out a sail some eight miles off the 
 starboard bow. Even at that distance, and to eyes 
 so inexperienced as those of Wilbur, it needed but a 
 glance to know that something was wrong with her. It 
 was not that she failed to ride the waves with even 
 keel, it was not that her rigging was in disarray, nor 
 that her sails were disordered. Her distance was too 
 great to make out such details. But in precisely the 
 same manner as a trained physician glances at a doomed 
 patient, and from that indefinable look in the face of 
 him and the eyes of him pronounces the verdict "death," 
 so Kitchell took in the stranger with a single compre 
 hensive glance, and exclaimed: 
 
 "Wreck!" 
 
 "Yas, sah. I tink-um velly cick." 
 
 "Oh, go to 11, or go below and fetch up my glass 
 hustle!" 
 
 The glass was brought. "Son," exclaimed Kitchell 
 "where is that man with the brains? Son, come aloft 
 here with me." The two clambered up the ratlines to 
 the crow s nest. Kitchell adjusted the glass. 
 
 "She s a bark," he muttered, "iron built about 
 
THE LADY LETTY 217 
 
 seven hundred tons, I guess in distress. There s her 
 ensign upside down at the mizz nhead looks like 
 Norway an her distress signals on the spanker gaff. 
 Take a blink at her, son what do you make her out ? 
 Lord, she s ridin high." 
 
 Wilbur took the glass, catching the stranger after 
 several clumsy attempts. She was, as Captain Kitchell 
 had announced, a bark, and, to judge by her flag, evi 
 dently Norwegian. 
 
 "How she rolls !" muttered Wilbur. 
 
 "That s what I can t make out," answered Kitchell. 
 "A bark such as she ain t ought to roll thata way; her 
 ballast d steady her." 
 
 "What s the flags on that boom aft one s red and 
 white and square-shaped, and the other s the same 
 colour, only swallow-tail in shape?" 
 
 "That s H. B., meanin : I am in need of assistance. 
 
 "Well, where s the crew? I don t see anybody on 
 board." 
 
 "Oh, they re there right enough." 
 
 "Then they re pretty well concealed about the prem 
 ises," returned Wilbur, as he passed the glass to the 
 Captain. 
 
 "She does seem kinda empty," said the Captain in a 
 moment, with a sudden show of interest that Wilbur 
 failed to understand. 
 
 "An where s her boats?" continued Kitchell. "I 
 don t just quite make out any boats at all." There 
 was a long silence. 
 
 "Seems to be a sort of haze over her," observed 
 Wilbur. 
 
 "I noticed that, air kinda quivers oily-like. No boats, 
 no boats an I can t see anybody aboard." Suddenly 
 Kitchell lowered the glass and turned to Wilbur. He 
 was a different man. There was a new shine in liis eyes, 
 
2 1 8 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 a wicked line appeared over the nose, the jaw grew 
 salient, prognathous. 
 
 "Son," he exclaimed, gimleting Wilbur with his con 
 tracted eyes; " I have ree-marked as how you had brains. 
 I kin fool the coolies, but I can t fool you. It looks to 
 me as jf that bark yonder was a derelict; an do you 
 know what that means to us ? Chaw on it a turn. " 
 
 "A derelict?" 
 
 "If there s a crew on board they re concealed from the 
 public gaze an where are the boats then? I figger 
 she s an abandoned derelict. Do you know what that 
 means for us for you and I ? It means, " and gripping 
 Wilbur by the shoulders, he spoke the word into his 
 face with a savage intensity. "It means salvage, do 
 you savvy? salvage, salvage. Do you figure what 
 salvage on a seven-hundred-tonner would come to? 
 Well, just lemmee drop it into your think tank, an lay 
 to what I say. It s all the ways from fifty to seventy 
 thousand dollars, whatever her cargo is; call it sixty 
 thousand thirty thou apiece. Oh, I don t know!" 
 he exclaimed, lapsing to landsman s slang. "Wha d I 
 say about a million to one on the unexpected at sea ? " 
 
 "Thirty thousand!" exclaimed Wilbur, without 
 thought as yet. 
 
 "Now y r singin songs," cried the Captain. "Listen 
 to me, son, " he went on, rapidly shutting up the glass 
 and thrusting it back in the case; "my name s Kitchell, 
 and I m hog right through. " He emphasized the words 
 with a leveled forefinger, his eyes flashing. "H O G 
 spells very truly yours, Alvinza Kitchell ninety-nine 
 swine an me make a hundred swine. I m a shoat with 
 both feet in the trough, first, last, an always. If that 
 bark s abandoned, an I says she is, she s ours. I m 
 out for anything that there s stuff in. I guess I m more 
 of a beachcomber by nature than anything else. If 
 
THE LADY LETTY 219 
 
 she s abandoned she belongs to us. To 11 with this coolie 
 game. We ll go beachcombin , you an I. We ll board 
 that bark and work her into the nearest port San Diego, 
 I guess and get the salvage on her if we have to swim 
 in her. Are you with me? " he held out his hand. The 
 man was positively trembling from head to heel. It 
 was impossible to resist the excitement of the situation, 
 its novelty the high crow s nest of the schooner, the 
 keen salt air, the Chinamen grouped far below, the 
 indigo of the warm ocean, and out yonder the forsaken 
 derelict, rolling her light hull till the garboard streak 
 flashed in the sun. 
 
 "Well, of course, I m with you, Cap," exclaimed 
 Wilbur, gripping Kitchell s hand. "When there s 
 thirty thousand to be had for the asking I guess I m a 
 na chel bawn beachcomber myself. " 
 
 "Now, nothing about this to the coolies. " 
 
 "But how will you make out with your owners, the 
 Six Companies ? Aren t you bound to bring the Bertha 
 in?" 
 
 "Rot my owners!" exclaimed Kitchell. "I ain t 
 a skipper of no oil-boat any longer. I m a beach 
 comber." He fixed the wallowing bark with glistening 
 eyes. "Gawd strike me," he murmured, "ain t she a 
 daisy? It s a little Klondike. Come on, son. " 
 
 The two went down the ratlines, and Kitchell ordered 
 a couple of the hands into the dory that had been rowing 
 astern. He and Wilbur followed. Charlie was left on 
 board, with direction to lay the schooner to. The dory 
 flew over the water, Wilbur setting the stroke. In a 
 few moments she was well up with the bark. Though 
 a larger boat than the Bertha Millner, she was rolling in 
 lamentable fashion, and every laboring heave showed 
 her bottom encrusted with barnacles and seaweed. 
 
 Her fore and main tops ls and to gallants Is were set, 
 
220 MORAN OP THE LADY LETTY 
 
 as also were her lower stays ls and royals. But the 
 braces seemed to have parted, and the yards were swing 
 ing back and forth in their ties. The spanker was brailed 
 up, and the spanker boom thrashed idly over the poop 
 as the bark rolled and rolled and rolled. The mainmast 
 was working in its shoe, the rigging and backstays 
 sagged. An air of abandonment, of unspeakable loneli 
 ness, of abomination hung about her. Never had 
 Wilbur seen anything more utterly alone. Within three 
 lengths the Captain rose in his place and shouted : 
 
 "Bark ahoy!" There was no answer. Thrice he 
 repeated the call, and thrice the dismal thrashing of the 
 spanker boom and the flapping of the sails was the only 
 answer. Kitchell turned to Wilbur in triumph. "I 
 guess she s ours," he whispered. They were now close 
 enough to make out the bark s name upon her counter : 
 Lady Letty, and Wilbur was in the act of reading it aloud 
 when a huge brown dorsal fin, like the triangular sail of 
 a lugger, cut the water between the dory and the 
 bark. 
 
 "Shark!" said Kitchell; "and there s another;" he 
 exclaimed in the next instant, "and another! Strike 
 me, the water s alive with em ! There s a stiff on the 
 bark, you can lay to that;" and at that, acting on some 
 strange impulse, he called again, "Bark ahoy!" There 
 was no response. 
 
 The dory was now well up to the derelict and pretty 
 soon a prolonged and vibratory hissing noise, strident, 
 insistent, smote upon their ears. 
 
 "What s that?" exclaimed Wilbur, perplexed. The 
 Captain shook his head, and just then, as the bark rolled 
 almost to her scuppers in their direction, a glimpse of 
 the deck was presented to their view. It was only a 
 glimpse, gone on the instant, as the bark rolled back to 
 port, but it was time enough for Wilbur and the Captain 
 
THE LADY LETTY 221 
 
 to note the parted and open seams and the deck bulging 
 and in one corner blown up and splintered. 
 
 The Captain smote a thigh. 
 
 "Coal!" he cried. Anthracite coal. The coal he t 
 up and generated gas, of course no fire, y understand, 
 just gas gas blew up the deck no way of stopping 
 combustion. Naturally they had to cut for it. Smell 
 the gas, can t you? No wonder she s hissing no 
 wonder she rolled cargo goes off in gas and what s to 
 weigh her down ? I was wondering what could a wrecked 
 her in this weather. Lord, it s as plain as Billy-b damn." 
 
 The dory was alongside. Kitchell watched his chance, 
 and as the bark rolled down caught the mainyard-brace 
 hanging in a bight over the rail and swung himself to the 
 deck. "Look sharp!" he called as Wilbur followed. 
 "It won t do for you to fall among them shark, son. 
 Just look at the hundreds of em. There s a stiff on 
 board, sure." 
 
 Wilbur steadied himself on the swaying broken deck, 
 choking against the reek of coal-gas that hissed upward 
 on every hand. The heat was almost like a furnace. 
 Everything metal was intolerable to the touch. 
 
 "She s abandoned, sure," muttered the Captain. 
 "Look," and he pointed to the empty chocks on the 
 house and the severed lashings. "Oh, it s a haul, son; 
 it s a haul, an you can lay to that. Now, then, cabin 
 first," and he started aft. 
 
 But it was impossible to go into the cabin. The 
 moment the door was opened suffocating billows of gas 
 rushed out and beat them back. On the third trial the 
 Captain staggered out, almost overcome with its volume. 
 
 "Can t get in there for awhile yet," he gasped, "but 
 I saw the stiff on the floor by the table; looks like the 
 old man. He s spit his false teeth out. I knew there 
 was a stiff aboard." 
 
222 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Then there s more than one," said Wilbur. "See 
 there!" From behind the wheel-box in the stern 
 protruded a hand and forearm in an oilskin sleeve. 
 
 Wilbur ran up, peered over the little space between 
 the wheel and the wheel-box, and looked straight into 
 a pair of eyes eyes that were alive. Kitchell came up. 
 
 "One left, anyhow," he muttered, looking over 
 Wilbur s shoulder; "sailor man, though; can t interfere 
 with our salvage. The bark s derelict, right enough. 
 Shake him out of there, son; can t you see, the lad s 
 dotty with the gas?" 
 
 Cramped into the narrow space of the wheel-box 
 like a terrified hare in a blind burrow was the figure 
 of a young boy. So firmly was he wedged into the corner 
 that Kitchell had to kick down the box before he could 
 be reached. The boy spoke no word. Stupefied with 
 the gas, he watched them with vacant eyes. 
 
 Wilbur put a hand under the lad s arm and got him 
 to his feet. He was a tall, well-made fellow, with ruddy 
 complexion and milk-blue eyes, and was dressed, as if 
 for heavy weather, in oilskins. 
 
 "Well, sonny, you ve had a fine mess aboard here," 
 said Kitchell. The boy he might have been two and 
 twenty stared and frowned. 
 
 "Clean loco from the gas. Get him into the dory, 
 son. I ll try this bloody cabin again." 
 
 Kitchell turned back and descended from the poop, 
 and Wilbur, his arm around the boy, followed. Kitchell 
 was already out of hearing, and Wilbur was bracing 
 himself upon the rolling deck, steadying the young 
 fellow at his side, when the latter heaved a deep breath. 
 His throat and breast swelled. Wilbur stared sharply, 
 with a muttered exclamation. 
 
 "My God, it s a girl !" he said. 
 
IV 
 
 MORAN 
 
 MEANWHILE Charlie had brought the Bertha Millner 
 up to within hailing distance of the bark, and had hove 
 her to. Kitchell ordered Wilbur to return to the schooner 
 and bring over a couple of axes. 
 
 "We ll have to knock holes all through the house, 
 and break in the skylights, and let the gas escape before 
 we can do anything. Take the kid over and give him 
 whisky; then come along back and bear a hand." 
 
 Wilbur had considerable difficulty in getting into the 
 dory from the deck of the plunging derelict with his 
 dazed and almost helpless charge. Even as he slid 
 down the rope into the little boat and helped the girl to 
 follow, he was aware of two dull, brownish-green shad 
 ows moving just beneath the water s surface not ten 
 feet away, and knew that he was being stealthily watched. 
 The Chinamen at the oars of the dory, with that extra 
 ordinary absence of curiosity which is the mark of the 
 race, did not glance a second time at the survivor of the 
 Lady Letty s misadventure. To them it was evident she 
 was but a for mast hand. However, Wilbur examined 
 her with extraordinary interest as she sat in the stern 
 sheets, sullen, half-defiant, half -bewildered, and bereft 
 of speech. 
 
 She was not pretty she was too tall for that quite 
 as tall as Wilbur himself, and her skeleton was too 
 massive. Her face was red, and the glint of blue ice 
 was in her eyes. The eyelashes and eyebrows, as well 
 
 223 
 
224 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 as the almost imperceptible down that edged her cheek 
 when she turned against the light, were blond almost 
 to whiteness. What beauty she had was of the fine, 
 hardy Norse type. Her hands were red and hard, and 
 even beneath the coarse sleeve of the oilskin coat one 
 could infer that the biceps and deltoids were large and 
 powerful. She was coarse-fiber ed, no doubt, mentally 
 as well as physically, but her coarseness, so Wilbur 
 guessed, would prove to be the coarseness of a primitive 
 rather than of a degenerate character. 
 
 One thing he saw clearly during the few moments of 
 the dory s trip between bark and schooner the fact 
 that his charge was a woman must be kept from Captain 
 Kitchell. Wilbur knew his man by now. It could 
 be done. Kitchell and he would take the Lady Letty 
 into the nearest port as soon as possible. The 
 deception would have to be maintained only for a day 
 or two. 
 
 He left the girl on board the schooner and returned to 
 the derelict with the axes. He found Kitchell on the 
 house, just returned from a hasty survey of the prize. 
 
 "She s a daisy," vociferated the Captain, as Wilbur 
 came aboard. "I ve been havin a look round. She s 
 brand new. See the date on the capst n-head? Chris- 
 tiania is her hailin port built there; but it s her papers 
 I m after. Then we ll know where we re at. How s 
 the kid?" 
 
 "She s all right," answered Wilbur, before he could 
 collect his thoughts. But the Captain thought he had 
 reference to the Bertha. 
 
 "I mean the kid we found in the wheel-box. He 
 doesn t count in our salvage. The bark s been aban 
 doned as plain as paint. If I thought he stood in our 
 way," and Kitchell s jaw grew salient, "I d shut him 
 in the cabin with the old man a spell, till he d copped 
 
MORAN 225 
 
 off. Now then, son, first thing to do is to chop vents in 
 this yere house." 
 
 "Hold up we can do better than that," said Wilbur, 
 restraining Kitchen s fury of impatience. "Slide the 
 big skylight off it s loose already." 
 
 A couple of schooner s hands were ordered aboard the 
 Lady Letty, and the skylight removed. At first the 
 pour of gas was terrific, but by degrees it abated, and at 
 the end of half an hour Kitchell could keep back no 
 longer. 
 
 "Come on!" he cried, catching up an ax; "rot the 
 difference." All the plundering instincts of the man 
 were aroused and clamouring. He had become a very 
 wolf within scent of its prey a veritable hyena nuzzling 
 about its carrion. 
 
 "Lord !" he gasped, "t think that everything we see, 
 everything we find, is ours!" 
 
 Wilbur himself was not far behind him in eagerness. 
 Somewhere deep down in the heart of every Anglo-Saxon 
 lies the predatory instinct of his Viking ancestors an 
 instinct that a thousand years of respectability and tax- 
 paying have not quite succeeded in eliminating. 
 
 A flight of six steps, brass-bound and bearing the 
 double L of the bark s monogram, led them down into a 
 sort of vestibule. From the vestibule a door opened 
 directly into the main cabin. They entered. 
 
 The cabin was some twenty feet long and unusually 
 spacious. Fresh from his recollection of the grime and 
 reek of the schooner, it struck Wilbur as particularly 
 dainty. It was painted white with stripes of blue, gold, 
 and pea-green. On either side three doors opened off 
 into staterooms and private cabins, and with each roll of 
 the derelict these doors banged like an irregular discharge 
 of revolvers. In the centre was the dining-table, 
 covered with a red cloth, very much awry. On each 
 
226 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 side of the table were four armchairs, screwed to the 
 deck, one somewhat larger at the head. Overhead, in 
 swinging racks, were glasses and decanters of whisky 
 and some kind of white wine. But for one feature the 
 sight of the Letty s cabin was charming. On the floor 
 by the sliding door in the forward bulkhead lay a body, 
 face upward. 
 
 The body was that of a middle-aged, fine-looking man, 
 his head covered with the fur, ear-lapped cap that 
 Norwegians affect, even in the tropics. The eyes were 
 wide open, the face discoloured. In the last gasp of 
 suffocation the set of false teeth had been forced half-way 
 out of his mouth, distorting the countenance with a 
 hideous, simian grin. Instantly Kitchell s eye was caught 
 by the glint of the gold in which these teeth were set. 
 
 "Here s about a hundred dollars to begin with," he 
 exclaimed, and picking up the teeth, dropped them into 
 his pocket with a wink at Wilbur. The body of the dead 
 Captain was passed up through the skylight and laid 
 out on the deck, and Wilbur and Kitchell turned their 
 attention to what had been his stateroom. 
 
 The Captain s room was the largest one of the six 
 staterooms opening from the main cabin. 
 
 " Here we are !" exclaimed Kitchell, as he and Wilbur 
 entered. "The old man s room, and no mistake." 
 
 Besides the bunk, the stateroom was fitted up with a 
 lounge of red plush screwed to the bulkhead. A roll of 
 charts leaned in one corner; an alarm-clock, stopped at 
 1:15, stood on a shelf in the company of some dozen 
 paper-covered novels and a drinking-glass full of cigars. 
 Over the lounge, however, was the rack of instruments, 
 sextant, barometer, chronometer, glass, and the like, 
 securely screwed down, while against the wall, in front 
 of a swivel leather chair that was ironed to the deck, was 
 the locked secretary. 
 
MORAN 227 
 
 "Look at em; just look at em, will you!" said 
 Kitchell, running his fingers lovingly over the polished 
 brass of the instruments. "There s a thousand dollars 
 of stuff right here. The chronometer s worth five 
 hundred alone, Bennett & Sons own make. " He turned 
 to the secretary. "Now!" he exclaimed with a long 
 breath. 
 
 What followed thrilled Wilbur with alternate excite 
 ment, curiosity, and a vivid sense of desecration and 
 sacrilege. For the life of him he could not make the 
 thing seem right or legal in his eyes, and yet he had 
 neither the wish nor the power to stay his hand or inter 
 fere with what Kitchell was doing. 
 
 The Captain put the blade of the ax in the chink of 
 the secretary s door and wrenched it free. It opened 
 down to form a sort of desk, and disclosed an array of 
 cubby-holes and two small doors, both locked. These 
 latter Kitchell smashed in with the ax-head. Then he 
 seated himself in the swivel- chair and began to rifle their 
 contents systematically, Wilbur leaning over his shoulder. 
 The heat from the coal below them was almost unbear 
 able. In the cabin the six doors kept up a continuous 
 ear-shocking fusillade, as though half a dozen men were 
 fighting with revolvers; from without, down the open 
 skylight, came the singsong talk of the Chinamen and 
 the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by side. 
 The air, foul beyond expression, tasted of brass; their 
 heads swam and ached to bursting, but absorbed in their 
 work they had no thought of the lapse of time nor the 
 discomfort of their surroundings. Twice during the 
 examination of the bark s papers Kitchell sent Wilbur 
 out into the cabin for the whisky decanter in the 
 swinging racks. 
 
 "Here s the charter papers," said Kitchell, unfolding 
 and spreading them out one by one; and here s the 
 
228 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 clearing papers from Blyth in England. This yere s 
 the insoorance, and here, this is rot that, nothin but 
 the articles for the crew no use to us. " 
 
 In a separate envelope, carefully sealed and bound, 
 they came upon the Captain s private papers. A 
 marriage certificate setting forth the union between 
 Eilert Stern ersen, of Fruholmen, Norway, and Sarah 
 Moran, of some seaport town (the name was undecipher 
 able) of the North of England. Next came a birth cer 
 tificate of a daughter named Moran, dated twenty-two 
 years back, and a bill-of-sale of the bark Lady Letty, 
 whereby a two-thirds interest was conveyed from the 
 previous owners (a ship-building firm of Christiania) to 
 Captain Eilert Sternersen. 
 
 "The old man was his own boss, " commented Kitchell. 
 "Hallo!" he remarked, "look here;" a yellowed photo 
 graph was in his hand, the picture of a stout, fair-haired 
 woman of about forty, wearing enormous pendant ear 
 rings in the style of the early sixties. Below was written: 
 "S. Moran Sternersen, ob. 1867." 
 
 " Old woman copped off, " said Kitchell. " So much the 
 better for us; no heirs to put in their grab; an hold 
 hard steady all here s the will, s help me." 
 
 The only items of importance in the will were the 
 confirmation of the wife s death and the expressly 
 stated bequest of "the bark known as, and sailing under, 
 the name of the Lady Letty to my only and beloved 
 daughter, Moran." 
 
 "Well," said Wilbur. 
 
 The Captain sucked his mustache, then furiously, 
 striking the desk with his fist: 
 
 "The bark s ours !" there was a certain ring of defiance 
 in his voice. "Damn the will ! I ain t so cock sure 
 about the law, but I ll make sure." 
 
 "As how?" said Wilbur. 
 
MORAN 229 
 
 Kitchell slung the will out of the open port into the 
 sea. 
 
 "That s how," he remarked. "I m the heir. I found 
 the bark; mine she is, an mine she stays yours an 
 mine, that is." 
 
 But Wilbur had not even the time to thoroughly 
 enjoy the satisfaction that the Captain s words con 
 veyed before an idea suddenly presented itself to 
 him. The girl he had found on board of the bark, the 
 ruddy, fair-haired girl of the fine and hardy Norse type 
 that was the daughter, of course; that was "Moran." 
 Instantly the situation adjusted itself in his imagination. 
 The two inseparables, father and daughter, sailors 
 both, their lives passed together on shipboard, and 
 the Lady Letty their dream, their ambition, a vessel 
 that at last they could call their own. 
 
 Then this disastrous voyage perhaps the first in 
 their new craft the combustion in the coal the panic 
 terror of the crew and their desertion of the bark, and 
 the sturdy resolution of the father and daughter to 
 bring the Letty in to work her into port alone. They 
 had failed; the father had died from gas; the girl, at 
 least for the moment, was crazed from its effects. But 
 the bark had not been abandoned. The owner was on 
 board. Kitchell was wrong; she was no derelict; not 
 one penny could they gain by her salvage. 
 
 For an instant a wave of bitterest disappointment 
 passed over Wilbur as he saw his $30,000 dwindling to 
 nothing. Then the instincts of habit reasserted them 
 selves. The taxpayer in him was stronger than the 
 freebooter, after all. He felt that it was his duty to see 
 to it that the girl had her rights. Kitchell must be 
 made aware of the situation must be told that Moran, 
 the daughter, the Captain s heir, was on board the 
 schooner; that the "kid" found in the wheel-box was a 
 
230 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 girl. But on second thoughts that would never do. 
 Above all things, the brute Kitchell must not be shown 
 that a girl was aboard the schooner on which he had 
 absolute command, nor, setting the question of Moran s 
 sex aside, must Kitchell know her even as the dead cap 
 tain s heir. There was a difference in the men here, and 
 Wilbur appreciated it. Kitchell, the law-abiding tax 
 payer, was a weakling in comparison with Kitchell, 
 the freebooter and beachcomber in sight of his prize. 
 
 "Son," said the Captain, making a bundle of all the 
 papers, "take these over to my bunk and hide em under 
 the donkey s breakfast. Stop a bit," he added, as 
 Wilbur started away. "I ll go with you. We ll have 
 to bury the old man." 
 
 Throughout all the afternoon the Captain had been 
 drinking the whisky from the decanter found in the 
 cabin; now he stood up unsteadily, and raising his glass, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "Sonny, here s to Kitchell, Wilbur & Company, 
 beachcombers, un-limited. What do you say, hey?" 
 
 "I only want to be sure that we ve a right to the 
 bark," answered Wilbur. 
 
 "Right to her ri-hight to er," hiccoughed the 
 Captain. "Strike me blind, I d like to see any one 
 try n take her away from Alvinza Kitchell now," 
 and he thrust out his chin at Wilbur. 
 
 "Well, so much the better, then," said Wilbur, pock 
 eting the papers. The pair ascended to the deck. 
 
 The burial of Captain Sternersen was a dreadful 
 business. Kitchell, far gone in whisky, stood on the 
 house issuing his orders, drinking from one of the decan 
 ters he had brought up with him. He had already 
 rifled the deal man s pockets, and had even taken away 
 the boots and fur-lined cap. Cloths were cut from the 
 spanker and rolled around the body. Then Kitchell 
 
MORAN 231 
 
 ordered the peak halyards unrove and used as lashings 
 to tie the canvas around the corpse. The red and white 
 flags (the distress signals) were still bound on the 
 halyards. 
 
 "Leave em on. Leave em on," commanded Kitchell. 
 "Use m as a shrou . All ready, now; stan by to let her 
 
 go-" 
 
 Wilbur looked over at the schooner and noted with 
 immense relief that Moran was not in sight. Suddenly 
 an abrupt reaction took place in the Captain s addled 
 brain. 
 
 "Can t bury um ithout is teeth," he gabbled 
 solemnly. He laid back the canvas and replaced the 
 set. "Ole man d ha nt me f I kep s teeth. Strike ! 
 look a that, I put em in upside down. Nev min , 
 upsi down, downsi up, whaz odds; all same with ole 
 Bill, hey, ole Bill, all same with you, hey?" Suddenly 
 he began to howl with laughter. "T think a bein 
 buried with y r teeth upsi down. Oh, me, but that s 
 a good grind. Stan by to heave ole Uncle Bill over 
 ready, heave, an away she goes." He ran to the side, 
 waving his hat and looking over. "Goo -by, ole Bill, 
 by-by. There you go, an the signal o distress roun 
 you. H. B. I m in need of assistance. Lord, here 
 comes the sharks look ! look ! look at um fight ! look at 
 um takin ole Bill ! I m in need of assistance. I sh d 
 say you were, ole Bill." 
 
 Wilbur looked once over the side in the churning, 
 lashing water, then drew back, sick to vomiting. But 
 in less than thirty seconds the water was quiet. Not a 
 shark was in sight. 
 
 "Get over to the Bertha with those papers, son," 
 ordered Kitchell; "I ll bide here and dig up sh mor loot. 
 I ll gut this ole pill-box from stern to stem-post fore 
 I ll leave. I won t leave a copper rivet in er, notta 
 
232 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 co er rivet, d y hear?" he shouted, his face purple with 
 unnecessary rage. 
 
 Wilbur returned to the schooner with the two China 
 men, leaving Kitchell alone on the bark. He found the 
 girl sitting by the rudder-head almost as he had left her,, 
 looking about her with vague, unseeing eyes. 
 
 "Your name is Moran, isn t it?" he asked. "Moran 
 Sternersen." 
 
 "Yes," she said, after a pause, then looked curiously 
 at a bit of tarred rope on the deck. Nothing more 
 could be got out of her. Wilbur talked to her at length, 
 and tried to make her understand the situation, but it 
 was evident she did not follow. However, at each 
 mention of her name she would answer : 
 
 "Yes, yes, I m Moran." 
 
 Wilbur turned .away from her, biting his nether lip in 
 perplexity. 
 
 " Now what am I going to do ? " he muttered. "What 
 a situation ! If I tell the Captain, it s all up with the 
 girl. If he didn t kill her, he d do worse might do both. 
 If I don t tell him, there goes her birthright, $60,000, and 
 she alone in the world. It s begun to go already," he 
 added, listening to the sounds that came from the bark. 
 Kitchell was raging to and fro in the cabin in a frenzy of 
 drink, ax in hand, smashing glassware, hacking into 
 the woodwork, singing the while at the top of his voice: 
 
 " As through the drop I go, drop I go, 
 As through the drop I go, drop I go, 
 As through the drop I go, 
 Down to hell that yawns below, 
 Twenty stiffs all in a row, 
 Damn your eyes." 
 
 "That s the kind of man I have to deal with," mut 
 tered Wilbur. "It s encouraging, and there s no one to 
 talk to. Not much help in a Chinaman and a crazy girl 
 
MORAN 233 
 
 in a man s oilskins. It s about the biggest situation you 
 ever faced, Ross Wilbur, and you re all alone. What 
 the devil are you going to do?" 
 
 He acknowledged with considerable humiliation that 
 he could not get the better of Kitchell, either physically 
 or mentally. Kitchell was a more powerful man than 
 he, and cleverer. The Captain was in his element now, 
 and he was the commander. On shore it would have 
 been vastly different. The city-bred fellow, with a 
 policeman always in call, would have known how to 
 act. 
 
 "I simply can t stand by and see that hog plundering 
 everything she s got. What s to be done?" 
 
 And suddenly, while the words were yet in his mouth, 
 the sun was wiped from the sky like writing from a slate, 
 the horizon blackened, vanished, a long white line of 
 froth whipped across the sea and came on hissing. A 
 hollow note boomed out, boomed, swelled, and grew 
 rapidly to a roar. 
 
 An icy chill stabbed the air. Then the squall swooped 
 and struck, and the sky shut down over the troubled 
 ocean like a pot-lid over a boiling pot. The schooner s 
 fore and main sheets, that had not been made fast, 
 unrove at the first gust and began to slat wildly in the 
 wind. The Chinamen cowered to the decks, grasping 
 at cleats, stays, and masts. They were helpless 
 paralyzed with fear. Charlie clung to a stay, one arm 
 over his head, as though dodging a blow. Wilbur 
 gripped the rail with his hands where he stood, his teeth 
 set, his eyes wide, waiting for the foundering of the 
 schooner, his only thought being that the end could not 
 be far. He had heard of the suddenness of tropical 
 squalls, but this had come with the abruptness of a 
 scene-shift at a play. The schooner veered broad-on to 
 the waves. It was the beginning of the end another 
 
234 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 roll to the leeward like the last and the Pacific would 
 come aboard. 
 
 And you call yourselves sailor-men ! Are you going 
 to drown like rats on a plank?" A voice that Wilbur 
 did not know went ringing through that horrid shouting 
 of wind and sea like the call of a bugle. He turned to see 
 Moran, the girl of the Lady Letiy, standing erect upon the 
 quarterdeck, holding down the schooner s wheel. The 
 confusion of that dreadful moment, that had paralyzed 
 the crew s senses, had brought back hers. She was 
 herself again, savage, splendid, dominant, superb in her 
 wrath at their weakness, their cowardice. 
 
 Her heavy brows were knotted over her naming eyes, 
 her hat was gone, and her thick bands of yellow hair 
 whipped across her face and streamed out in the wind 
 like streamers of the northern lights. As she shouted, 
 gesturing furiously to the men, the loose skin of the oil 
 skin coat fell back and showed her forearm, strong, 
 round, and white as scud, the hand and wrist so tanned 
 as to look almost like a glove. And all the while she 
 shouted aloud, furious with indignation, raging against 
 the supineness of the Bertha s crew. 
 
 "Stand by, men! stand by! Look alive, now! 
 Make fast the stays l halyardsto the dory s wary ! Now, 
 then, unreeve y r halyards ! all clear there ! pass the end 
 for ard outside the rigging ! outside ! you fools ! Make 
 fast to the bits for ard let go y r line that ll do. Soh 
 soh. There, she s coming up." 
 
 The dory had been towing astern, and the seas comb 
 ing over her had swamped her. Moran had been in 
 spired to use the swamped boat as a sea-anchor, fasten 
 ing her to the schooner s bow instead of to the stern. 
 The Bertha s bow, answering to the drag, veered around. 
 The Bertha stood head to the seas, riding out the squall. 
 It was a masterpiece of seamanship, conceived and 
 
MORAN 235 
 
 executed in the very thick of peril, and it saved the 
 schooner. 
 
 But there was little time to think of themselves. On 
 board the bark the sails were still set. The squall struck 
 the Lady Letty squarely aback. She heeled over upon 
 the instant ; then as the top hamper carried away with a 
 crash, eased back a moment upon an even keel. But 
 her cargo had shifted. The bark was doomed. Through 
 the flying spray and scud and rain Wilbur had a momen 
 tary glimpse of Kitchell, hacking at the lanyards with 
 his ax. Then the Lady Letty capsized, going over till 
 her masts were flat with the water, and in another 
 second rolled bottom up. For a moment her keel and 
 red iron bottom were visible through the mist of driving 
 spoon-drift. Suddenly they sank from sight. She was 
 gone. 
 
 And then, like the rolling up of a scroll, the squall 
 passed, the sun returned, the sky burned back to blue, 
 the ruggedness was smoothed from the ocean, and the 
 warmth of the tropics closed around the Bertha Millner, 
 once more rolling easily on the swell of the ocean. 
 
 Of the Lady Letty and the drunken, beachcombing 
 captain not a trace remained. Kitchell had gone down 
 with his prize. The Bertha Millner s Chinese crew, 
 huddled forward, were talking wildly, pointing and 
 looking in a bewildered fashion over the sides. 
 
 Wilbur and Moran were left alone on the open Pacific. 
 
V 
 
 A GIRL CAPTAIN- 
 WHEN Wilbur came on deck the morning after the 
 sinking of the bark he was surprised to find the schooner 
 under way again. Wilbur and Charlie had berthed 
 forward during that night Charlie with the hands, 
 Wilbur in the Captain s hammock. The reason for this 
 change of quarters had been found in a peremptory 
 order from Moran during the dog-watch the preceding 
 evening. 
 
 She had looked squarely at Wilbur from under her 
 scowl, and had said briefly and in a fine contralto voice, 
 that he had for the first time noted : "I berth aft, in the 
 cabin; you and the Chinaman forward. Understand?" 
 Moran had only forestalled Wilbur s intention; while 
 after her almost miraculous piece of seamanship in the 
 rescue of the schooner, Charlie and the Chinese crew 
 accorded her a respect that was almost superstitious. 
 
 Wilbur met her again at breakfast. She was still 
 wearing men s clothing part of Kitchell s outfit 
 and was booted to the knee; but now she wore no hat, 
 and her enormous mane of rye-coloured hair was braided 
 into long strands near to the thickness of a man s arm. 
 The redness of her face gave a startling effect to her 
 pale-blue eyes and sandy, heavy eyebrows, that easily 
 lowered to a frown. She ate with her knife, and after 
 pushing away her plate Wilbur observed that she drank 
 half a tumbler of whisky and water. 
 
 The conversation between the two was tame enough. 
 236 
 
A GIRL CAPTAIN 237 
 
 There was no common ground upon which they could 
 meet. To her father s death no doubt an old matter 
 even before her rescue she made no allusion. Her 
 attitude toward Wilbur was one of defiance and 
 suspicion. Only once did she relax: 
 
 "How did you come to be aboard her with these 
 rat-eaters you re no sailor?" she said abruptly. 
 
 "Huh!" laughed Wilbur, mirthlessly; "huh! I was 
 shanghaied." 
 
 Moran smote the table with a red fist, and shouted 
 with sonorous, bell-toned laughter. 
 
 "Shanghaied? you? Now, that is really good. 
 And what are you going to do now?" 
 
 "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "Signal the first home-bound vessel and be taken 
 into Frisco. I ve my insurance to collect (Wilbur had 
 given her the Letty s papers) and the disaster to report." 
 
 "Well, I m not keen on shark-hunting myself," said 
 Wilbur. But Moran showed no interest in his plans. 
 
 However, they soon found that they were not to be 
 permitted to signal. At noon the same day the schooner 
 sighted a steamship s smoke on the horizon and began 
 to raise her rapidly. Moran immediately bound on 
 the ensign, union down, and broke it out at the peak. 
 
 Charlie, who was at the wheel, spoke a sentence in 
 Chinese, and one of the hands drew his knife across the 
 halyards and brought the distress signal to the deck. 
 Moran turned upon Charlie with an oath, her brows 
 knotted. 
 
 "No ! No !" sang Charlie, closing his eyes and wagging 
 his head. "No! Too muchee los time; no can stop. 
 You come down-side cabin; you an one-piecee boss 
 number two" (this was Wilbur) "have um chin-chin." 
 
 The odd conclave assembled about Kitchen s table 
 the clubman, the half-masculine girl in men s clothes, 
 
238 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 and the Chinaman. The conference was an angry one, 
 Wilbur and Moran insisting that they be put aboard 
 the steamship, Charlie refusing with calm obstinacy. 
 
 "I have um chin-chin with China boys las nigh . 
 China boy heap flaid, no can stop um steamship. Heap 
 flaid too much talkee-talkee. No stop; go fish now; go 
 fish chop-chop. Los heap time; go fish. I no savvy 
 sail um boat, China boy no savvy sail um boat. I tink 
 um you savvy" (and he pointed to Moran). "I tink um 
 you savvy plenty heap much disa bay. Boss number 
 two, no savvy sailum boat, but him savvy plenty 
 many all same." 
 
 "And we re to stop on board your dough-dish and 
 navigate her for you?" shouted Moran, her face blazing. 
 
 Charlie nodded blandly: "I tink um yass." 
 
 "And when we get back to port," exclaimed Wilbur, 
 "you think, perhaps, I we won t make it interesting 
 for you?" 
 
 Charlie smiled. 
 
 "I tink um Six Company heap rich." 
 
 "Well, get along," ordered Moran, as though the 
 schooner was her property, "and we ll talk it over." 
 
 "China boy lika you heap pretty big," said Charlie 
 to Moran, as he went out. "You savvy sail um boat all 
 light; wanta you fo captain. But," he added, sud 
 denly dropping his bland passivity as though it were a 
 mask, and for an instant allowing the wicked malevo 
 lent Cantonese to come to the surface, "China boy 
 no likee funnee business, savvy?" Then with the smile 
 of a Talleyrand he disappeared. 
 
 Moran and Wilbur were helpless for the present. 
 They were but two against seven Chinamen. They must 
 stay on board, if the coolies wished it; and if they were 
 to stay it was a matter of their own personal safety 
 that the Bertha Millner should be properly navigated. 
 
A GIRL CAPTAIN 239 
 
 "I ll captain her," concluded Moran, sullenly, at the 
 end of their talk. "You must act as mate, Mr. Wilbur. 
 And don t get any mistaken idea into your head that, 
 because I m a young girl and alone, you are going to 
 run things your way. I don t like funny business any 
 better than Charlie." 
 
 "Look here," said Wilbur, complaining, "don t think 
 I m altogether a villain. I think you re a ripping fine 
 girl. You re different from any kind of girl I ever met, 
 of course, but you, by jingo, you re you re splendid. 
 There in the squall last evening, when you stood at the 
 wheel, with your hair " 
 
 "Oh, drop that !" said the girl, contemptuously, and 
 went up on deck. Wilbur followed, scratching an ear. 
 
 Charlie was called aft and their decision announced. 
 Moran would navigate the Bertha Millner, Wilbur and 
 she taking the watches. Charlie promised that he 
 would answer for the obedience of the men. 
 
 Their first concern was now to shape their course for 
 Magdalena Bay. Moran and Wilbur looked over 
 Kitchell s charts and log-book, but the girl flung them 
 aside disdainfully. 
 
 "He s been sailing by the dead reckoning, and his 
 navigation is drivel. Why, a cabin-boy would know 
 better; and, to end with, the chronometer is run down. 
 I ll have to get Green ich time by taking the altitude of 
 a star to-night, and figure out longitude. Did you 
 bring off our sextant?" 
 
 Wilbur shook his head. "Only the papers," he said. 
 
 "There s only an old ebony quadrant here," said 
 Moran, "but it will have to do." 
 
 That night, lying flat on her back on the deck with the 
 quadrant to her eye, she "got a star and brought it 
 down to the horizon," and sat up under the reeking 
 lamp in the cabin nearly the whole night ciphering and 
 
240 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 ciphering till she had filled up the four sides of the 
 log-slate with her calculations. However, by daylight 
 she had obtained the correct Greenwich time and worked 
 the schooner s longitude. 
 
 Two days passed, then a third. Moran set the 
 schooner s course. She kept almost entirely to herself, 
 and when not at the wheel or taking the sun or writing 
 up the log, gloomed over the after-rail into the schooner s 
 wake. Wilbur knew not what to think of her. Never 
 in his life had he met with any girl like this. So accus 
 tomed had she been to the rough, give-and-take, direct 
 associations of a seafaring life that she misinterpreted 
 well-meant politeness the only respect he knew how to 
 pay her to mean insidious advances. She was sus 
 picious of him distrusted him utterly, and openly 
 ridiculed his abortive seamanship. Pretty she was not, 
 but she soon began to have a certain amount of attraction 
 for Wilbur. He liked her splendid ropes of hair, her 
 heavy contralto voice, her fine animal strength of bone 
 and muscle (admittedly greater than his own); he 
 admired her indomitable courage and self-reliance, 
 while her positive genius in the matters of seamanship 
 and navigation filled him with speechless wonder. The 
 girls he had been used to were clever in their knowledge 
 of the amenities of an afternoon call or the formalities of 
 a paper german. A girl of two-and-twenty who could 
 calculate longitude from the altitude of a star was out 
 side his experience. The more he saw of her the more 
 he knew himself to have been right in his first estimate. 
 She drank whisky after her meals, and when angry, 
 which was often, swore like a buccaneer. As yet she 
 was almost, as one might say, without sex savage, 
 unconquered, untamed, glorying in her own indepen 
 dence, her sullen isolation. Her neck was thick, strong, 
 and very white, her hands roughened and calloused. In 
 
A GIRL CAPTAIN 241 
 
 her man s clothes she looked tall, vigourous and unre 
 strained, and on more than one occasion, as Wilbur 
 passed close to her, he was made aware that her hair, her 
 neck, her entire personality exhaled a fine, sweet, 
 natural redolence that savoured of the ocean and great 
 winds. 
 
 One day, as he saw her handling a huge water-barrel 
 by the chines only, with a strength he knew to be greater 
 than his own, her brows contracted with the effort, her 
 hair curling about her thick neck, her large, round arms 
 bare to the elbows, a sudden thrill of enthusiasm smote 
 through him, and between his teeth he exclaimed to 
 himself : 
 
 "By Jove, you re a woman ! " 
 
 The Bertha Millner continued to the southward, glid 
 ing quietly over the oil-smoothness of the ocean under 
 airs so light as hardly to ruffle the surface. Sometimes 
 at high noon the shimmer of the ocean floor blended into 
 the shimmer of the sky at the horizon, and then it was 
 no longer water and blue heavens ; the little craft seemed 
 to be poised in a vast crystalline sphere, where there 
 was neither height nor depth poised motionless 
 in warm, coruscating, opalescent space, alone with the 
 sun. 
 
 At length one morning the schooner, which for the 
 preceding twenty-four hours had been heading eastward, 
 raised the land, and by the middle of the afternoon had 
 come up to within a mile of a low, sandy shore, quivering 
 with heat, and had tied up to the kelp in Magdalena Bay. 
 
 Charlie now took over entire charge of operations. 
 For two days previous the Chinese hands had been 
 getting out the deck-tubs, tackles, gaffs, spades, and the 
 other shark-fishing gear that had been stowed forward. 
 The sails were lowered and gasketted, the decks cleared 
 of all impedimenta, hogsheads and huge vats stood 
 
242 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 ready in the waist, and the lazy indolence of the previous 
 week was replaced by an extraordinary activity. 
 
 The day after their arrival in the bay was occupied by 
 all hands in catching bait. This bait was a kind of rock- 
 fish, of a beautiful red-gold colour, and about the size of 
 an ordinary cod. They bit readily enough, but out of 
 every ten hooked three were taken off the lines by the 
 sharks before they could be brought aboard. Another 
 difficulty lay in the fact that, either because of the 
 excessive heat in the air or the percentage of alkali in 
 the water, they spoiled almost immediately if left in 
 the air. 
 
 Turtle were everywhere floating gray-green discs 
 just under the surface. Sea-birds in clouds clamoured 
 all day long about the shore and sand-spits. At long 
 intervals flying-fish skitted over the water like skipping- 
 stones. Shoals of porpoises came in from outside, 
 leaping clumsily along the edges of the kelp. Bewildered 
 land-birds perched on the schooner s rigging, and in the 
 early morning the whistling of quail could be heard on 
 shore near where a little fresh-water stream ran down to 
 meet the ocean. 
 
 It was Wilbur who caught the first shark on the 
 second morning of the Bertha s advent in Magdalena 
 Bay. A store of bait had been accumulated, split and 
 halved into chunks for the shark-hooks, and Wilbur, 
 baiting one of the huge lines that had been brought up 
 on deck the evening before, flung it overboard and 
 watched the glimmer of the white fish-meat turning to a 
 silvery green as it sank down among the kelp. Almost 
 instantly a long, moving shadow, just darker than the 
 blue-green mass of the water, identified itself at a little 
 distance. 
 
 Enormous flukes proceeded from either side ; an erect 
 dorsal fin, like an enormous cock s crest, rose from the 
 
A GIRL CAPTAIN 243 
 
 back; while immediately over the head swam the two 
 pilot-fish, following so closely the movement of the 
 shark as to give the impression of actually adhering to 
 his body. Twice and three times the great man-eater, 
 twelve feet from snout to tail-tip, circled slowly about 
 the bait, the flukes moving fan-like through the water. 
 Once he came up, touched the bait with his nose, and 
 backed easily away. He disappeared, returned, and 
 poised himself motionless in the schooner s shadow, 
 feeling the water with his flukes. 
 
 Moran was looking over Wilbur s shoulder. He s as 
 good as caught," she muttered; "once let them get sight 
 
 of meat, and Steady now ! " The shark moved 
 
 forward. Suddenly, with a long, easy roll, he turned 
 completely upon his back. His white belly flashed like 
 silver in the water the bait disappeared. 
 
 "You ve got him!" shouted Moran. 
 
 The rope slid through Wilbur s palms, burning the 
 skin as the huge sea-wolf sounded. Moran laid hold. 
 The heavy, sullen wrenching from below twitched and 
 swayed their bodies and threw them against each other. 
 Her bare, cool arm was pressed close over his knuckles. 
 
 "Heave!" she cried, laughing with the excitement of 
 the moment. "Heave all!" she began the chant of 
 sailors hauling at the ropes. Together, and bracing their 
 feet against the schooner rail, they fought out the fight 
 with the great fish. In a swirl of lather the head and 
 shoulders came above the surface, the flukes churning 
 the water till it boiled like the wake of a screw steamship. 
 But as soon as these great fins were clear of the surface 
 the shark fell quiet and helpless. 
 
 Charlie came up with the cutting-in spade, and as 
 the fish hung still over the side, cut him open from 
 neck to belly with a single movement. Another China 
 man stood by with a long-handled gaff, hooked out the 
 
244 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 purple-black liver, brought it over the side, and dropped 
 it into one of the deck-tubs. The shark thrashed and 
 writhed, his flukes quivering and his gills distended. 
 Wilbur could not restrain an exclamation. 
 
 "Brutal business !" he muttered. 
 
 "Hoh!" exclaimed Moran, scornfully, "cutting-in is 
 too good for him. Sailorfolk are no friends of such 
 carrion as that." 
 
 Other lines were baited and dropped overboard, and 
 the hands settled themselves to the real business of 
 the expedition. There was no skill in the matter. 
 The sharks bit ravenously, and soon swarmed about the 
 schooner in hundreds. Hardly a half-minute passed 
 that one of the four Chinamen that were fishing did not 
 signal a catch, and Charlie and Jim were kept busy 
 with spade and gaff. By noon the deck-tubs were full. 
 The lines were hauled in, and the hands set the tubs in 
 the sun to try out the oil. Under the tropical heat 
 the shark-livers almost visibly melted away, and by four 
 o clock in the afternoon the tubs were full of a thick, 
 yellow oil, the reek of which instantly recalled to Wil 
 bur s mind the rancid smell of the schooner on the day 
 when he had first come aboard of her. The deck-tubs 
 were emptied into the hogsheads and vats that stood in 
 the waist of the Bertha, the tubs scoured, and the lines 
 and bent shark-hooks overhauled. Charlie disappeared 
 in the galley, supper was cooked, and eaten upon deck 
 under the conflagration of the sunset; the lights were 
 set, the Chinamen foregathered in the fo c s le head, 
 smoking opium, and by eight o clock the routine of the 
 day was at an end. 
 
 So the time passed. In a short time Wilbur could not 
 have said whether the day was Wednesday or Sunday. 
 He soon tired of the unsportsmanlike work of killing 
 the sluggish brutes, and turned shoreward to relieve the 
 
A GIRL CAPTAIN 245 
 
 monotony of the succeeding days. He and Moran 
 were left a good deal to their own devices. Charlie 
 was the master of the men now. "Mate," said Moran 
 to Wilbur one day, after a dinner of turtle steaks and 
 fish, eaten in the open air on the quarterdeck; "mate, 
 this is slow work, and the schooner smells terribly foul. 
 We ll have the dory out and go ashore. We can tumble 
 a cask into her and get some water. The butt s three- 
 quarters empty. Let s see how it feels to be in Mexico." 
 
 "Mexico?" said Wilbur. "That s so Lower Cali 
 fornia is Mexico. I d forgotten that !" 
 
 They went ashore and spent the afternoon in rilling 
 the water-cask from the fresh-water stream and in 
 gathering abalones, which Moran declared were delicious 
 eating, from the rocks left bare by the tide. But nothing 
 could have exceeded the loneliness of that shore and 
 backland, palpitating under the flogging of a tropical 
 sun. Low hills of sand, covered with brush, stretched 
 back from the shore. On the eastern horizon, leagues 
 distant, blue masses of mountains, striated with mirages, 
 swam in the scorching air. 
 
 The sand was like fire to the touch. Far out in the 
 bay the schooner hung motionless under bare sticks, 
 resting apparently upon her inverted shadow only. 
 And that was all the flat, heat -ridden land, the sheen 
 of the open Pacific, and the lonely schooner. 
 
 "Quiet enough," said Wilbur, in a low voice, wonder 
 ing if there was such a place as San Francisco, with 
 its paved streets and cable cars, and if people who had 
 been his friends there had ever had any real existence. 
 
 "Do you like it?" asked Moran quickly, facing him, 
 her thumbs in her belt. 
 
 "It s good fun how about you?" 
 
 "It s no different than the only life I ve known. I 
 suppose you think it s a queer kind of life for a girl 
 
24 6 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 I ve lived by doing things, not by thinking things, or 
 reading about what other people have done or thought ; 
 and I guess it s what you do that counts, rather than 
 what you think or read about. Where s that pinch-bar ? 
 We ll get a couple more abalones for supper, and then 
 put off." 
 
 That was the only talk of moment they had during 
 the afternoon. All the rest of their conversation had 
 been of those things that immediately occupied their 
 attention. 
 
 They regained the schooner toward five o clock, to 
 find the Chinamen perplexed and mystified. No explana 
 tion was forthcoming, and Charlie gave them supper 
 in preoccupied silence. As they were eating the abalones 
 which Moran had fried in batter, Charlie said: 
 
 "Shark all gone ! No more catch um him all gone." 
 
 "Gone why?" 
 
 "No savvy," said Charlie. "No likee, no likee. 
 China boy tink um heap funny, too much heap funny." 
 
 It was true. During all the next day not a shark was 
 in sight, and though the crew fished assiduously till 
 dark, they were rewarded by not so much as a bite. 
 No one could offer any explanation. 
 
 " Tis strange," said Moran. "Never heard of sharks 
 leaving this feed before. And you can see with half an 
 eye that the hands don t like the looks of it. Super 
 stitious beggars ! they need to be clumped in the head." 
 
 That same night Wilbur woke in his hammock on the 
 fo c s le head about half -past two. The moon was down, 
 the sky one powder of stars. There was not a breath of 
 wind. It was so still that he could hear some large 
 fish playing and breaking off toward the shore. Then, 
 without the least warning, he felt the schooner begin 
 to lift under him. He rolled out of his hammock and 
 stood on the deck. There could be no doubt of it 
 
A GIRL CAPTAIN 247 
 
 the whole forepart was rising beneath him. He could 
 see the bowsprit moving upward from star to star. 
 Still the schooner lifted; objects on deck began to slide 
 aft; the oil in the deck-tubs washed over; then, as there 
 came a wild scrambling of the Chinese crew up the 
 fo c s le hatch, she settled again gradually at first, then, 
 with an abrupt lurch that almost threw him from his 
 feet, regained her level. Moran met him in the waist. 
 Charlie came running aft. 
 
 "What was that? Are we grounding? Has she 
 struck?" 
 
 "No, no; we re still fast to the kelp. Was it a tidal 
 wave?" 
 
 "Nonsense. It wouldn t have handled us that way." 
 
 "Well, what was it? Listen! For God s sake, keep 
 quiet there forward!" 
 
 Wilbur looked over the side into the water. The 
 ripples were still chasing themselves away from the 
 schooner. There was nothing else. The stillness shut 
 down again. There was not a sound, 
 
VI 
 
 A SEA MYSTERY 
 
 IN spite of his best efforts at self-control, Wilbur 
 felt a slow, cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, 
 uncanny lifting of the schooner out of the glassy 
 water, at a time when there was not enough wind to so 
 much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of something 
 very like horror through all his flesh. 
 
 Again he peered over the side, down into the kelp- 
 thickened sea. Nothing not a breath of air was stir 
 ring. The gray light that flooded down from the stars 
 showed not a break upon the surface of Magdalena Bay. 
 On shore nothing moved. 
 
 "Quiet there, forward," called Moran to the shrill- 
 voiced coolies. 
 
 The succeeding stillness was profound. All on board 
 listened intently. The water dripped like the ticking of 
 a clock from the Bertha Millner s stern, which with the 
 rising of the bow had sunk almost to the rail. There 
 was no other sound. 
 
 " Strange, " muttered Moran, her brows contracting. 
 
 Charlie broke the silence with a wail: "No likee, no 
 likee ! " he cried at top of his voice. 
 
 The man had gone suddenly green; Wilbur could see 
 the shine of his eyes distended like those of a harassed 
 cat. As he, Moran and Wilbur stood in the schooner s 
 waist, staring at each other, the smell of punk came to 
 their nostrils. Forward, the coolies were already burn- 
 
 248 
 
A SEA MYSTERY 249 
 
 ing joss-sticks on the fo c s le head, kow-towing their 
 foreheads to the deck. 
 
 Moran went forward and kicked them to their feet and 
 hurled their joss-sticks into the sea. 
 
 " Feng-shui ! Feng-shui ! " they exclaimed with bated 
 breaths. "The Feng-shui no likee we." 
 
 Low in the east the horizon began to blacken against 
 the sky. It was early morning. A watch was set, the 
 Chinamen sent below, and until daybreak, when Charlie 
 began to make a clattering of tins in the galley as he set 
 about preparing breakfast, Wilbur paced the rounds of 
 the schooner, looking, listening, and waiting again for 
 that slow, horrifying lift. But the rest of the night was 
 without incident. 
 
 After breakfast, the strangely assorted trio Charlie, 
 Moran and Wilbur held another conference in the cabin. 
 It was decided to move the schooner to the other side 
 of the bay. 
 
 " Feng-shui in disa place; no likee we," announced 
 Charlie. 
 
 "Feng-shui, who are they?" 
 
 Charlie promptly became incoherent on this subject, 
 and Moran and Wilbur could only guess that the Feng- 
 shui were the tutelary deities that presided over that 
 portion of Magdalena Bay. At any rate, there were 
 evidently no more sharks to be caught in that fishing- 
 ground; so sail was made, and by noon the Bertha 
 Millner tied up to the kelp on the opposite side of the 
 inlet, about half a mile from the shore. 
 
 The sharks were plentiful here, and the fishing went 
 forward again as before. Certain of these sharks were 
 hauled aboard, stunned by a blow on the nose, and their 
 fins cut off. The Chinamen packed these fins away in 
 separate kegs. Eventually they would be sent to China. 
 
 Two or three days passed. The hands kept steadily 
 
250 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 at their work. Nothing more occurred to disturb the 
 monotony of the scorching days and soundless nights; 
 the schooner sat as easily on the unbroken water as 
 though built to the bottom. Soon the night watch was 
 discontinued. During these days the three officers lived 
 high. Turtle were plentiful, and what with their steaks 
 and soups, the fried abalones, the sea-fish, the really 
 delicious shark-fins, and the quail that Charlie and 
 Wilbur trapped along the shore, the trio had nothing to 
 wish for in the way of table luxuries. 
 
 The shore was absolutely deserted, as well as the back 
 country an unbroken wilderness of sand and sage. 
 Half a dozen times Wilbur, wearying of his inaction 
 aboard the schooner, made the entire circuit of the bay 
 from point to point. Standing on one of the latter 
 projections and looking out to the west, the Pacific 
 appeared as empty of life as the land. Never a keel cut 
 those waters, never a sail broke the edge of the horizon, 
 never a feather of smoke spotted the sky where it 
 whitened to meet the sea. Everything was empty 
 vast, unspeakably desolate palpitating with heat. 
 
 Another week passed. Charlie began to complain 
 that the sharks were growing scarce again. 
 
 " I think bime-by him go way, once a mo . " 
 
 That same night, Wilbur, lying in his hammock, was 
 awakened by a touch on his arm. He awoke to see 
 Moran beside him on the deck. 
 
 "Did you hear anything?" she said in a low voice, 
 looking at him under her scowl. 
 
 "No ! no !" he exclaimed, getting up, reaching for his 
 wicker sandals. "Did you?" 
 
 "I thought so something. Did you feel anything?" 
 
 "I ve been asleep; I haven t noticed anything. Is it 
 beginning again ? 
 
 "The schooner lifted again, just now, very gently. I 
 
A SEA MYSTERY 251 
 
 happened to be awake or I wouldn t have noticed it." 
 They were talking in low voices, as is the custom of 
 people speaking in the dark. 
 
 "There, what s that?" exclaimed Wilbur under his 
 breath. A gentle vibration, barely perceptible, thrilled 
 through the schooner. Under his hand, that was clasped 
 upon the rail, Wilbur could feel a faint trembling in her 
 frame. It stopped, began again, and died slowly away. 
 
 "Well, what the devil is it ? " he muttered impatiently, 
 trying to master the returning creep of dread. 
 
 Moran shook her head, biting her lip. 
 
 "It s beyond me," she said, frowning. "Can you see 
 anything?" The sky, the sea and land were unbroken 
 reaches of solitude. There was no breath of wind. 
 
 " Listen, " said Moran. Far off to landward came the 
 faint, sleepy clucking of a quail, and the stridulating of 
 unnumbered crickets; a long ripple licked the slope of 
 the beach and slid back into the ocean. Wilbur shook 
 his head. 
 
 "Don t you hear anything," he whispered. "Sh 
 there she s trembling again." 
 
 Once more a prolonged but faint quivering ran 
 through the Bertha Millner from stem to stern and from 
 keel to masthead. There was a barely audible creaking 
 of joints and panels. The oil in the deck-tubs trembled. 
 The vibration was so fine and rapid that it tickled the 
 soles of Wilbur s feet as he stood on the deck. 
 
 "I d give two fingers to know what it all means," 
 murmured Moran in a low voice. "I ve been to sea 
 
 for " Then suddenly she cried aloud: "Steady 
 
 all; she s lifting again !" 
 
 The schooner heaved slowly under them, this time by 
 the stern. Up she went, up and up, while Wilbur 
 gripped at a stay to keep his place, and tried to choke 
 down his heart, that seemed to beat against his palate. 
 
2 s 2 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "God!" ejaculated Moran, her eyes blazing. "This 
 thing is The Bertha Millner came suddenly down 
 
 to an easy keel, rocking in that glassy sea as if in a tide-rip. 
 The deck was awash with oil. Far out in the bay the 
 ripples widening from the schooner blurred the reflections 
 of the stars. The Chinamen swarmed up the hatchway, 
 voluble and shrill. Again the Bertha Millner lifted and 
 sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering 
 like reeds, the timbers groaning aloud with the strain. 
 In the stern something cracked and smashed. Then 
 the trouble died away, the ripples faded into the ocean, 
 and the schooner settled to her keel, quite motionless. 
 
 "Look," said Moran, her face toward the Bertha s 
 stern. "The rudder is out of the gudgeons." It was 
 true the Bertha Millner s helm was unshipped. 
 
 There was no more sleep for any one on board that 
 night. Wilbur tramped the quarterdeck, sick with a 
 feeling he dared not put a name to. Moran sat by the 
 wrecked rudder-head, a useless pistol in her hand, 
 swearing under her breath from time to time. Charlie 
 appeared on the quarterdeck at intervals, looked at 
 Wilbur and Moran with wide-open eyes, and then took 
 himself away. On the forward deck the coolies pasted 
 strips of red paper inscribed with mottoes upon the mast, 
 and filled the air with the reek of their joss-sticks. 
 
 "If one could only see what it was," growled Moran 
 between her clenched teeth. "But this this damned 
 heaving and trembling, it it s queer." 
 
 "That s it, that s it," said Wilbur quickly, facing her. 
 "What are we going to do, Moran?" 
 
 " Stick it out!" she exclaimed, striking her knee with 
 her fist. "We can t leave the schooner I wont leave 
 her. I ll stay by this dough-dish as long as two planks 
 in her hold together. Were you thinking of cutting 
 away ?" She fixed him with her frown. 
 
A SEA MYSTERY 253 
 
 Wilbur looked at her, sitting erect by the disabled 
 rudder, her head bare, her braids of yellow hair hanging 
 over her breast, sitting there in man s clothes and man s 
 boots, the pistol at her side. He shook his head. 
 
 "I m not leaving the Bertha till you do," he answered; 
 adding: "I ll stand by you, mate, until we 
 
 "Feel that?" said Moran, holding up a hand. 
 
 A fine, quivering tremble was thrilling through every 
 beam of the schooner, vibrating each rope like a harp- 
 string. It passed away; but before either Wilbur or 
 Moran could comment upon it it recommenced, this time 
 much more perceptibly. Charlie dashed aft, his queue 
 flying. 
 
 "W at makum heap shake?" he shouted; "w at for 
 him shake? No savvy, no likee, pretty much heap 
 flaid; aie-yah, aie-yah !" 
 
 Slowly the schooner heaved up as though upon the 
 crest of some huge wave, slowly it settled, and again 
 gradually lifted, till Wilbur had to catch at the rail to 
 steady his footing. The quivering sensation increased 
 so that their very teeth chattered with it. Below in the 
 cabin they could hear small objects falling from the 
 shelves and table. Then with a sudden drop the Bertha 
 fell back to her keel again, the spilled oil spouting from 
 her scuppers, the masts rocking, the water churning 
 and splashing from her sides. 
 
 And that was all. There was no sound nothing was 
 in sight. There was only one frightened trembling of 
 the little schooner and that long, slow heave and lift. 
 
 Morning came, and breakfast was had in silence and 
 grim perplexity. It was too late to think of getting 
 away, now that the rudder was disabled. The Bertha 
 Millner must bide where she was. 
 
 "And a little more of this dancing," exclaimed Moran, 
 "and we ll have the planks springing off the stern-post." 
 
254 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 Charlie nodded solemnly. He said nothing his 
 gravity had returned. Now in the glare of the tropical 
 day, with the Bertha Millner sitting the sea as placidly 
 as a brooding gull, he was Talleyrand again. 
 
 "I tinkum yas," he said vaguely. 
 
 "Well, / think we had better try and fix the rudder 
 and put back to Frisco," said Moran. "You re making 
 no money this way. There are no sharks to be caught. 
 Something s wrong. They re gone away somewhere. 
 The crew are eating their heads off and not earning 
 enough money to pay for their keep. What do you 
 think?" 
 
 "I tinkum yas." 
 
 "Then we ll go home. Is that it?" 
 
 "I tinkum yas to-molla." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "That s settled then," persisted Moran, surprised at 
 his ready acquiescence; "we start home to-morrow?" 
 Charlie nodded. 
 
 "To-molla," he said. 
 
 The rudder was not so badly damaged as they had at 
 first supposed; the break was easily mended, but it was 
 found necessary for one of the men to go over the side. 
 
 "Get over the side here, Jim," commanded Moran. 
 "Charlie, tell him what s wanted; we can t work the 
 pintle in from the deck." 
 
 But Charlie shook his head. 
 
 "Him no likee go; him plenty much flaid." 
 
 Moran ripped out an oath. 
 
 "What do I care if he s afraid ! I want him to shove 
 the pintle into the lower gudgeon. My God," she ex 
 claimed, with immense contempt, "what carrion ! I d 
 sooner work a boat with she-monkeys. Mr. Wilbur, I 
 shall have to ask you to go over. I thought I was 
 
A SEA MYSTERY 255 
 
 captain here, but it all depends on whether these rats are 
 afraid or not." 
 
 "Plenty many shark," expostulated Charlie. "Him 
 flaid shark come back, catchum chop-chop." 
 
 "Stand by here with a couple of cutting-in spades," 
 cried Moran, "and fend off if you see any shark; now, 
 then, are you ready, mate?" 
 
 Wilbur took his determination in both hands, threw 
 off his coat and sandals, and went over the stern rail. 
 
 "Put your ear to the water," called Moran from 
 above; "sometimes you can hear their flukes." 
 
 It took but a minute to adjust the pintle, and Wilbur 
 regained the deck again, dripping and a little pale. He 
 knew not what horrid form of death might have been 
 lurking for him down below there underneath the kelp. 
 As he started forward for dry clothes he was surprised to 
 observe that Moran was smiling at him, holding out her 
 hand. 
 
 "That was well done," she said, "and thank you. 
 I ve seen older sailor-men than you who wouldn t have 
 taken the risk. " Never before had she appeared more 
 splendid in his eyes than at this moment. After chang 
 ing his clothes in the fo c s le, he sat for a long time, 
 his chin in his hands, very thoughtful. Then at length, 
 as though voicing the conclusion of his reflections, said 
 aloud, as he rose to his feet : 
 
 " But, of course, that is out of the question. " 
 
 He remembered that they were going home on the 
 next day. Within a fortnight he would be in San 
 Francisco again a taxpayer, a police-protected citizen 
 once more. It had been good fun, after all, this three 
 weeks life on the Bertha Millner, a strange episode cut 
 out from the normal circle of his conventional life. He 
 ran over the incidents of the cruise Kitchell, the turtle 
 hunt, the finding of the derelict, the dead captain, the 
 
256 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 squall and the awful sight of the sinking bark, Moran at 
 the wheel, the grewsome business of the shark-fishing, 
 and last of all that inexplicable lifting and quivering of 
 the schooner. He told himself that now he would 
 probably never know the explanation of that 
 mystery. 
 
 The day passed in preparations to put to sea again. 
 The deck-tubs and hogsheads were stowed below and the 
 tackle cleared away. By evening all was ready; they 
 would be under way by daybreak the next morning. 
 There was a possibility of their being forced to tow the 
 schooner out by means of the dory, so light were the airs 
 inside. Once beyond the heads, however, they were 
 sure of a breeze. 
 
 About ten o clock that night the same uncanny 
 trembling ran through the schooner again, and about 
 half an hour later she lifted gently once or twice. But 
 after that she was undisturbed. 
 
 Later on in the night or rather early in the morning 
 Wilbur woke suddenly in his hammock without knowing 
 why, and got up and stood listening. The Bertha 
 Millner was absolutely quiet. The night was hot and 
 still; the new moon, canted over like a sinking galleon, 
 was low over the horizon. Wilbur listened intently, for 
 now at last he heard something. 
 
 Between the schooner and the shore a gentle sound of 
 splashing came to his ears, and an occasional crack as of 
 oars in their locks. Was it possible that a boat was 
 there between the schooner and the land? What boat, 
 and manned by whom? 
 
 The creaking of oarlocks and the dip of paddles was 
 unmistakable. 
 
 Suddenly Wilbur raised his voice in a great shout : 
 
 "Boat ahoy!" 
 
 There was no answer; the noise of oars grew fainter. 
 
A SEA MYSTERY 257 
 
 Moran came running out of her cabin, swinging into her 
 coat as she ran. 
 
 "What is it what is it?" 
 
 "A boat, I think, right off the schooner here. Hark 
 there did you hear the oars ? " 
 
 "You re right; call the hands, get the dory over, we ll 
 follow that boat right up. Hello, forward there, Charlie, 
 all hands, tumble out !" 
 
 Then Wilbur and Moran caught themselves looking 
 into each other s eyes. At once something perhaps 
 the latent silence of the schooner told them there was 
 to be no answer. The two ran forward; Moran swung 
 herself into the fo c s le hatch, and without using the 
 ladder dropped to the deck below. In an instant her 
 voice came up to the hatch: 
 
 "The bunks are empty they re gone abandoned 
 us. " She came up the ladder again. 
 
 " Look, " said Wilbur, as she regained the deck. "The 
 dory s gone; they ve taken it. It was our only boat; 
 we can t get ashore. " 
 
 "Cowardly, superstitious rats, I should have expected 
 this. They would be chopped in bits before they would 
 stay longer on board this boat they and their Feng- 
 shui. " 
 
 When morning came the deserters could be made out 
 camped on the shore, near to the beached dory. What 
 their intentions were could not be conjectured. Ridden 
 with all manner of nameless Oriental superstitions, it 
 was evident that the Chinamen preferred any hazard of 
 fortune to remaining longer upon the schooner. 
 
 "Well, can we get along without them?" said Wilbur. 
 " Can we two work the schooner back to port ourselves ? " 
 
 "We ll try it on, anyhow, mate," said Moran. "We 
 might get her into San Diego, anyhow." 
 
 The Chinamen had left plenty of provisions on board, 
 
258 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 and Moran cooked breakfast. Fortunately, by eight 
 o clock a very light westerly breeze came up. Moran 
 and Wilbur cast off the gaskets and set the fore and 
 main sails. 
 
 Wilbur was busy at the forward bitts preparing to 
 cast loose from the kelp, and Moran had taken up her 
 position at the wheel, when suddenly she exclaimed: 
 
 "Sail ho ! and in God s name what kind of a sail do 
 you call it?" 
 
 In fact, a strange-looking craft had just made her 
 appearance at the entrance of Magdalena Bay. 
 
VII 
 BEACHCOMBERS 
 
 WILBUR returned aft and joined Moran on the 
 quarterdeck. She was already studying the stranger 
 through the glass. 
 
 "That s a new build of boat to me," she muttered, 
 giving Wilbur the glass. Wilbur looked long and care 
 fully. The newcomer was of the size and much the 
 same shape as a caravel of the fifteenth century high 
 as to bow and stern, and to all appearances as seaworthy 
 as a soup-tureen. Never but in the old prints had Wilbur 
 seen such an extraordinary boat. She carried a single 
 mast, which listed forward; her lugsail was stretched 
 upon dozens of bamboo yards; she drew hardly any 
 water. Two enormous red eyes were painted upon 
 either side of her high, blunt bow, while just abaft the 
 waist projected an enormous oar, or sweep, full forty 
 feet in length longer, in fact, than the vessel herself. 
 It acted partly as a propeller, partly as a rudder. 
 
 "They re heading for us," commented Wilbur, as 
 Moran took the glass again. 
 
 "Right," she answered; adding upon the moment: 
 "Huh! more Chinamen; the thing is alive with coolies. 
 She s a junk." 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Wilbur, recollecting some talk of 
 Charlie s he had overheard. "I know." 
 
 "You know?" 
 
 "Yes; these are real beachcombers. I ve heard of 
 them along this coast heard our Chinamen speak of 
 
 259 
 
2 6o MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 them. They beach that junk every night and camp 
 on shore. They re scavengers, as you might say pick 
 up what they can find or plunder along shore abalones, 
 shark-fins, pickings of wrecks, old brass and copper, seals, 
 perhaps, turtle and shell. Between whiles they fish for 
 shrimp, and I ve heard Kitchell tell how they make 
 pearls by dropping birdshot into oysters. They are 
 Kai-gingh to a man, and, according to Kitchell, the 
 wickedest breed of cats that ever cut teeth." 
 
 The junk bore slowly down upon the schooner. In a 
 few moments she had hove to alongside. But for the 
 enormous red eyes upon her bow she was innocent of 
 paint. She was grimed and shellacked with dirt and 
 grease, and smelled abominably. Her crew were China 
 men; but such Chinamen! The coolies of the Bertha 
 Millner were pampered and effete in comparison. The 
 beachcombers, thirteen in number, were a smaller class 
 of men, their faces almost black with tan and dirt. 
 Though they still wore the queue, their heads were not 
 shaven, and mats and mops of stiff black hair fell over 
 their eyes from under their broad, basket -shaped hats. 
 
 They were barefoot. None of them wore more than 
 two garments the jeans and the blouse. They were the 
 lowest type of men Wilbur had ever seen. The faces 
 were those of a higher order of anthropoid apes: the 
 lower portion jaws, lips, and teeth salient; the nostrils 
 opening at almost right angles, the eyes tiny and bright, 
 the forehead seamed and wrinkled unnaturally old. 
 Their general expression was one of simian cunning and 
 a ferocity that was utterly devoid of courage. 
 
 "Ay!" exclaimed Moran between her teeth, "if the 
 devil were a shepherd, here are his sheep. You don t 
 come aboard this schooner, my friends ! I want to live 
 as long as I can, and die when I can t help it. Boat 
 ahoy!" she called. 
 
BEACHCOMBERS 261 
 
 An answer in Cantonese sing-song came back from the 
 junk, and the speaker gestured toward the outside ocean. 
 
 Then a long parleying began. For upward of half an 
 hour Moran and Wilbur listened to a proposition in 
 broken pigeon-English made by the beachcombers 
 again and again and yet again, and were in no way 
 enlightened. It was impossible to understand. Then at 
 last they made out that there was question of a whale. 
 Next it appeared the whale was dead; and finally, 
 after a prolonged pantomime of gesturing and pointing, 
 Moran guessed that the beachcombers wanted the 
 use of the Bertha Millner to trice up the dead leviathan 
 while the oil and whalebone were extracted. 
 
 "That must be it," she said to Wilbur. "That s 
 what they mean by pointing to our masts and tackle. 
 You see, they couldn t manage with that stick of theirs, 
 and they say they ll give us a third of the loot. We ll 
 do it, mate, and I ll tell you why. The wind has fallen 
 and they can tow us out. If it s a sperm-whale they ve 
 found, there ought to be thirty or forty barrels of oil 
 in him, let alone the blubber and bone. Oil is at $50 
 now, and spermaceti will always bring $100. We ll 
 take it on, mate, but we ll keep our eyes on the rats all 
 the time. I don t want them aboard at all. Look at 
 their belts. Not three out of the dozen who aren t 
 carrying those filthy little hatchets. Faugh !" she 
 exclaimed, with a shudder of disgust. "Such vipers !" 
 
 What followed proved that Moran had guessed cor 
 rectly. A rope passed to the Bertha Millner, the junk 
 put out its sweep, and to a wailing, eldritch chanting 
 the schooner was towed out of the bay. 
 
 "I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will 
 think of this?" said Wilbur, looking shoreward, where 
 the deserters could be seen gathered together in a silent, 
 observing group. 
 
262 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "We re well shut of them," growled Moran, her 
 thumbs in her belt. "Only, now we ll never know what 
 was the matter with the schooner these last few nights. 
 Hah!" she exclaimed under her breath, her scowl 
 thickening, "sometimes I don t wonder the beasts cut." 
 
 The dead whale was lying four miles out of the entrance 
 of Magdalena Bay, and as the junk and the schooner 
 drew near seemed like a huge black boat floating bottom 
 up. Over it and upon it swarmed and clamoured 
 thousands of sea-birds, while all around and below the 
 water was thick with gorging sharks. A dreadful, 
 strangling decay fouled all the air. 
 
 The whale was a sperm-whale, and fully twice the 
 length of the Bertha Millner. The work of tricing him 
 up occupied the beachcombers throughout the entire 
 day. It was out of the question to keep them off the 
 schooner, and Wilbur and Moran were too wise to try. 
 They swarmed the forward deck and rigging like a 
 plague of unclean monkeys, climbing with an agility 
 and nimbleness that made Wilbur sick to his stomach. 
 They were unlike any Chinamen he had ever seen 
 hideous to a degree that he had imagined impossible in 
 a human being. On two occasions a fight developed, 
 and in an instant the little hatchets were flashing like 
 the flash of a snake s fangs. Toward the end of the day 
 one of them returned to the junk, screaming like a 
 stuck pig, a bit of his chin bitten off. 
 
 Moran and Wilbur kept to the quarterdeck, always 
 within reach of the huge cutting-in spades, but the 
 Chinese beachcombers were too elated over their prize 
 to pay them much attention. 
 
 And indeed the dead monster proved a veritable 
 treasure-trove. By the end of the day he had been 
 triced up to the foremast, and all hands straining at the 
 windlass had raised the mighty head out of the water. 
 
BEACHCOMBERS 263 
 
 The Chinamen descended upon the smooth, black body, 
 their bare feet sliding and slipping at every step. They 
 held on by jabbing their knives into the hide as glacier- 
 climbers do their ice-picks. The head yielded barrel 
 after barrel of oil and a fair quantity of bone. The 
 blubber was taken aboard the junk, minced up with 
 hatchets, and run into casks. 
 
 Last of all, a Chinaman cut a hole through the " case, " 
 and, actually descending into the inside of the head, 
 stripped away the spermaceti (clear as crystal), and 
 packed it into buckets, which were hauled up on the 
 junk s deck. The work occupied some two or three days. 
 During this time the Bertha Millner was keeled over to 
 nearly twenty degrees by the weight of the dead monster. 
 However, neither Wilbur nor Moran made protest. 
 The Chinamen would do as they pleased; that was said 
 and signed. And they did not release the schooner 
 until the whale had been emptied of oil and blubber, 
 spermaceti and bone. 
 
 At length, on the afternoon of the third day, the 
 captain of the junk, whose name was Hoang, presented 
 himself upon the quarterdeck. He was naked to the 
 waist, and his bare, brown torso was gleaming with oil 
 and sweat. His queue was coiled like a snake around 
 his neck, his hatchet thrust into his belt. 
 
 "Well?" said Moran, coming up. 
 
 Wilbur caught his breath as the two stood there facing 
 each other, so sharp was the contrast. The man, the 
 Mongolian, small, weazened, leather-coloured, secretive 
 strange, complex creature, steeped in all the obscure 
 mystery of the East, nervous, ill at ease; and the girl, 
 the Anglo-Saxon, daughter of the Northmen, huge, 
 blond, big-boned, frank, outspoken, simple of composi 
 tion, open as the day, bareheaded, her great ropes of 
 sandy hair falling over her breast and almost to the top 
 
264 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 of her knee-boots. As he looked at the two, Wilbur 
 asked himself where else but in California could such 
 abrupt contrasts occur. 
 
 "All light," announced Hoang; "cat chum all oil, 
 catchum all bone, catchum all same plenty many. You 
 help catchum, now you catchum pay. Sabe?" 
 
 The three principals came to a settlement with unpre 
 cedented directness. Like all Chinamen, Hoang was 
 true to his promises, and had already set apart three and 
 a half barrels of spermaceti, ten barrels of oil and some 
 twenty pounds of bone as the schooner s share in the 
 transaction. There was no discussion over the matter. 
 He called their attention to the discharge of his obliga 
 tions, and hurried away to summon his men aboard and 
 get the junk under way again. 
 
 The beachcombers returned to their junk, and Wilbur 
 and Moran set about cutting the carcass of the whale 
 adrift. They found it would be easier to cut away the 
 hide from around the hooks and loops of the tackle than 
 to unfasten the tackle itself. 
 
 "The knots are jammed hard as steel," declared 
 Moran. " Hand up that cutting-in spade; stand by with 
 the other and cut loose at the same time as I do, so we 
 can ease off the strain on these lines at the same time. 
 Ready there, cut ! " Moran set free the hook in the loop 
 of black skin in a couple of strokes, but Wilbur was more 
 clumsy; the skin resisted. He struck at it sharply with 
 the heavy spade; the blade hit the iron hook, glanced off, 
 and opened a large slit in the carcass below the head. A 
 gush of entrails started from the slit, and Moran swore 
 under breath. 
 
 "Ease away, quick there ! You ll have the mast out 
 of her next. Steady! Hold your spade ! What s that?" 
 
 Wilbur had nerved himself against the dreadful stench 
 he expected would issue from the putrid monster, but he 
 
BEACHCOMBERS 265 
 
 was surprised to note a pungent, sweet and spicy odour 
 that all at once made thick the air about him. It was an 
 aromatic smell, stronger than that of the salt ocean, 
 stronger even than the reek of oil and blubber from the 
 schooner s waist sweet as incense, penetrating as attar, 
 delicious as a summer breeze. 
 
 "It smells pretty good, whatever it is," he answered. 
 Moran came up to where he stood and looked at the 
 slit he had made in the whale s carcass. Out of it was 
 bulging some kind of dull white matter marbled with 
 gray. It was a hard lump of irregular shape and about 
 as big as a hogshead. 
 
 Moran glanced over to the junk, some forty feet dis 
 tant. The beachcombers were hoisting the lug-sail. 
 Hoang was at the steering oar. 
 
 " Get that stuff aboard, " she commanded quietly. 
 
 "That!" exclaimed Wilbur, pointing to the lump. 
 
 Moran s blue eyes were beginning to gleam. 
 
 "Yes, and do it before the Chinamen see you." 
 
 "But but I don t understand." 
 
 Moran stepped to the quarterdeck, unslung the ham 
 mock in which Wilbur slept, and tossed it to him. 
 
 "Reeve it up in that; I ll pass you a line, and we ll 
 haul it aboard. Godsend, those vermin yonder have 
 got smells enough of their own without noticing this. 
 Hurry, mate, I ll talk afterward." 
 
 Wilbur went over the side, and, standing as best he 
 could upon the slippery carcass, dug out the lump and 
 bound it up in the hammock. 
 
 "Hoh!" exclaimed Moran, with sudden exultation. 
 " There s a lot of it. That s the biggest lump yet, I ll be 
 bound. Is that all there is, mate? look carefully." 
 Her voice had dropped to a whisper . 
 
 "Yes, yes; that s all. Careful now when you haul up 
 Hoang has got his eye on you, and so have the rest of 
 
266 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 them. What do you call it, anyhow? Why are you so 
 particular about it? Is it worth anything?" 
 
 "I don t know perhaps. We ll have a look at it, 
 anyway." 
 
 Moran hauled the stuff aboard, and Wilbur followed. 
 
 "Whew!" he exclaimed with half -closed eyes. "It s 
 like the story of Samson and the dead lion the sweet 
 coming forth from the strong. " 
 
 The schooner seemed to swim in a bath of perfumed 
 air ; the membrane of the nostrils fairly pringled with the 
 sensation. Moran unleashed the hammock, and going 
 down upon one knee examined the lump attentively. 
 
 "It didn t seem possible, " Wilbur heard her saying to 
 herself; "but there can t be any mistake. It s the stuff, 
 right enough. I ve heard of such things, but this but 
 this She rose to her feet, tossing back her hair. 
 
 "Well," said Wilbur, "what do you call it?" 
 
 "The thing to do now," returned Moran, "is to get 
 clear of here as quickly and as quietly as we can, and 
 take this stuff with us. I can t stop to explain now, but 
 it s big it s big. Mate, it s big as the Bank of England." 
 
 "Those beachcombers are right on to the game, I m 
 afraid," said Wilbur. "Look, they re watching us. 
 This stuff would smell across the ocean. " 
 
 "Rot the beachcombers! There s a bit of wind, 
 thank God, and we can do four knots to their one, just 
 let us get clear once." 
 
 Moran dragged the hammock back into the cabin, 
 and returning upon deck, helped Wilbur to cut away the 
 last tricing tackle. The schooner righted slowly to an 
 even keel. Meanwhile the junk had set its one lug-sail 
 and its crew had run out the sweeps. Hoang took the 
 steering sweep and worked the junk to a position right 
 across the Bertha s bows, some fifty feet ahead. 
 
 "They re watching us, right enough," said Wilbur. 
 
BEACHCOMBERS 267 
 
 "Up your mains l," ordered Moran. The pair set the 
 fore and main sails with great difficulty. Moran took 
 the wheel and Wilbur went forward to cast off the line 
 by which the schooner had been tied up to one of the 
 whale s flukes. 
 
 "Cut it !" cried the girl. "Don t stop to cast off." 
 
 There was a hail from the beachcombers; the port 
 sweeps dipped and the junk bore up nearer. 
 
 "Hurry!" shouted Moran, "don t mind them. Are 
 we clear for ard what s the trouble? Something s 
 holding her." The schooner listed slowly to starboard 
 and settled by the head. 
 
 "All clear!" cried Wilbur. 
 
 "There s something wrong!" exclaimed Moran; "she s 
 settling for ard." Hoang hailed the schooner a second 
 time. 
 
 "We re still settling," called Wilbur from the bows, 
 "what s the matter?" 
 
 "Matter that she s taking water," answered Moran 
 wrathfully. "She s started something below, what 
 with all that lifting and dancing and tricing up." 
 
 Wilbur ran back to the quarterdeck. 
 
 "This is a bad fix," he said to Moran. "Those chaps 
 are coming aboard again. They re onto something, 
 and, of course, at just this moment she begins to leak." 
 
 "They are after that ambergris," said Moran between 
 her teeth. "Smelt it, of course the swine !" 
 
 "Ambergris?" 
 
 "The stuff we found in the whale. That s ambergris." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well!" shouted Moran, exasperated. "Do you 
 know that we have found a lump that will weigh close 
 to 250 pounds, and do you know that ambergris is 
 selling in San Francisco at $40 an ounce? Do you 
 know that we have picked up nearly $150,000 right 
 
268 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 out of here in the ocean and are in a fair way to lose 
 it all?" 
 
 "Can t we run for it?" 
 
 "Run for it in a boat that s taking water like a sack ! 
 Our dory s gone. Suppose we got clear of the junk, and 
 the Bertha sank? Then what? If we only had our 
 crew aboard; if we were only ten to their dozen 
 if we were only six by Jupiter ! I d fight them 
 for it." 
 
 The two enormous red eyes of the junk loomed along 
 side and stared over into the Bertha s waist. Hoang 
 and seven of the coolies swarmed aboard. 
 
 "What now?" shouted Moran, coming forward to 
 meet them, her scowl knotting, her flashing eyes together. 
 "Is this ship yours or mine? We ve done your dirty 
 work for you. I want you clear of my deck." Wilbur 
 stood at her side, uncertain what to do, but ready for 
 anything she should attempt. 
 
 "I tink you catchum someting, smellum pretty big," 
 said Hoang, his ferret glance twinkling about the 
 schooner. 
 
 "I catchum nothing nothing but plenty bad stink," 
 said Moran. "No, you don t!" she exclaimed, putting 
 herself in Hoang s way as he made for the cabin. The 
 other beachcombers came crowding up; Wilbur even 
 thought he saw one of them loosening his hatchet in 
 his belt. 
 
 "This ship s mine," cried Moran, backing to the 
 cabin door. Wilbur followed her, and the Chinamen 
 closed down upon the pair. 
 
 "It s not much use, Moran," he muttered. "They ll 
 rush us in a minute." 
 
 "But the ambergris is mine is mine," she answered, 
 never taking her eyes from the confronting coolies. 
 
 "We findum w ale," said Hoang; "you no find w ale; 
 
BEACHCOMBERS 269 
 
 him b long to we eve yt ing in um w ale b long to we, 
 savvy ?" 
 
 "No; you promised us a third of everything you 
 found." 
 
 Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to 
 Wilbur that it was quite possible that at least two-thirds 
 of the ambergris did belong to the beachcombers by 
 right of discovery. After all, it was the beachcombers 
 who had found the whale. He could never remember 
 afterward whether or not he said as much to Moran at 
 the time. If he did, she had been deaf to it. A fury of 
 wrath and desperation suddenly blazed in her blue eyes. 
 Standing at her side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grind 
 ing upon each other. She was blind to all danger, 
 animated only by a sense of injustice and imposition. 
 
 Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the 
 coolies jumped forward, and Moran s fist met him in 
 the face and brought him to his knees. Then came the 
 rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch a 
 sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little 
 hatchet glinted over his head. He struck out savagely 
 into the thick of the group and then opened his eyes to 
 find Moran washing the blood from his hair as he lay on 
 the deck with his head in the hollow of her arm. Every 
 thing was quiet. The beachcombers were gone. 
 
 "Hello, what what what is it?" he asked, springing 
 to his feet, his head swimming and smarting. "We had 
 a row, didn t we? Did they hurt you? Oh, I remem 
 ber; I got a cut over the head one of their hatchet 
 men. Did they hurt you?" 
 
 "They got the loot," she growled. "Filthy vermin! 
 And just to make everything pleasant, the schooner s 
 sinking." 
 
VIII 
 A RUN FOR LAND 
 
 " SINKING !" exclaimed Wilbur. 
 
 Moran was already on her feet. "We ll have to 
 beach her," she cried, "and we re six miles out. Up 
 y r jib, mate!" The two set the jib, flying jib, and 
 staysails. 
 
 The fore and main sails were already drawing, and 
 under all the spread of her canvas the Bertha raced 
 toward the shore. 
 
 But by the time she was within the head of the bay 
 her stern had settled to such an extent that the forefoot 
 was clear of the water, the bowsprit pointing high into 
 the heavens. Moran was at the wheel, her scowl thicker 
 than ever, her eyes measuring the stretch of water that 
 lay between the schooner and the shore. 
 
 "She ll never make it in God s world," she muttered, 
 as she listened to the wash of the water in the cabin 
 under her feet. In the hold, empty barrels were afloat, 
 knocking hollowly against each other. "We re in a bad 
 way, mate." 
 
 "If it comes to that," returned Wilbur, surprised to 
 see her thus easily downcast, who was usually so indom 
 itable. "If it comes to that, we can swim for it a 
 couple of planks " 
 
 "Swim?" she echoed; "I m not thinking of that; of 
 course we could swim." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "The sharks!" 
 
 270 
 
A RUN FOR LAND 271 
 
 Wilbur s teeth clicked sharply together. He could 
 think of nothing to say. 
 
 As the water gained between decks the schooner s 
 speed dwindled, and at the same time as she approached 
 the shore the wind, shut off by the land, fell away. By 
 this time the ocean was not four inches below the stern 
 rail. Two miles away was the nearest sand-spit. 
 Wilbur broke out a distress signal on the foremast, in 
 the hope that Charlie and the deserters might send off 
 the dory to their assistance. But the deserters were 
 nowhere in sight. 
 
 "What became of the junk?" he demanded suddenly 
 of Moran. She motioned to the westward with her head. 
 "Still laying outside." 
 
 Twenty minutes passed. Once only Moran spoke. 
 
 "When she begins to go," she said, "she ll go with a 
 rush. Jump pretty wide, or you ll get caught in the 
 suction." 
 
 The two had given up all hope. Moran held grimly 
 to the wheel as a mere matter of form. Wilbur stood at 
 her side, his clenched fists thrust into his pockets. The 
 eyes of both were fixed on the yellow line of the distant 
 beach. By and by Moran turned to him with an odd 
 smile. 
 
 "We re a strange pair to die together," she said. 
 Wilbur met her eyes an instant, but finding no reply, 
 put his chin in the air as though he would have told her 
 she might well say that. 
 
 "A strange pair to die together," Moran repeated; 
 
 "but we can do that better than we could have "she 
 
 looked away from him "could have lived together," 
 she finished, and smiled again. 
 
 "And yet," said Wilbur, "these last few weeks here 
 on board the schooner we have been through a good deal 
 together. I don t know," he went on clumsily, "I 
 
2 y 2 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 don t know when I ve been when I ve had I ve been 
 happier than these last weeks. It is queer, isn t it ? I 
 know, of course, what you ll say. I ve said it to myself 
 often of late. / belong to the city and to my life there, 
 and you you belong to the ocean. I never knew a 
 girl like you never knew a girl could be like you. You 
 don t know how extraordinary it all seems to me. You 
 swear like a man, and you dress like a man, and I don t 
 suppose you ve ever been associated with other women; 
 and you re strong I know you are as strong as I am. 
 You have no idea how different you are to the kind of 
 girl I ve known. Imagine my kind of girl standing up 
 before Hoang and those cutthroat beachcombers with 
 their knives and hatchets. Maybe it s because you are 
 so unlike my kind of girl that that things are as they 
 are with me. / don t know. It s a queer situation. A 
 month or so ago I was at a tea in San Francisco, and now 
 I m aboard a shark-fishing schooner sinking in Magdalena 
 Bay; and I m with a girl that that that I well, I m 
 with you, and, well, you know how it is I might as well 
 say it I love you more than I imagined I ever could 
 love a girl. " 
 
 Moran s frown came back to her forehead. 
 
 "I don t like that kind of talk," she said; "I am not 
 used to it, and I don t know how to take it. Believe me," 
 she said with a half laugh, "it s all wasted. / never 
 could love a man. I m not made for men. " 
 
 "No," said Wilbur, "nor for other women either." 
 
 "Nor for other women either." 
 
 Wilbur fell silent. In that instant he had a distinct 
 vision of Moran s life and character, shunning men and 
 shunned of women, a strange, lonely creature, solitary 
 as the ocean whereon she lived, beautiful after her 
 fashion; as yet without sex, proud, untamed, splendid in 
 her savage, primal independence a thing untouched 
 
A RUN FOR LAND 273 
 
 and unsullied by civilization. She seemed to him some 
 Bradamante, some mythical Brunhilde, some Valkyrie 
 of the legends born out of season, lost and unfamiliar in 
 this end-of-the-century time. Her purity was the purity 
 of primeval glaciers. He could easily see how to such a 
 girl the love of a man would appear only in the light of a 
 humiliation a degradation. And yet she could love, 
 else how had he been able to love her? Wilbur found 
 himself even at that moment wondering how the 
 thing could be done wondering to just what note the 
 untouched cords would vibrate just how she should 
 be awakened one morning to find that she Moran, sea- 
 rover, virgin unconquered, without law, without land, 
 without sex was, after all, a woman. 
 
 "By God, mate!" she exclaimed of a sudden. "The 
 barrels are keeping us up the empty barrels in the hold. 
 Hoh ! we ll make land yet. " 
 
 It was true. The empty hogsheads, destined for the 
 storage of oil, had been forced up by the influx of the 
 water to the roof of the hold, and were acting as so many 
 buoys the schooner could sink no lower. An hour 
 later, the quarterdeck all awash, her bow thrown high 
 into the air, listing horribly to starboard, the Bertha 
 Millner took ground on the shore of Magdalena Bay at 
 about the turn of the tide. 
 
 Moran swung herself over the side, hip deep in the 
 water, and, wading ashore with a line, made fast to the 
 huge skull of a whale half buried in the sand at that 
 point. 
 
 Wilbur followed. The schooner had grounded upon 
 the southern horn of the bay and lay easily on a spit of 
 sand. They could not examine the nature of the leak 
 until low water the next morning. 
 
 "Well, here we are," said Moran, her thumbs in her 
 belt. "What next? We may be here for two days, we 
 
2 74 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 may be here for two years. It all depends upon how 
 bad a hole she has. Have we put in for repairs, or 
 have we been cast away ; can t tell till to-morrow morn 
 ing. Meanwhile, I m hungry. " 
 
 Half of the stores of the schooner were water-soaked, 
 but upon examination Wilbur found that enough 
 remained intact to put them beyond all fear for the 
 present. 
 
 "There s plenty of water up the creek," he said, "and 
 we can snare all the quail we want ; and then there s the 
 fish and abalones. Even if the stores were gone we could 
 make out very well." 
 
 The schooner s cabin was full of water and Wilbur s 
 hammock was gone, so the pair decided to camp on 
 shore. In that torrid weather, to sleep in the open air 
 was a luxury. 
 
 In great good spirits the two sat down to their first 
 meal on land. Moran cooked a supper that, barring the 
 absence of coffee, was delicious. The whisky was had 
 from aboard, and they pledged each other, standing up, 
 in something over two stiff fingers. 
 
 "Moran," said Wilbur, "you ought to have been born 
 a man. " 
 
 "At all events, mate," she said "at aft events, I m 
 not a girl." 
 
 " No ./" exclaimed Wilbur, as he filled his pipe. " No, 
 you re just Moran Moran of the Lady Letty." 
 
 " And I ll stay that, too, " she said decisively. 
 
 Never had an evening been more beautiful in Wilbur s 
 eyes. There was not a breath of air. The stillness was 
 so profound that the faint murmur of the blood behind 
 the eardrums became an oppression. The ocean tip 
 toed toward the land with tiny rustling steps. The 
 west was one gigantic stained window, the ocean floor 
 a solid shimmer of opalescence. Behind them, sullen 
 
A RUN FOR LAND 275 
 
 purples marked the horizon, hooded with mountain 
 crests, and after a long while the moon shrugged a gleam 
 ing shoulder into view. 
 
 Wilbur, dressed in Chinese jeans and blouse, with 
 Chinese wicker sandals on his bare feet, sat with his back 
 against the whale s skull, smoking quietly. For a long 
 time there was no conversation ; then at last : 
 
 "No," said Moran in a low voice. "This is the life 
 I m made for. In six years I ve not spent three con 
 secutive weeks on land. Now that Eilert" (she always 
 spoke of her father by his first name) "now that Eilert 
 is dead, I ve not a tie, not a relative, not even a friend, 
 and I don t wish it. " 
 
 "But the loneliness of the life, the solitude," said 
 Wilbur, "that s what I don t understand. Did it ever 
 occur to you that the best happiness is the happiness 
 that one shares?" 
 
 Moran clasped a knee in both hands and looked out to 
 sea. She never wore a hat, and the red light of the after 
 glow was turning her rye-hued hair to saffron. 
 
 "Hoh!" she exclaimed, her heavy voice pitched even 
 lower than usual. "Who could understand or share 
 any of my pleasures, or be happy when I m happy? 
 And, besides, I m happiest when I m alone I don t 
 want any one. " 
 
 "But," hesitated Wilbur, "one is not always alone. 
 After all, you are a girl, and men, sailor-men especially, 
 are beasts when it s a question of a woman an unpro 
 tected woman. " 
 
 "I m stronger than most men," said Moran simply. 
 "If you, for instance, had been like some men, I should 
 have fought you. It wouldn t have been the first time, " 
 she added, smoothing one huge braid between her 
 palms. 
 
 Wilbur looked at her with intent curiosity noted 
 
276 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 again, as if for the first time, the rough, blue overalls 
 thrust into the shoes ; the coarse flannel shirt open at the 
 throat; the belt with its sheath-knife; her arms big and 
 white and tattooed in sailor fashion; her thick, muscular 
 neck; her red face, with its pale-blue eyes and almost 
 massive jaw; and her hair her heavy, yellow, fragrant 
 hair, that lay over her shoulder and breast, coiling and 
 looping in her lap. 
 
 "No," he said, with a long breath, "I don t make it 
 out. I knew you were out of my experience, but I 
 begin to think now that you are out of even my imagina 
 tion. You are right; you should keep to yourself. You 
 should be alone your mate isn t made yet. You are 
 splendid just as you are," while under his breath he 
 added, his teeth clenching, "and God ! but I love you." 
 
 It was growing late, the stars were all out, the moon 
 riding high. Moran yawned: 
 
 "Mate, I think I ll turn in. We ll have to be at that 
 schooner early in the morning, and I make no doubt 
 she ll give us plenty to do. " Wilbur hesitated to reply, 
 waiting to take his cue from what next she should say. 
 "It s hot enough to sleep where we are," she added, 
 "without going aboard the Bertha, though we might 
 have a couple of blankets off to lie on. This sand s as 
 hard as a plank." 
 
 Without answering, Wilbur showed her a couple of 
 blanket-rolls he had brought off while he was unloading 
 part of the stores that afternoon. They took one apiece 
 and spread them on the sand by the bleached whale s 
 skull. Moran pulled off her boots and stretched herself 
 upon her blanket with absolute unconcern, her hands 
 clasped under her head. Wilbur rolled up his coat for 
 a pillow and settled himself for the night with an 
 assumed self-possession. There was a long silence. 
 Moran yawned again. 
 
A RUN FOR LAND 277 
 
 "I pulled the heel off my boot this morning, " she said 
 lazily, "and I ve been limping all day." 
 
 "I noticed it," answered Wilbur. "Kitchell had a 
 new pair aboard somewhere, if they re not spoiled by 
 the water now." 
 
 "Yes?" she said indifferently. "We ll look them up in 
 the morning. " 
 
 Again there was silence. 
 
 "I wonder, " she began again, staring up into the dark, 
 "if Charlie took that frying-pan off with him when he 
 went?" 
 
 "I don t know. He probably did." 
 
 "It was the only thing we had to cook abalones in. 
 Make me think to look into the galley to-morrow. . . . 
 This ground s as hard as nails, for all your 
 blankets. . . . Well, good-night, mate, I m going 
 to sleep." 
 
 "Good-night, Moran. " 
 
 Three hours later, Wilbur, who had not closed his eyes, 
 sat up and looked at Moran, sleeping quietly, her head 
 in a pale glory of hair; looked at her, and then around 
 him at the silent, deserted land. 
 
 "I don t know," he said to himself. "Am I a right- 
 minded man and a thoroughbred, or a mush-head, or 
 merely a prudent, sensible sort of chap that values his 
 skin and bones ? I d be glad to put a name to myself. " 
 Then, more earnestly, he added: "Do I love her too 
 much, or not enough, or love her the wrong way, or 
 how?" He leaned toward her, so close that he could 
 catch the savour of her breath and the smell of her 
 neck, warm with sleep. The sleeve of the coarse blue 
 shirt was drawn up, and it seemed to him as if her bare 
 arm, flung out at full length, had some sweet aroma of 
 its own. Wilbur drew softly back. 
 
 " No, " he said to himself decisively; "no, I guess I am 
 
278 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 a thoroughbred after all." It was only then that he 
 went to sleep. 
 
 When he awoke the sea was pink with the sunrise, 
 and one of the bay heads was all distorted and stratified 
 by a mirage. It was hot already. Moran was sitting a 
 few paces from him, braiding her hair. 
 
 "Hallo, Moran !" he said, rousing up; "how long have 
 you been up?" 
 
 "Since before sunrise," she said; "I ve had a bath in 
 the cove where the creek runs down. I saw a jack 
 rabbit." 
 
 "Seen anything of Charlie and the others?" 
 
 "They ve camped on the other side of the bay. But 
 look yonder," she added. 
 
 The junk had come in over night, and was about a 
 mile and a half from shore. 
 
 "The deuce!" exclaimed Wilbur. "What are they 
 after?" 
 
 "Fresh water, I guess," said Moran, knotting the end 
 of a braid. "We d better have breakfast in a hurry 
 and turn to on the Bertha. The tide is going out fast." 
 
 While they breakfasted they kept an eye on the 
 schooner, watching her sides and flanks as the water 
 fell slowly away. 
 
 "Don t see anything very bad yet," said Wilbur. 
 
 "It s somewheres in her stern," remarked Moran. 
 
 In an hour s time the Bertha Millner was high and 
 dry and they could examine her at their leisure. It 
 was Moran who found the leak. 
 
 "Pshaw!" she exclaimed, with a half -laugh, "we can 
 stick that up in half an hour." 
 
 A single plank had started away from the stern-post; 
 that was all. Otherwise the schooner was as sound as 
 the day she left San Francisco. Moran and Wilbur had 
 the damage repaired by noon, nailing the plank into its 
 
A RUN FOR LAND 279 
 
 place and caulking the seams with lamp-wick. Nor 
 could their most careful search discover any further 
 injury. 
 
 "We re ready to go," said Moran, "so soon as she ll 
 float. We can dig away around the bows here, make 
 fast a line to that rock out yonder, and warp her off at 
 next high tide. Hello ! Who s this?" 
 
 It was Charlie. While the two had been at work, 
 he had come around the shore unobserved, and now 
 stood at some little distance, smiling at them calmly. 
 
 "Well, what do you want?" cried Moran angrily. 
 "If you had your rights, my friend, you d be keelhauled." 
 
 "I tink um velly hot day." 
 
 "You didn t come here to say that. What do you 
 want?" 
 
 "I come hab talkee-talk." 
 
 "We don t want to have any talkee-talk with such 
 vermin as you. Get out !" 
 
 Charlie sat down on the beach and wiped his forehead. 
 
 "I come buy one-piecee of bacon. China boy no hab 
 got." 
 
 "We aren t selling bacon to deserters," cried Moran; 
 "and I ll tell you this, you filthy little monkey: Mr. 
 Wilbur and I are going home back to Frisco this 
 afternoon; and we re going to leave you and the rest of 
 your vipers to rot on this beach, or to be murdered by 
 beachcombers," and she pointed out toward the junk. 
 Charlie did not even follow the direction of her gesture, 
 and from this very indifference Wilbur guessed that it 
 was precisely because of the beachcombers that the 
 Machiavellian Chinaman had wished to treat with his 
 old officers. 
 
 "No hab got bacon?" he queried, lifting his eyebrows 
 in surprise. 
 
 "Plenty; but not for you." 
 
280 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 Charlie took a buckskin bag from his blouse and 
 counted out a handful of silver and gold. 
 
 "I buy um nisi two-piecee tobacco." 
 
 "Look here," said Wilbur deliberately; "don t you 
 try to flimflam us, Charlie. We know you too well. 
 You don t want bacon and you don t want tobacco." 
 
 "China boy heap plenty much sick. Two boy velly 
 sick. I tink um die pretty soon to-molla. You catch 
 um slop-chest; you gib me five, seven liver pill. 
 Sabe?" 
 
 "I ll tell you what you want," cried Moran, aiming 
 a forefinger at him, pistol fashion; "you ve got a blue 
 funk because those Kai-gingh beachcombers have come 
 into the bay, and you re more frightened of them than 
 you are of the schooner; and now you want us to take 
 you home." 
 
 "How muchee?" 
 
 "A thousand dollars." 
 
 Wilbur looked at her in surprise. He had expected 
 a refusal. 
 
 "You no hab got liver pill?" inquired Charlie blandly. 
 
 Moran turned her back on him. She and Wilbur 
 conferred in a low voice. 
 
 "We d better take them back, if we decently can," 
 said Moran. "The schooner is known, of course, in 
 Frisco. She went out with Kitchell and a crew of coolies, 
 and she comes back with you and I aboard, and if we 
 tell the truth about it, it will sound like a lie, and we will 
 have no end of trouble. Then again, can just you and I 
 work the Bertha into port? In these kind of airs it s 
 plain work, but suppose we have dirty weather? I m 
 not so sure." 
 
 "I gib you ten dollah fo ten liver pill," said Charlie. 
 
 "Will you give us a thousand dollars to set you down 
 in San Francisco?" 
 
A RUN FOR LAND 281 
 
 Charlie rose. "I go back. I tell urn China boy what 
 you say bout liver pill. Bime-by I come back." 
 
 "That means he ll take our offer back to his friends, 
 said Wilbur, in a low voice. "You best hurry, chop- 
 chop," he called after Charlie; "we go home pretty soon !" 
 
 "He knows very well we can t get away before high 
 tide to-morrow," said Moran. " He ll take his time." 
 
 Later on in the afternoon Moran and Wilbur saw a 
 small boat put off from the junk and make a landing by 
 the creek. The beachcombers were taking on water. 
 The boat made three trips before evening, but the beach 
 combers made no show of molesting the undefended 
 schooner, or in any way interfering with Charlie s camp 
 on the other side of the bay. 
 
 "No!" exclaimed Moran between her teeth, as she 
 and Wilbur were cooking supper; "no, they don t need 
 to; they ve got about a hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars of loot on board our loot, too ! Good God ! 
 It goes against the grain !" 
 
 The moon rose considerably earlier that night, and 
 by twelve o clock the bay was flooded with its electrical 
 whiteness. Wilbur and Moran could plainly make out 
 the junk tied up to the kelp off-shore. But toward, 
 one o clock Wilbur was awakened by Moran shaking 
 his arm. 
 
 "There s something wrong out there," she whispered; 
 "something wrong with the junk. Hear em squealing? 
 Look! look! look!" she cried of a sudden; "it s their 
 turn now!" 
 
 Wilbur could see the crank junk, with its staring red 
 eyes, high stern and prow, as distinctly as though at 
 noonday. As he watched, it seemed as if a great wave 
 caught her suddenly under foot. She heaved up bodily 
 out of the water, dropped again with a splash, rose again, 
 and again fell back into her own ripples, that, widening 
 
282 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 from her sides, broke crisply on the sand at Wilbur s 
 feet. 
 
 Then the commotion ceased abruptly. The bay was 
 quiet again. An hour passed, then two. The moon 
 began to set. Moran and Wilbur, wearied of watching, 
 had turned in again, when they were startled to wakeful- 
 ness by the creak of oarlocks and the sound of a boat 
 grounding in the sand. 
 
 The coolies the deserters from the Bertha Millner 
 were there. Charlie came forward. 
 
 "Ge lup! Ge hip!" he said. "Junk all smash! 
 Kai-gingh come ashore. I tink him want catch um 
 schooner." 
 
IX 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 
 
 "WHAT smashed the junk? What wrecked her?" 
 demanded Moran. 
 
 The deserting Chinamen huddled around Charlie, 
 drawing close, as if finding comfort in the feel of one 
 another s elbows. 
 
 "No can tell," answered Charlie. "Him shake, then 
 lif up all the same as we. Bime-by too much lif 
 
 up; him smash all to . Four-piecee Chinamen 
 
 dlown." 
 
 "Drown! Did any of them drown?" exclaimed 
 Moran. 
 
 "Four-piecee dlown," reiterated Charlie calmly. 
 "One, thlee, five, nine, come asho . Him other no 
 come." 
 
 "Where are the ones that came ashore ?" asked Wilbur. 
 
 Charlie waved a hand back into the night. "Him 
 make um camp topside ole house." 
 
 "That old whaling-camp," prompted Moran. Then 
 to Wilbur: "You remember about a hundred yards 
 north the creek ?" 
 
 Wilbur, Moran and Charlie had drawn off a little 
 from the Bertha Millner s crew. The latter squatted in 
 a line along the shore silent, reserved, looking vaguely 
 seaward through the night. Moran spoke again, her 
 scowl thickening: 
 
 "What makes you think the beachcombers want our 
 schooner?" 
 
 283 
 
284 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Him catch um schooner sure! Him want um boat 
 to go home. No can get. " 
 
 "Let s put off to-night right away," said Wibur. 
 
 "Low tide," answered Moran; "and besides Charlie, 
 did you see them close ? Were you near them ? " 
 
 "No go muchee close." 
 
 "Did they have something with them, reeved up in a 
 hammock something that smelled sweet?" 
 
 "Like a joss-stick, for instance?" 
 
 "No savvy; no can tell. Him try catch um schooner 
 sure. Him velly bad China boy. See Yup China boy 
 velly bad. I b long Sam Yup. Savvy?" 
 
 "Ah! the tongs?" 
 
 "Yass. I Sam Yup. Him," and he pointed to the 
 Bertha s crew, "Sam Yup. All we Sam Yup ; nisi him, " 
 and he waved a hand toward the beachcombers camp ; 
 "him See Yup. Savvy?" 
 
 "It s a tong row," said Wilbur. "They re blood 
 enemies, the See Yups and Sam Yups." 
 
 Moran fell thoughtful, digging her boot -heel into the 
 sand, her thumbs hooked into her belt, her forehead 
 gathered into a heavy frown. There was silence. 
 
 "One thing," she said at last; "we can t give up the 
 schooner. They would take our stores as well, and then 
 where are we ? Marooned, by Jove ! How far do you 
 suppose we are from the nearest town? Three hundred 
 miles wouldn t be a bad guess, and they ve got the loot 
 our ambergris I ll swear to that. They didn t leave 
 that aboard when the junk sank. 
 
 "Look here, Charlie," she said, turning to the China 
 man. "If the beachcombers take the schooner the 
 Bertha Millner from us, we ll be left to starve on this 
 beach." 
 
 "I tink um yaas. " 
 
 u How are we going to get home? Are you going to 
 
THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 285 
 
 let them do it ? Are you going to let them have our 
 schooner ? 
 
 " I tink no can have. " 
 
 "Look here," she went on, with sudden energy. 
 "There are only nine of them now, to our eight. 
 We re about even. We can fight those swine. I know 
 we can. If we jumped their camp and rushed them 
 hard, believe me, we could run them into the sea. Mate, 
 she cried, suddenly facing Wilbur, "are you game? 
 Have you got blood in you? Those beachcombers are 
 going to attack us to-morrow, before high tide that s 
 flat. There s going to be a fight anyway. We can t, 
 let them have the schooner. It s starvation for us if 
 we do. 
 
 "They mean to make a dash for the Bertha, and we ve 
 got to fight them off. If there s any attacking to be 
 done, I propose to do it ! I propose we jump their camp 
 before it gets light now to-night right away run 
 in on them there, take them by surprise, do for one or 
 two of them if we have to, and get that ambergris. 
 Then cut back to the schooner, up our sails, and wait 
 for the tide to float us off. We can do it I know we 
 can. Mate, will you back me up ? " 
 
 "Back you up? You bet I ll back you up, Moran. 
 
 But " Wilbur hesitated. " We could fight them so 
 
 much more to advantage from the deck of the schooner. 
 Why not wait for them aboard? We could have our 
 sails up, anyhow, and we could keep the beachcombers 
 off till the tide rose high enough to drive them back. 
 Why not do that?" 
 
 "I tink bes wait topside boat, " assented Charlie. 
 
 "Yes; why not, Moran?" 
 
 "Because," shouted the girl, "they ve got our loot. 
 I don t propose to be plundered of $150,000 if I can 
 help it." 
 
286 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Wassa dat?" demanded Charlie. "Hunder fiftee 
 tlousand you hab got?" 
 
 "I did have it we had it, the mate and I. We 
 triced a sperm whale for the beachcombers, and when 
 they thought they had everything out of him we found 
 a lump of ambergris in him that will weigh close to two 
 hundred and fifty pounds. Now look here, Charlie. The 
 beachcombers have got the stuff. It s mine I m going 
 to have it back. Here s the lay. Your men can fight 
 you can fight yourself. We ll make it a business propo 
 sition. Help me to get that ambergris, and if we get 
 it I ll give each one of the men $1,000, and I ll give you 
 $1,500. You can take that up and be independent rich 
 the rest of your life. You can chuck it and rot on this 
 beach, for it s fight or lose the schooner; you know that 
 as well as I do. If you ve got to fight anyhow, why 
 not fight where it s going to pay the most." 
 
 Charlie hesitated, pursing his lips. 
 
 "How about this, Moran?" Wilbur broke forth now, 
 unheard by Charlie. " I ve just been thinking; have we 
 got a right to this ambergris, after all? The beach 
 combers found the whale. It was theirs. How have 
 we the right to take the ambergris away from them any 
 more than the sperm and the oil and the bone? It s 
 theirs, if you come to that. I don t know as we ve the 
 right to it." 
 
 "Darn you!" shouted Moran in a blaze of fury, 
 "right to it, right to it ! If I haven t, who has? Who 
 found it ? Those dirty monkeys might have stood some 
 show to a claim if they d held to the one-third bargain, 
 and offered to divvy with us when they got me where 
 I couldn t help myself. I don t say I d give in now if 
 they had give in to let em walk off with a hundred 
 thousand dollars that I ve got as good a claim to as they 
 have ! But they ve saved me the trouble of arguing the 
 
THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 287 
 
 question. They ve taken it all, all ! and there s no 
 bargain in the game at all now. Now the stuff belongs 
 to the strongest of us, and I m glad of it. They thought 
 they were the strongest and now they re going to find 
 out. We re dumped down here on this Godforsaken 
 sand, and there s no law and no policeman. The 
 strongest of us are going to live and the weakest are 
 going to die. I m going to live and I m going to have 
 my loot, too, and I m not going to split fine hairs with 
 these robbers at this time of day. I m going to have 
 it all, and that s the law you re under in this case, my 
 righteous friend ! " 
 
 She turned her back upon him, spinning around upon 
 her heel, and Wilbur felt ashamed of himself and proud 
 of her. 
 
 "I go talkee-talk to China boy," said Charlie, coming 
 up. 
 
 For about five minutes the Chinamen conferred together 
 squatting in a circle on the beach. Moran paced up and 
 down by the stranded dory. Wilbur leaned against the 
 bleached whale-skull, his hands in his pockets. Once 
 he looked at his watch. It was nearly one o clock. 
 
 "All light," said Charlie, coming out from the group 
 at last; "him fight plenty." 
 
 "Now," exclaimed Moran, "we ve no time to waste. 
 What arms have we got?" 
 
 "We ve the cutting-in spades," said Wilbur; "there s 
 five of them. They re nearly ten feet long and the 
 blades are as sharp as razors; you couldn t want better 
 pikes. " 
 
 "That s an idea," returned Moran, evidently willing 
 to forget her outburst of a moment before, perhaps 
 already sorry for it. The party took stock of their 
 weapons, and five huge cutting-in spades, a heavy knife 
 from the galley, and a revolver of doubtful effectiveness 
 
288 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 were divided among them. The crew took the spades, 
 Charlie the knife, and Wilbur the revolver. Moran had 
 her own knife, a haftless dirk, such as is affected by 
 all Norwegians, whether landsmen or sailors. They 
 were examining this armament, and Moran was suggest 
 ing a plan of attack, when Hoang, the leader of the beach 
 combers, and one other Chinaman, appeared some little 
 distance below them on the beach. The moon was low 
 and there was no great light, but the two beachcombers 
 caught the flash of the points of the spades. They halted 
 and glanced narrowly and suspiciously at the group. 
 
 "Beasts!" muttered Moran. "They are up to the 
 game there s no surprising them now. Talk to him, 
 Charlie; see what he wants." 
 
 Moran, Wilbur and Charlie came part of the way 
 toward Hoang and his fellow, and paused some fifteen 
 feet distant, and a long colloquy ensued. It soon 
 become evident, however, that in reality Hoang wanted 
 nothing of them, though with great earnestness he 
 asserted his willingness to charter the Bertha Millner 
 back to San Francisco. 
 
 "That s not his game at all, " said Moran to Wilbur, in 
 a low tone, her eyes never leaving those of the beach 
 comber. "He s pretty sure he could seize the Bertha 
 and never pay us a stiver. They ve come down to spy 
 on us, and they re doing it, too. There s no good trying 
 to rush their camp now. They ll go back and tell the 
 crew that we know their lay. " 
 
 It was still very dark. Near the hulk of the beached 
 Bertha Millner were grouped her crew, each armed with a 
 long and lancelike cutting-in spade, watching and listen 
 ing to the conference of the chiefs. The moon, almost 
 down, had flushed blood-red, violently streaking the 
 gray, smooth surface of the bay with her reflection. The 
 tide was far out, rippling quietly along the reaches of 
 
THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 289 
 
 wet sand. In the pauses of the conference the vast, 
 muffling silence shut down with the abruptness of a 
 valve suddenly closed. 
 
 How it happened, just who made the first move, in 
 precisely what manner the action had been planned or 
 what led up to it, Wilbur could not afterward satis 
 factorily explain. There was a rush forward he 
 remembered that much a dull thudding of feet over 
 the resounding beach surface, a moment s writhing 
 struggle with a half-naked brown figure that used 
 knife and nail and tooth, and then the muffling 
 silence again, broken only by the sound of their 
 own panting. In that whirl of sv/ift action Wilbur could 
 reconstruct but two brief pictures: the Chinaman, 
 Hoang s companion, flying like one possessed along the 
 shore; Hoang himself flung headlong into the arms of 
 the Bertha s coolies, and Moran, her eyes blazing, her 
 thick braids flying, brandishing her fist as she shouted 
 at the top -of her deep voice: "We ve got you, anyhow ! " 
 
 They had taken Hoang prisoner, whether by treachery 
 or not Wilbur did not exactly know; and, even if unfair 
 means had been used, he could not repress a feeling of 
 delight and satisfaction, as he told himself that in the 
 very beginning of the fight that was to follow he and his 
 mates had gained the first advantage. 
 
 As the action of that night s events became more and 
 more accelerated, Wilbur could not but notice the change 
 in Moran. It was very evident that the old Norse 
 fighting-blood of her was all astir brutal, merciless, 
 savage beyond all control. A sort of obsession seized 
 upon her at the near approach of battle, a frenzy of 
 action that was checked by nothing that was insensible 
 to all restraint. At times it was impossible for him to 
 make her hear him, or when she heard to understand 
 what he was saying. Her vision contracted. It was 
 
290 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 evident that she could not see distinctly. Wilbur could 
 no longer conceive of her as a woman of the days of 
 civilization. She was lapsing back to the eighth century 
 again to the Vikings, the sea- wolves, the berserkers. 
 
 "Now you re going to talk," she cried to Hoang, as 
 the bound Chinaman sat upon the beach, leaning his 
 back against the great skull. "Charlie, ask him if they 
 saved the ambergris when the junk went down if 
 they ve got it now?" Charlie put the question in 
 Chinese, but the beachcomber only twinkled his vicious 
 eyes upon them and held his peace. With the full 
 sweep of her arm, her fist clenched till the knuckles 
 whitened, Moran struck him in the face. 
 
 "Now will you talk?" she cried. Hoang wiped the 
 blood from his face upon his shoulder and set his jaws. 
 He did not answer. 
 
 "You will talk before I m done with you, my friend; 
 don t get any wrong notions in your head about that," 
 Moran continued, her teeth clenched. "Charlie," she 
 added, "is there a file aboard the schooner?" 
 
 "I tink um yass; boss hab got file. " 
 
 "In the tool-chest, isn t it?" Charlie nodded, and 
 Moran ordered it to be fetched. 
 
 "If we re to fight that crowd," she said, speaking to 
 herself and in a rapid voice, thick from excitement and 
 passion, "we ve got to know where they ve hid the loot, 
 and what weapons they ve got. If they have a rifle or 
 a shotgun with them it s going to make a big difference 
 for us. The other fellow escaped and has gone back to 
 warn the rest. It s fight now, and no mistake. " 
 
 The Chinaman who had been sent aboard the schooner 
 returned, carrying a long, rather coarse-grained file. 
 Moran took it from him. 
 
 "Now," she said, standing in front of Hoang, "I ll 
 give you one more chance. Answer me. Did you bring 
 
THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 291 
 
 off the ambergris, you beast, when your junk sank ? 
 Where is it now? How many men have you? What 
 arms have you got ? Have your men got a rifle ! Charlie, 
 put that all to him in your lingo, so as to make sure that 
 he understands. Tell him if he don t talk I m going to 
 make him very sick." 
 
 Charlie put the question in Chinese, pausing after each 
 one. Hoang held his peace. 
 
 "I gave you fair warning," shouted Moran angrily, 
 pointing at him with the file. "Will you answer?" 
 
 "Him no tell nuttin, " observed Charlie. 
 
 "Fetch a cord here," commanded Moran. The cord 
 was brought, and despite Hoang s struggles and writh- 
 ings the file was thrust end-ways into his mouth and his 
 jaws bound tightly together upon it by means of the 
 cord passed over his head and under his chin. Some 
 four inches of the file protruded from his lips. Moran 
 took this end and drew it out between the beachcomber s 
 teeth, then pushed it back slowly. 
 
 The hideous rasp of the operation turned Wilbur s 
 blood cold within him. He looked away out to sea, 
 down the beach anywhere, so that he might not see 
 what was going forward. But the persistent grind and 
 scrape still assaulted his ears. He turned about sharply. 
 
 "I I I ll go down the beach here a ways," he said 
 quickly. "I can t stand I ll keep watch to see if the 
 beachcombers come up." 
 
 A few minutes later he heard Charlie hailing him. 
 
 "Chin-chin heap plenty now," said he, with a grin, as 
 Wilbur came up. 
 
 Hoang sat on the sand in the midst of the circle. The 
 file and coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The 
 beachcomber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, 
 but with a lisp. He told them party in pigeon English 
 and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that 
 
292 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 their men were eight in number, and that they had 
 intended to seize the schooner that night, but that 
 probably his own capture had delayed their plans. They 
 had no rifle. A shotgun had been on board, but had 
 gone down with the sinking of the junk. The ambergris 
 had been cut into two lumps, and would be found in a 
 couple of flour-sacks in the stern of the boat in which he 
 and his men had come ashore. They were all armed with 
 their little hatchets. He thought two of the men 
 carried knives as well. There was neither pistol nor 
 revolver among them. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Wilbur, that we ve got the 
 long end. " 
 
 "We catch um boss, too!" said Charlie, pointing to 
 Hoang. 
 
 "And we are better armed, " assented Moran. "We ve 
 got the cutting-in spades. " 
 
 "And the revolver, if it will shoot any farther than it 
 will kick. " 
 
 "They ll give us all the fight we want," declared 
 Moran. 
 
 "Oh, him Kai-gingh, him fight all same devil." 
 
 "Give the men brandy, Charlie," commanded Moran. 
 "We ll rush that camp right away. " 
 
 The demijohn of spirits was brought down from the 
 Bertha and passed around, Wilbur and Moran drinking 
 from the tin cup, the coolies from the bottle. Hoang 
 was fettered and locked in the Bertha s cabin. 
 
 "Now, then, are we ready?" cried Moran. 
 
 "I tink all light," answered Charlie. 
 
 The party set off down the beach. The moon had 
 long since gone down, and the dawn was whitening over 
 the eastern horizon. Landward, ragged blankets of 
 morning mist lay close in the hollows here and there. It 
 was profoundly still. The stars were still out. The 
 
THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 293 
 
 surface of Magdalena Bay was smooth as a sheet of gray 
 silk. 
 
 Twenty minutes passed, half an hour, an hour. The 
 party tramped steadily forward, Moran, Wilbur and 
 Charlie leading, the coolies close behind carrying the 
 cutting-in spades over their shoulders. Slowly and in 
 silence they made the half circuit of the bay. The 
 Bertha Millner was far behind them by now, a vague 
 gray mass in the early morning light. 
 
 "Did you ever fight before?" Moran suddenly de 
 manded of Charlie. 
 
 "One time I fight plenty much in San Francisco in 
 Washington Stleet. Fight urn See Yups." 
 
 Another half hour passed. At times when they 
 halted they began to hear the faint murmur of the 
 creek, just beyond which was the broken and crumbling 
 shanty, relic of an old Portuguese whaling-camp, where 
 the beachcombers were camped. At Charlie s suggestion 
 the party made a circuit, describing a half moon, to 
 landward, so as to come out upon the enemy sheltered 
 by the sand-dunes. Twenty minutes later they crossed 
 the creek about four hundred yards from the shore. 
 Here they spread out into a long line, and, keeping an 
 interval of about fifteen feet between each of them, 
 moved cautiously forward. The unevenness of the 
 sand-breaks hid the shore from view, but Moran, Wilbur 
 and Charlie knew that by keeping the creek upon their 
 left they would come out directly upon the house. 
 
 A few moments later Charlie held up his hand, and 
 the men halted. The noise of the creek chattering 
 into the tidewater of the bay was plainly audible 
 just beyond; a ridge of sand, covered thinly with 
 sage-brush, and a faint column of smoke rose into 
 the air over the ridge itself. They were close in. The 
 coolies were halted, and, dropping upon their hands 
 
294 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 and knees, the three leaders crawled to the top of the 
 break. Sheltered by a couple of sage-bushes and lying 
 flat to the ground, Wilbur looked over and down upon 
 the beach. The first object he made out was a crazy, 
 roofless house, built of driftwood, the chinks plastered 
 with dobe mud, the door fallen in. 
 
 Beyond, on the beach, was a flat-bottomed dingey, 
 unpainted and foul with dirt. But all around the house 
 the sand had been scooped and piled to form a low 
 barricade, and behind this barricade Wilbur saw the 
 beachcombers. There were eight of them. They were 
 alert and ready, their hatchets in their hands. The gaze 
 of each of them was fixed directly upon the sand-break 
 which sheltered the Bertha Millner s officers and crew. 
 They seemed to Wilbur to look him straight in the eye. 
 They neither moved nor spoke. The silence and abso 
 lute lack of motion on the part of these small, half- 
 naked Chinamen, with their ape-like muzzles and 
 twinkling eyes, was ominous. 
 
 There could be no longer any doubt that the beach 
 combers had known of their enemies movements and 
 were perfectly aware of their presence behind the sand- 
 break. Moran rose to her feet, and Wilbur and Charlie 
 followed her example. 
 
 There s no use hiding," she said; "they know we re 
 here." 
 
 Charlie called up the crew. The two parties were 
 ranged face to face. Over the eastern rim of the Pacific 
 the blue whiteness of the early dawn was turning to a 
 dull, roseate gold at the core of the sunrise. The head 
 lands of Magdalena Bay stood black against the pale 
 glow; overhead, the greater stars still shone. The 
 monotonous, faint ripple of the creek was the only 
 sound. It was about 3 130 o clock. 
 
X 
 
 A BATTLE 
 
 WILBUR had imagined that the fight would be hardly 
 more than a wild rush down the slope of the beach, a 
 dash over the beachcombers breastworks of sand, and 
 a brief hand-to-hand scrimmage around the old cabin. 
 In all accounts he had ever read of such affairs, and 
 in all ideas he had entertained on the subject, this 
 had always been the case. The two bodies had shocked 
 together like a college rush, there had been five minutes 
 play of knife and club and gun, a confused whirl of 
 dust and smoke, and all was over before one had time 
 either to think or be afraid. But nothing of the kind 
 happened that morning. 
 
 The Bertha Millner s crew, in a long line, Moran at 
 one end, Wilbur at the other, and Charlie in the centre, 
 came on toward the beachcombers, step by step. There 
 was little outcry. Each contestant singled out his 
 enemy, and made slowly for him with eyes fixed and 
 weapon ready, regardless of the movements of his mates. 
 
 "See any rifles among them, Charlie ?" shouted Moran, 
 suddenly breaking the silence. 
 
 "No, I tink no hab got," answered Charlie. 
 
 Wilbur took another step forward and cocked his 
 revolver. One of the beachcombers shouted out some 
 thing in angry vernacular, and Charlie instantly 
 responded. All this time the line had been slowly 
 advancing upon the enemy, and Wilbur began to wonder 
 how long that heartbreaking suspense was to continue. 
 This was not at all what he had imagined. Already 
 
 295 
 
296 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 he was within twenty feet of his man, could see the evil 
 glint of his slant, small eye, and the shine of his 
 yellow body, naked to the belt. Still foot by foot the 
 forward movement continued. The Chinese on either 
 side had begun exchanging insults; the still, hot air of 
 the tropic dawn was vibrant with the Cantonese 
 monosyllables tossed back and forth like tennis balls 
 over the low sand rampart. The thing was degen 
 erating into a farce the Bertha s Chinamen would not 
 fight. 
 
 Back there under the shelter of the schooner, it was 
 all very well to talk, and they had been very brave when 
 they had all flung themselves upon Hoang. Here, 
 face to face with the enemy, the sun striking off helio 
 graph flashes from their knives and spades, it was a 
 vastly different matter. The thing, to Wilbur s mind, 
 should have been done suddenly if it was to be done at 
 all. The best course now was to return to camp and 
 try some other plan. Charlie shouted a direction to him 
 in pigeon English that he did not understand, but he 
 answered all right, and moved forward another step so 
 as to be in line with the coolie at his left. 
 
 The liquor he had drunk before starting began 
 suddenly to affect him, yet he knew that his head was 
 yet clear. He could not bring himself to run away 
 before them all, but he would have given much to have 
 discovered a good reason for postponing the fight if 
 fight there was to be. 
 
 He remembered the cocked revolver in his hand, and, 
 suddenly raising it, fired point-blank at his man, not 
 fifteen feet away. The hammer snapped on the nipple, 
 but the cartridge did not explode. Wilbur turned to the 
 Chinaman next him in line, exclaiming excitedly: 
 
 "Here, say, have you got a knife something I can 
 fight with? This gun s no good." 
 
A BATTLE 297 
 
 There was a shout from Moran : 
 
 "Look out, here they come!" 
 
 Two of the beachcombers suddenly sprang over the 
 sand breastworks and ran toward Charlie, their knives 
 held low in front of them, ready to rip. 
 
 "Shoot ! shoot ! shoot !" shouted Moran rapidly. 
 
 Wilbur s revolver was a self-cocker. He raised it 
 again, drawing hard on the trigger as he did so. It 
 roared and leaped in his hand, and a whiff of burnt 
 powder came to his nostrils. Then Wilbur was aston 
 ished to hear himself shout at the top of his voice: 
 
 "Come on, now; get into them get into them now, 
 everybody !" 
 
 The Bertha s Chinamen were all running forward, 
 three of them well in advance of the others. In the rear 
 Charlie was at grapples with a beachcomber who fought 
 with a knife in each hand, and Wilbur had a sudden 
 glimpse of another sitting on the sand with his hand to 
 his mouth, the blood spurting between his fingers. 
 
 Wilbur suddenly realized that he held a knife and that 
 he was directly abreast the sand rampart. How he got 
 the knife he could not tell, though he afterward distinctly 
 remembered throwing away his revolver, loaded as it 
 was. He had leaped the breastworks, he knew that, and 
 between him and the vast bright blur of the ocean he 
 saw one of the beachcombers backing away and watch 
 ing him intently, his hatchet in his hand. Wilbur 
 had only time to think that he himself would no doubt 
 be killed within the next few moments, when this latter 
 halted abruptly, took a step forward, and, instead of 
 striking downward, as Wilbur had anticipated, dropped 
 upon his knees and struck with all his might at the 
 calf of Wilbur s leg. It was only the thickness of his 
 boots that saved Wilbur from being hamstrung where 
 he stood. As it was, he felt the blade bite almost to 
 
298 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 the bone, and heard the blood squelch in the sole of his 
 boot as he staggered for the moment, almost tripping 
 over the man in front of him. 
 
 The Chinaman sprang to his feet again, but Wilbur 
 was at him in an instant, feeling instinctively that his 
 chance was to close with his man and so bring his own 
 superior weight and strength to bear. Again and again 
 he tried to run in and grip the slim yellow body, but 
 the other dodged and backed away, as hard to hold 
 as any fish. All around and back of him now Wilbur 
 heard the hideous sound of stamping and struggling, 
 and the noise of hoarse, quick shouts and the rebound of 
 bodies falling and rolling upon the hard, smooth beach. 
 The thing had not been a farce, after all. This was 
 fighting at last, and there within arm s length were 
 men grappling and gripping and hitting one another, 
 each honestly striving to kill his fellow Chinamen all, 
 fighting in barbarous Oriental fashion with nails and 
 teeth when the knife or hatchet failed. What did he, 
 clubman and collegeman, in that hideous trouble that 
 wrought itself out there on that heat-stricken tropic 
 beach under that morning s sun ? 
 
 Suddenly there was a flash of red flame, and a billow 
 of thick yellow smoke filled all the air. The cabin was 
 afire. The hatchet -man with whom Wilbur was fight 
 ing had been backing in this direction. He was close 
 in when the fire began to leap from the one window; 
 now he could go no farther. He turned to run side 
 ways between his enemy and the burning cabin. Wilbur 
 thrust his foot sharply forward; the beachcomber 
 tripped, staggered, and before he had reached the 
 ground Wilbur had driven home the knife. 
 
 Then suddenly, at the sight of his smitten enemy rolling 
 on the ground at his feet, the primitive man, the half- 
 brute of the stone age, leaped to life in Wilbur s breast 
 
A BATTLE 299 
 
 he felt his muscles thrilling with a strength they had 
 not known before. His nerves, stretched tense as 
 harp-strings, were vibrating to a new tune. His blood 
 spun through his veins till his ears roared with the 
 rush of it. Never had he conceived of such savage 
 exultation as that which mastered him at that instant. 
 The knowledge that he could kill filled him with a sense 
 of power that was veritably royal. He felt physically 
 larger. It was the joy of battle, the horrid exhilaration 
 of killing, the animal of the race, the human brute sud 
 denly aroused and dominating every instinct and tra 
 dition of centuries of civilization. The fight still was 
 going forward. 
 
 Wilbur could hear the sounds of it, though from 
 where he stood all sight was shut off by the smoke of 
 the burning house. As he turned about, knife in hand, 
 debating what next he should do, a figure burst down 
 upon him, shadowy and distorted through the haze. 
 
 It was Moran, but Moran as Wilbur had never seen 
 her before. Her eyes were blazing under her thick 
 frown like fire under a bush. Her arms were bared to 
 the elbow, her heavy ropes of hair flying and coiling 
 from her in all directions, while with a voice hoarse from 
 shouting she sang, or rather chanted, in her long- 
 forgotten Norse tongue, fragments of old sagas, words 
 and sentences, meaningless even to herself. The fury of 
 battle had exalted her to a sort of frenzy. She was 
 beside herself with excitement. Once more she had 
 lapsed back to the Vikings and sea-rovers of the tenth 
 century she was Brunhilde again, a shield-maiden, 
 a Valkyrie, a berserker and the daughter of berserkers, 
 and like them she fought in a veritable frenzy, seeing 
 nothing, hearing nothing, every sense exalted, every 
 force doubled, insensible to pain, deaf to all reason. 
 
 Her dirk uplifted, she rushed upon Wilbur, never once 
 
300 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 pausing in her chant. Wilbur shouted a warning to 
 her as she came on, puzzled beyond words, startled back 
 to a consciousness of himself again by this insensate 
 attack. 
 
 "Moran ! Moran !" he called. "What is it you re 
 wrong ! It s I. It s Wilbur your mate, can t you 
 see?" 
 
 Moran could not see blind to friend or foe, as she was 
 deaf to reason, she struck at him with all the strength of 
 her arm. But there was no skill in her fighting now. 
 Wilbur dropped his own knife and gripped her right 
 wrist. She closed with him upon the instant, clutching 
 at his throat with her one free hand; and as he felt her 
 strength doubled and tripled in the fury of her mad 
 ness Wilbur knew that, however easily he had over 
 come his enemy of a moment before, he was now fighting 
 for his very life. 
 
 At first, Wilbur merely struggled to keep her from 
 him to prevent her using her dirk. He tried not to 
 hurt her. But what with the spirits he had drunk 
 before the attack itself, what with the excitement 
 of the attack and the sudden unleashing of the 
 brute in him an instant before, the whole affair grew dim 
 and hazy in his mind. He ceased to see things in their 
 proportion. His new-found strength gloried in match 
 ing itself with another strength that was its equal. He 
 fought with Moran not as he would fight with either 
 woman or man, or with anything human, for the matter 
 of that. He fought with her as against some impersonal 
 force that it was incumbent upon him to conquer that 
 it was imperative he should conquer if he wished to live. 
 When she struck, he struck blow for blow, force for 
 force, his strength against hers, glorying in that strange 
 contest, though he never once forgot that this last enemy 
 was the girl he loved. It was not Moran whom he 
 
A BATTLE 301 
 
 fought; it was her force, her determination, her will, her 
 splendid independence, that he set himself to conquer. 
 
 Already she had dropped or flung away the dirk, and 
 their battle had become an issue of sheer physical strength 
 between them. It was a question now as to who should 
 master the other. Twice she had fought Wilbur to his 
 knees, the heel of her hand upon his face, his head thrust 
 back between his shoulders, and twice he had wrenched 
 away, rising to his feet again, panting, bleeding even, 
 but with his teeth set and all his resolution at the 
 sticking-point. Once he saw his chance, and planted 
 his knuckles squarely between her eyes where her frown 
 was knotted hard, hoping to stun her and end the fight 
 at once and for all. But the blow did not seem to affect 
 her in the least. By this time he saw that her berserker 
 rage had worked itself clear as fermenting wine clears 
 itself, and that she knew now with whom she was fight 
 ing; and he seemed now to understand the incompre 
 hensible, and to sympathize with her joy in measuring 
 her strength against his; and yet he knew that the com 
 bat was deadly serious, and that more than life was at 
 stake. Moran despised a weakling. 
 
 For an instant, as they fell apart, she stood off, 
 breathing hard and rolling up her sleeve; then, as she 
 started forward again, Wilbur met her half-way, caught 
 her round the neck and under the arm, gripping her left 
 wrist with his right hand behind her; then, exerting 
 every ounce of strength he yet retained, he thrust her 
 down and from him, until at length, using his hip as a 
 pivot, he swung her off her feet, threw her fairly on her 
 back, and held her so, one knee upon her chest, his hands 
 closed vise-like on her wrists. 
 
 Then suddenly Moran gave up, relaxing in his grasp 
 all in a second, and, to his great surprise, suddenly 
 smiled. 
 
302 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Ho! mate," she exclaimed; "that was a tough one; 
 but I m beaten you re stronger than I thought for. " 
 
 Wilbur released her and rose to his feet. 
 
 " Here, " she continued, "give me your hand. I m as 
 weak as a kitten." As Wilbur helped her to her feet, 
 she put her hand to her forehead, where his knuckles had 
 left their mark, and frowned at him, but not ill-naturedly. 
 
 "Next time you do that," she said, "use a rock or a 
 belaying-pin, or something that won t hurt not your 
 fist, mate." She looked at him admiringly. "What a 
 two-fisted, brawny dray-horse it is ! I told you I was 
 stronger than most men, didn t I ? But I m the weaker 
 of us two, and that s a fact. You ve beaten, mate I 
 admit it; you ve conquered me, and," she continued, 
 smiling again and shaking him by the shoulder "and 
 mate, do you know, I love you for it. " 
 
XI 
 
 A CHANGE IN LEADERS 
 
 "WELL," exclaimed Wilbur at length, the excitement 
 of the fight returning upon him. "We have plenty 
 to do yet. Come on, Moran." 
 
 It was no longer Moran who took the initiative who 
 was the leader. The brief fight upon the shore had 
 changed all that. It was Wilbur who was now the 
 master, it was Wilbur who was aggressive. He had 
 known what it meant to kill. He was no longer afraid 
 of anything, no longer hesitating. He had felt a sudden 
 quadrupling of all this strength, moral and physical. 
 
 All that was strong and virile and brutal in him 
 seemed to harden and stiffen in the moment after he 
 had seen the beachcomber collapse limply on the sand 
 under that last strong knife-blow ; and a sense of triumph, 
 of boundless self-confidence, leaped within him, so that 
 he shouted aloud in a very excess of exhilaration; and 
 snatching up a heavy cutting-in spade, that had been 
 dropped in the fight near the burning cabin, tossed it 
 high in the air, catching it again as it descended, like 
 any exultant savage. 
 
 " Come on ! " he cried to Moran; "where are the beach 
 combers gone? I m going to get one more before the 
 show is over." 
 
 The two passed out of the zone of smoke and reached 
 the other side of the burning cabin just in time to see 
 the last of the struggle. The whole affair had not taken 
 more than a quarter of an hour. In the end the beach- 
 
 303 
 
3 o 4 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 combers had been beaten. Four had fled into the 
 waste of sand and sage that lay back of the shore, and 
 had not been pursued. A fifth had been almost 
 hamstrung by one of the Bertha s coolies, and had 
 given himself up. A sixth, squealing and shrieking 
 like a tiger-cat, had been made prisoner; and Wilbur 
 himself had accounted for the seventh. 
 
 As Wilbur and Moran came around the cabin they saw 
 the Bertha Millner s Chinamen in a group, not far from 
 the water s edge, reassembled after the fight panting 
 and bloody, some of them bare to the belt, their weapons 
 still in their hands. Here and there was a bandaged 
 arm or head; but their number was complete or no, 
 was it complete ? 
 
 "Ought to be one more," said Wilbur, anxiously 
 hastening forward. 
 
 As the two came up the coolies parted, and Wilbur 
 saw one of them, his head propped upon a rolled-up 
 blouse, lying ominously still on the trampled sand. 
 
 "It s Charlie!" exclaimed Moran. 
 
 "Where s he hurt?" cried Wilbur to the group of 
 coolies. "Jim where s Jim? Where s he hurt, Jim?" 
 
 Jim, the only member of the crew besides Charlie 
 who could understand or speak English, answered: 
 
 "Kai-gingh him fin pistol you pistol; Charlie him 
 fight plenty; bimeby, when he no see, one-piecee Kai- 
 gingh he come up behind, shoot um Charlie in side 
 savvy?" 
 
 " Did he kill him ? Is he dead ? " 
 
 "No, I tinkum die plenty soon; him no savvy nuttin 
 now, him all-same sleep. Plenty soon bimeby him 
 sleep for good, I tink. " 
 
 There was little blood to be seen when Wilbur gently 
 unwrapped the torn sleeve of a blouse that had been 
 used as a bandage. Just under the armpit was the 
 
A CHANGE IN LEADERS 305 
 
 mark of a bullet a small puncture already closed, half 
 hidden under a clot or two of blood. The coolie lay 
 quite unconscious, his eyes wide open, drawing a faint, 
 quick breath at irregular intervals. 
 
 "What do you think, mate?" asked Moran in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "I think he s got it through the lungs," answered 
 Wilbur, frowning in distress and perplexity. "Poor 
 old Charlie!" 
 
 Moran went down on a knee and put a finger on the 
 slim, corded wrist, yellow as old ivory. 
 
 "Charlie," she called, "Charlie, here, don t you 
 know me? Wake up, old chap! It s Moran. You re 
 not hurt so very bad, are you?" 
 
 Charlie s eyes opened and closed a couple of times. 
 
 "No can tell, he answered feebly. "Hurt plenty 
 big; then he began to cough. 
 
 Wilbur drew a sigh of relief. "He s all right!" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, I think he s all right," assented Moran. 
 
 "First thing to do now is to get him aboard the 
 schooner," said Wilbur. "We ll take him right across 
 in the beachcombers dory here. By Jove!" he 
 exclaimed on a sudden. "The ambergris I d forgotten 
 all about it." His heart sank. In the hideous con 
 fusion of that morning s work all thought of the loot 
 had been forgotten. Had the battle been for nothing, 
 after all ? The moment the beachcombers had been 
 made aware of the meditated attack it would have been 
 an easy matter for them to have hidden the ambergris 
 destroyed it, even. 
 
 In two strides Wilbur had reached the beachcombers 
 dory and was groping in the forward cuddy. Then he 
 uttered a great shout of satisfaction. The "stuff" was 
 there, all of it, though the mass had been cut into 
 
3 o6 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 quarters, three parts of it stowed in tea-flails, the fourth 
 still reeved up in the hammock netting. 
 
 "We ve got it !" he cried to Moran, who had followed 
 him. "We ve got it, Moran! Over $100,000. We re 
 rich rich as boodlers, you and I. Oh, it was worth 
 fighting for, after all, wasn t it? Now we ll get out of 
 here now we ll cut for home. " 
 
 "It s only Charlie I m thinking about," answered 
 Moran, hesitating. "If it wasn t for that we d be all 
 right. I don t know whether we did right, after all, in 
 jumping the camp here. I wouldn t like to feel that I d 
 got Charlie into our quarrel only to have him killed. " 
 
 Wilbur stared at this new Moran in no little amaze 
 ment. Where was the reckless, untamed girl of the 
 previous night, who- had sworn at him and denounced 
 his niggling misgivings as to right and wrong? 
 
 "Hoh!" he retorted impatiently, "Charlie s right 
 enough. And, besides, I didn t force him to anything. 
 I we, that is, we took the same chances. If I hadn t 
 done for my man there behind the cabin he would have 
 done for me. At all events, we carried our point. We 
 got the loot. They took it from us, and we were strong 
 enough to get it back. " 
 
 Moran merely nodded, as though satisfied with his 
 decision, and added: 
 
 "Well, what next, mate?" 
 
 "We ll get back to the Bertha now and put to sea as 
 soon as we can catch the tide. I ll send Jim and two of 
 the other men across in the dory with Charlie. The rest 
 of us will go around by the shore. We ve got to have a 
 chin-chin with Hoang, if he don t get loose aboard there 
 and fire the boat before we can get back. I don t pro 
 pose taking these beachcombers back to Frisco with us. " 
 
 " What will we do with the two prisoners ? " she asked. 
 
 "Let them go; we ve got their arms." 
 
A CHANGE IN LEADERS 307 
 
 The positions of the two were reversed. It was 
 Wilbur who assumed control and direction of what went 
 forward, Moran taking his advice and relying upon his 
 judgment. 
 
 In accordance with Wilbur s orders, Charlie was 
 carried aboard the dory, which, with two Chinamen at 
 the oars and the ambergris stowed again in the cuddy, 
 at once set off for the schooner. Wilbur himself cut the 
 ropes on the two prisoners and bade them shift for 
 themselves. The rest of the party returned to the 
 Bertha Millner around the wide sweep of the beach. 
 
 It was only by high noon, under the flogging of a 
 merciless sun, that the entire crew of the little schooner 
 once more reassembled under the shadow of her stranded 
 hulk. They were quite worn out ; and as soon as Charlie 
 was lifted aboard, and the ambergris or, as they spoke 
 of it now, the "loot" was safely stowed in the cabin, 
 Wilbur allowed the Chinamen three or four hours rest. 
 They had had neither breakfast nor dinner; but their 
 exhaustion was greater than their hunger, and in a few 
 moments the entire half-dozen were stretched out asleep 
 on the forward deck in the shadow of the foresail, raised 
 for the purpose of sheltering them. However, Wilbur 
 and Moran sought out Hoang, whom they found as they 
 had left him bound upon the floor of the cabin. 
 
 "Now we have a talk savvy?" Wilbur told him as 
 he loosed the ropes about his wrists and ankles. "We 
 got our loot back from you, old man, and we got one 
 of your men into the bargain. You woke up the wrong 
 crowd, Hoang, when you went up against this outfit. 
 You re in a bad way, my friend. Your junk is wrecked; 
 all your oil and blubber from the whale is lost; four of 
 your men have run away, one is killed, another one we 
 caught and let go, another one has been hamstrung; 
 and you yourself are our prisoner, with your teeth filed 
 
3 o8 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 down to your gums. Now," continued Wilbur, with the 
 profoundest gravity, "I hope this will be a lesson to you. 
 Don t try and get too much the next time. Just be 
 content with what is yours by right, or what you are 
 strong enough to keep, and don t try to fight white 
 people. Other coolies, I don t say. But when you 
 try to get the better of white people you are out of your 
 class." 
 
 The little beachcomber (he was scarcely above five 
 feet) rubbed his chafed wrists and fixed Wilbur with his 
 tiny, twinkling eyes. 
 
 "What you do now?" 
 
 "We go home. I m going to maroon you and your 
 people here on this beach. You deserve that I should 
 let you eat your fists by way of table-board; but I m no 
 such dirt as you. When our men left the schooner they 
 brought off with them a good share of our provisions. 
 I ll leave them here for you and there s plenty of turtle 
 and abalones to be had for the catching. Some of the 
 American men-of-war, I believe, come down to this bay 
 for target practice twice a year, and if we speak any 
 on the way up we ll ask them to call here for castaways. 
 That s what I ll do for you, and that s all ! If you 
 don t like it, you can set out to march up the coast till 
 you hit a town; but I wouldn t advise you to try it. 
 Now what have you got to say?" 
 
 Hoang was silent. His queue had become unbound 
 for half its length, and he plaited it anew, winking his 
 eyes thoughtfully. 
 
 "Well, what do you say ?" said Moran. 
 
 "I lose face," answered Hoang at length, calmly. 
 
 "You lose face? What do you mean?" 
 
 "I lose face," he insisted; then added: "I heap shamed. 
 You fightee my China boy; you catchee me. My boy 
 no mo hab me fo boss savvy? I go back; him no 
 
A CHANGE IN LEADERS 309 
 
 likee me. Mebbee all same killee me. I lose face 
 no mo boss." 
 
 "What a herd of wild cattle !" muttered Wilbur. 
 
 "There s something in what he says, don t you think, 
 mate?" observed Moran, bringing a braid over each 
 shoulder and stroking it according to her habit. 
 
 "We ll ask Jim about it," decided Wilbur. 
 
 But Jim at once confirmed Hoang s statement. "Oh, 
 Kai-gingh killum no-good boss, fo sure," he declared. 
 
 "Don t you think, mate," said Moran, "we d better 
 take him up to Frisco with us ? We ve had enough 
 fighting and killing." 
 
 So it was arranged that the defeated beachcomber, 
 the whipped buccaneer who had "lost face" and no 
 longer dared look his men in the eye, should be taken 
 aboard. 
 
 By four o clock next morning Wilbur had the hands at 
 work digging the sand from around the Bertha Millner s 
 bow. The line by which she was to be warped off was 
 run out to the ledge of the rock; fresh water was taken 
 on; provisions for the marooned beachcombers were 
 cached upon the beach; the dory was taken aboard, 
 gaskets were cast off, and hatches battened down. 
 
 At high tide, all hands straining upon the warp, the 
 schooner was floated off, and under touch of the lightest 
 airs drew almost imperceptibly away from the land. 
 They were quite an hour crawling out to the heads of 
 the bay. But here the breeze was freshening. Moran 
 took the wheel; the flying-jib and staysail were set; the 
 wake began to whiten under the schooner s stern; the 
 forefoot sang; the Pacific opened out more and more; 
 and by 1 2 130 o clock Moran put the wheel over, and, as 
 the schooner s bow swung to the northward, cried to 
 Wilbur: 
 
 "Mate, look your last of Magdalena Bay !" 
 
310 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 Standing at her side, Wilbur turned and swept the 
 curve of the coast with a single glance. The vast, heat- 
 scourged hoop of yellow sand, the still, smooth shield 
 of indigo water, with its beds of kelp, had become insen 
 sibly dear to him. It was all familiar, friendly, and 
 hospitable. Hardly an acre of that sweep of beach that 
 did not hold the impress of his foot. There was the 
 point near by the creek where he and Moran first landed 
 to fill the water-casks and to gather abalones ; the creek 
 itself, where he had snared quail; the sand-pit, with 
 its whitened whale s skull, where he and Moran had 
 beached the schooner; and there, last of all, that spot of 
 black over which still hung a haze of brown -gray smoke, 
 the charred ruins of the old Portuguese whaling-cabin, 
 where they had outfought the beachcombers. 
 
 For a moment Wilbur and Moran looked back without 
 speaking. They stood on the quarterdeck, in the shadow 
 of the mainsail, shut off from the sight of the schooner s 
 crew, and for the instant quite alone. 
 
 "Well, Moran, it s good-by to the old place, isn t it?" 
 said Wilbur at length. 
 
 "Yes," she said, her deep voice pitched even deeper 
 than usual. "Mate, great things have happened there." 
 
 "It doesn t look like a place for a tong row with 
 Chinese pirates, though, does it ?" he said; but even as he 
 spoke the words he guessed that that was not what 
 he meant. 
 
 "Oh, what did that amount to?" she said, with an 
 impatient movement of her head. "It was there that I 
 first knew myself; and knew that, after all, you were a 
 man and I was a woman; and that there was just us 
 you and I in the world; and that you loved me and I 
 loved you, and that nothing else was worth thinking of." 
 
 Wilbur shut his hand down over hers as it gripped 
 a spoke of the wheel. 
 
A CHANGE IN LEADERS 311 
 
 "Moran, I knew that long since," he said. "Such a 
 month as this has been ! Why, I feel as though I had 
 only begun to live since I began to love you." 
 
 "And you do, mate?" she answered "you do love 
 me, and always will? Oh! you don t know," she went 
 on, interrupting his answer, "you haven t a guess how 
 the last two days have changed me. Something has 
 happened here" and she put both her hands over her 
 breast. "I m all different here, mate. It s all you 
 inside here all you ! And it hurts, and I m proud that 
 it does hurt. Oh!" she cried of a sudden, "I don t 
 know how to love yet, and I do it very badly, and I can t 
 tell you how I feel, because I can t even tell it to myself. 
 But you must be good to me now." The deep voice 
 trembled a little. "Good to me, mate, and true to me, 
 mate, because I ve only you, and all of me is yours. 
 Mate, be good to me, and always be kind to me. I m 
 not Moran any more. I m not proud and strong and 
 independent, and I don t want to be lonely. I want you 
 I want you always with me. I m just a woman now, 
 dear just a woman that loves you with a heart she s 
 just found." 
 
 Wilbur could find no words to answer. There was 
 something so pathetic and at the same time so noble in 
 Moran s complete surrender of herself, and her depen 
 dence upon him, her unquestioned trust in him and his 
 goodness, that he was suddenly smitten with awe at the 
 sacredness of the obligation thus imposed on him. She 
 was his now, to have and to hold, to keep, to protect, and 
 to defend she who was once so glorious of her strength, 
 of her savage isolation, her unviolate, pristine maiden 
 hood. All words seemed futile and inadequate to him. 
 
 She came close to him, and put her hands upon his 
 shoulders, and, looking him squarely in the eye, said: 
 
 "You do love me, mate, and you always will?" 
 
3 1 2 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Always, Moran," said Wilbur, simply. He took her 
 in his arms, and she laid her cheek against his for a 
 moment, then took his head between her hands and 
 kissed him. 
 
 Two days passed. The Bertha Millner held steady to 
 her northward course, Moran keeping her well in toward 
 the land. Wilbur maintained a lookout from the crow s- 
 nest in the hope of sighting some white cruiser or battle 
 ship on her way south for target-practise. In the cache 
 of provisions he had left for the beachcombers he had 
 inserted a message, written by Hoang, to the effect that 
 they might expect to be taken off by a United States 
 man-of-war within the month. 
 
 Hoang did not readily recover his "loss of face." 
 The Bertha s Chinamen would have nothing to do with 
 this member of a hostile tong ; and the humiliated beach 
 comber kept almost entirely to himself, sitting on the 
 fo c s le-head all day long, smoking his sui-yen-hu and 
 brooding silently to himself. 
 
 Moran had taken the lump of ambergris from out 
 Kitchell s old hammock, and had slung the hammock 
 itself in the schooner s waist, and Charlie was made as 
 comfortable as possible therein. They could do but 
 little for him, however; and he was taken from time to 
 time with spells of coughing that racked him with dread 
 ful agony. At length one noon, just after Moran had 
 taken the sun and had calculated that the Bertha was 
 some eight miles to the southwest of San Diego, she was 
 surprised to hear Wilbur calling her sharply. She ran 
 to him and found him standing in the waist by Charlie s 
 hammock. 
 
 The Chinaman was dying, and knew it. He was 
 talking in a faint and feeble voice to Wilbur as she came 
 up, and was trying to explain to him that he was sorry 
 he had deserted the schooner during the scare in the bay. 
 
A CHANGE IN LEADERS 313 
 
 "Plenty muchee solly, " he said; "China boy, him 
 heap flaid of Feng-shui. When Feng-shui no likee, we 
 then must go chop-chop. Plenty much solly I leave urn 
 schooner that night; solly plenty savvy?" 
 
 "Of course we savvy, Charlie," said Moran. "You 
 weren t afraid when it came to fighting. " 
 
 "I die pletty soon," said Charlie calmly. "You say 
 you gib me fifteen hundled dollah ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes; that was our promise. What do you want 
 done with it, Charlie?" 
 
 "I want plenty fine funeral in Chinatown in San 
 Flancisco. Oh, heap fine ! You buy um first-chop 
 coffin savvy? Silver heap much costum big money. 
 You gib my money to Hop Sing Association, topside 
 Ming Yen temple. You savvy Hop Sing? one Six 
 Companies." 
 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 "Tellum Hop Sing I want funeral four-piecee horse. 
 You no flogettee horse?" he added apprehensively. 
 
 "No, I ll not forget the horses, Charlie. You shall 
 have four." 
 
 "Want six-piecee band musicians China music 
 heap plenty gong. You no flogettee? Two-piecee 
 priest, all dressum white savvy? You mus buy um 
 coffin yo self. Velly fine coffin, heap much silver, an 
 four-piecee horse. You catchum fireclacker one, five, 
 seven hundled fireclacker, make um big noise; an loast 
 pig, an plenty lice an China blandy. Heap fine funeral, 
 costum fifteen hundled dollah. I be bury all same 
 Mandarin all same Little Pete. You plomise, sure?" 
 
 "I promise you, Charlie. You shall have a funeral 
 finer than Little Pete s." 
 
 Charlie nodded his head contentedly, drawing a breath 
 of satisfaction. 
 
 "Bimeby Hop Sing sendum body back China." He 
 
314 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 closed his eyes and lay for a long time, worn out with the 
 effort of speaking, as if asleep. Suddenly he opened his 
 eyes wide. "You no flogettee horse?" 
 
 "Four horses, Charlie. I ll remember." 
 
 He drooped once more, only to rouse again at the end 
 of a few minutes with : 
 
 "First-chop coffin, plenty much silver;" and again, a 
 little later and very feebly: "Six-piecee band music 
 China music four-piecee gong four. " 
 
 " I promise you, Charlie, " said Wilbur. 
 
 "Now," answered Charlie "now I die." 
 
 And the low-caste Cantonese coolie, with all the 
 dignity and calmness of a Cicero, composed himself for 
 death. 
 
 An hour later Wilbur and Moran knew that he was 
 dead. Yet, though they had never left the hammock, 
 they could not have told at just what moment he died. 
 
 Later on, that same afternoon, Wilbur, from the 
 crow s-nest, saw the lighthouse on Point Loma and the 
 huge, rambling bulk of the Coronado Hotel spreading 
 out and along the beach. 
 
 It was the outpost of civilization. They were getting 
 back to the world again. Within an hour s ride of the 
 hotel were San Diego, railroads, newspapers, and police 
 men. Just off the hotel, however, Wilbur could discern 
 the gleaming white hull of a United States man-of-war. 
 With the glass he could make her out to be one of the 
 monitors the Monterey in all probability. 
 
 After advising with Moran, it was decided to put into 
 land. The report as to the castaways could be made to 
 the Monterey, and Charlie s body forwarded to his tong 
 in San Francisco. 
 
 In two hours time the schooner was well up, and 
 Wilbur stood by Moran s side at the wheel, watching 
 and studying the familiar aspect of Coronado Beach. 
 
A CHANGE IN LEADERS 
 
 "It s a great winter resort," he told her. "I was 
 down here with a party two years ago. Nothing has 
 changed. You see that big sort of round wing, Moran, 
 all full of windows? That s the dining-room. And 
 there s the bathhouse and the bowling alley. See the 
 people on the beach, and the girls in white duck skirts, 
 and look up there by the veranda let me take the glass 
 yes, there s a tally-ho coach. Isn t it queer to get 
 back to this sort of thing after Magdalena Bay and 
 the beachcombers?" 
 
 Moran spun the wheel without reply, and gave an 
 order to Jim to ease off the foresheet. 
 
XII 
 NEW CONDITIONS 
 
 THE winter season at the Hotel del Coronado had 
 been unusually gay that year, and the young lady 
 who wrote the society news in diary form for one 
 of the San Francisco weekly papers had held forth 
 at much length upon the hotel s "unbroken succession 
 of festivities." She had also noted that "prominent 
 among the newest arrivals" had been Mr. Nat 
 Ridgeway, of San Francisco, who had brought down 
 from the city, aboard his elegant and sumptuously 
 fitted yacht Petrel, a jolly party, composed largely of 
 the season s debutantes. To be mentioned in the latter 
 category was Miss Josie Herrick, whose lavender coming- 
 out tea at the beginning of the season was still a subject 
 of comment among the gossips and all the rest of it. 
 
 The Petrel had been in the harbour but a few days, 
 and on this evening a dance was given at the hotel in 
 honour of her arrival. It was to be a cotillion, and 
 Nat Ridgeway was going to lead with Josie Herrick. 
 There had been a coaching party to Tia Juana that 
 day, and Miss Herrick had returned to the hotel only in 
 time to dress. By 9:30 she emerged from the process 
 which had involved her mother, her younger sister, her 
 maid, and one of the hotel chambermaids a dainty, 
 firm-corseted little body, all tulle, white satin and 
 high-piled hair. She carried Marshal Neil roses, ordered 
 by wire from Monterey; and about an hour later, when 
 Ridgeway gave the nod to the waiting musicians, and 
 
NEW CONDITIONS 317 
 
 swung off to the beat of a two-step, there was not 
 a more graceful little figure upon the floor of the incom 
 parable round ballroom of the Coronado Hotel. 
 
 The cotillion was a great success. The ensigns and 
 younger officers of the monitor at that time anchored 
 off the hotel attended in uniform; and enough of the 
 members of what was known in San Francisco as the 
 " dancing set" were present to give the affair the neces 
 sary entrain. Even Jerry Haight, who belonged more 
 distinctly to the "country-club set," and who had 
 spent the early part of that winter shooting elk in 
 Oregon, was among the ranks of the "rovers," who 
 grouped themselves about the draughty doorways, and 
 endeavoured to appear unconscious each time Ridgeway 
 gave the signal for a "break. " 
 
 The figures had gone round the hall once. The 
 "first set" was out again, and as Ridgeway guided Miss 
 Herrick by the "rovers" she looked over the array of 
 shirt-fronts, searching for Jerry Haight. 
 
 "Do you see Mr. Haight?" she asked of Ridgeway. 
 "I wanted to favour him this break. I owe him two 
 already, and he ll never forgive me if I overlook him 
 now. " 
 
 Jerry Haight had gone to the hotel office for a few 
 moments rest and a cigarette, and was nowhere in 
 sight. But when the set broke, and Miss Herrick, 
 despairing of Jerry, had started out to favour one of 
 the younger ensigns, she suddenly jostled against him, 
 pushing his way eagerly across the floor in the direction 
 of the musicians platform. 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, "Mr. Haight, you ve missed your 
 chance I ve been looking for you." 
 
 But Jerry did not hear he seemed very excited. 
 He crossed the floor, almost running, and went up on 
 the platform where the musicians were meandering 
 
3i 8 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 softly through the mazes of "La Paloma," and brought 
 them to an abrupt silence. 
 
 "Here, I say, Haight !" exclaimed Ridgeway, who was 
 near by, "you can t break up my figure like that." 
 
 "Gi me a call there on the bugle," said Haight 
 rapidly to the cornettist. "Anything to make em keep 
 quiet a moment." 
 
 The cornettist sounded a couple of notes, and the 
 cotillion paused in the very act of the break. The 
 shuffling of feet grew still, and the conversation ceased. 
 A diamond brooch had been found, no doubt, or some 
 supper announcement was to be made. But Jerry 
 Haight, with a great sweep of his arm, the forgotten 
 cigarette between his fingers, shouted out breathlessly: 
 
 "Ross Wilbur is out in the office of the hotel !" 
 
 There was an instant s silence, and then a great shout. 
 Wilbur found ! Ross Wilbur come back from the dead ! 
 Ross Wilbur, hunted for and bootlessly traced from 
 Buenos Ayres in the south to the Aleutian Islands in 
 the north. Ross Wilbur, the puzzle of every detective 
 bureau on the coast ; the subject of a thousand theories ; 
 whose name had figured in the scareheads of every 
 newspaper west of the Mississippi. Ross Wilbur, 
 seen at a fashionable tea and his club of an afternoon, 
 then suddenly blotted out from the world of men; 
 swallowed up and engulfed by the unknown, with not 
 so much as a button left behind. Ross Wilbur the 
 suicide; Ross Wilbur the murdered; Ross Wilbur, 
 victim of a band of kidnappers, the hero of some dreadful 
 story that was never to be told, the mystery, the legend 
 behold, he was there ! Back from the unknown, 
 dropped from the clouds, spewed up again from the 
 bowels of the earth a veritable god from the machine 
 who in a single instant was to disentangle all the unex 
 plained complications of those past winter months. 
 
NEW CONDITIONS 319 
 
 "Here he comes !" shouted Jerry, his eyes caught by 
 a group of men in full dress and gold lace who came 
 tramping down the hall to the ballroom, bearing a 
 nondescript figure on their shoulders. "Here he comes 
 the boys are bringing him in here ! Oh !" he cried, 
 turning to the musicians, "can t you play something? 
 anything ! Hit it up for all you re worth ! Ridgeway 
 Nat, look here! Ross was Yale, y know Yale 95; 
 ain t we enough Yale men here to give him the yell !" 
 
 Out of all time and tune, but with a vigour that made 
 up for both, the musicians banged into a patriotic air. 
 Jerry, standing on a chair that itself was standing on the 
 platform, led half a dozen frantic men in the long thunder 
 of the " Brek-kek-kek-kek, co-ex, co-ex." 
 
 Around the edges of the hall excited girls, and chape 
 rons no less agitated, were standing up on chairs and 
 benches, splitting their gloves and breaking their fans in 
 their enthusiasm ; while every male dancer on the floor 
 ensigns in their gold-laced uniforms and "rovers" in 
 starched and immaculate shirt-bosoms cheered and 
 cheered and struggled with one another to shake hands 
 with a man whom two of their number old Yale grads., 
 with memories of athletic triumphs yet in their minds 
 carried into that ballroom, borne high upon their 
 shoulders. 
 
 And the hero of the occasion, the centre of all this 
 enthusiasm thus carried as if in triumph into this 
 assembly in evening dress, in white tulle and whiter kid, 
 odourous of delicate sachets and scarce-perceptible per 
 fumes was a figure unhandsome and unkempt beyond 
 description. His hair was long, and hanging over his 
 eyes. A thick, uncared-for beard concealed the mouth 
 and chin. He was dressed in a Chinaman s blouse and 
 jeans the latter thrust into slashed and tattered boots. 
 The tan and weather-beatings of nearly half a year of the 
 
320 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 tropics were spread over his face; a partly healed scar 
 disfigured one temple and cheek-bone; the hands, to 
 the very finger -nails, were gray with grime; the jeans and 
 blouse and boots were fouled with grease, with oil, with 
 pitch, and all manner of the dirt of an uncared-for ship. 
 And as the dancers of the cotillion pressed about, and a 
 hundred kid-gloved hands stretched toward his own 
 palms, there fell from Wilbur s belt upon the waxed floor 
 of the ballroom the knife he had so grimly used in the 
 fight upon the beach, the ugly stains still blackening on 
 the haft. 
 
 There was no more cotillion that night. They put 
 him down at last ; and in half a dozen sentences Wilbur 
 told them of how he had been shanghaied told them of 
 Magdalena Bay, his fortune in the ambergris, and the 
 fight with the beachcombers. 
 
 "You people are going down there for target -practice, 
 aren t you?" he said, turning to one of the Monterey s 
 officers in the crowd about him. Yes? Well, you ll 
 find the coolies there, on the beach, waiting for you. All 
 but one," he added, grimly. 
 
 "We marooned six of them, but the seventh didn t 
 need to be marooned. They tried to plunder us of our 
 boat, but by , we made it interesting for em ! " 
 
 "I say, steady, old man!" exclaimed Nat Ridgeway, 
 glancing nervously toward the girls in the surrounding 
 group. "This isn t Magdalena Bay, you know." 
 
 And for the first time Wilbur felt a genuine pang of 
 disappointment and regret as ke realized that it was 
 not. 
 
 Half an hour later Ridgeway drew him aside. "I 
 say, Ross, let s get out of here. You can t stand here 
 talking all night. Jerry and you and I will go up to my 
 rooms, and we can talk there in peace. I ll order up 
 three quarts of fizz, and " 
 
NEW CONDITIONS 321 
 
 Oh, rot your fizz!" declared Wilbur. "If you love 
 me, give me Christian tobacco. " 
 
 As they were going out of the ballroom, Wilbur caught 
 sight of Josie Herrick, and, breaking away from the 
 others, ran over to her. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried, breathless. " To think and to think 
 of your coming back after all ! No, I don t realize it I 
 can t. It will take me until morning to find out that 
 you ve really come back. I just know now that I m 
 happier than I ever was in my life before. Oh!" she 
 cried, "do I need to tell you how glad I am? It s just 
 too splendid for words. Do you know, I was thought to 
 be the last person you had ever spoken to while alive, and 
 
 the reporters and all Oh, but we must have such a 
 
 talk when all are quiet again ! And our dance we ve 
 never had our dance. I ve got your card yet. Remember 
 the one you wrote for me at the tea a facsimile of it was 
 published in all the papers. You are going to be a hero 
 when you get back to San Francisco. Oh, Ross ! Ross ! " 
 she cried, the tears starting to her eyes, "you ve really 
 come back, and you are just as glad as I am, aren t you 
 glad that you ve come back come back to me?" 
 
 Later on, in Ridgeway s room, Wilbur told his story 
 again more in detail to Ridgeway and Jerry. All but one 
 portion of it. He could not make up his mind to speak 
 to them these society fellows, clubmen and city bred 
 of Moran. How he was going to order his life hence 
 forward his life, that he felt to be void of interest 
 without her he did not know. That was a question 
 for later consideration. 
 
 "We ll give another cotillion!" exclaimed Ridgeway, 
 "up in the city give it for you, Ross, and you ll lead. 
 It ll be the event of the season. " 
 
 Wilbur uttered an exclamation of contempt. "I ve 
 done with that sort of foolery, " he answered. 
 
3 2 2 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 "Nonsense; why, think, we ll have it in your honour. 
 Every smart girl in town will come, and you ll be the 
 lion of " 
 
 "You don t seem to understand!" cried Wilbur 
 impatiently. "Do you think there s any fun in that for 
 me now? Why, man, I ve fought fought with a naked 
 dirk, fought with a coolie who snapped at me like an ape 
 and you talk to me of dancing and functions and ger- 
 man favours ! It wouldn t do some of you people a bit 
 of harm if you were shanghaied yourselves. That sort of 
 life, if it don t do anything else, knocks a big bit of 
 seriousness into you. You fellows make me sick," he 
 went on vehemently. "As though there wasn t any 
 thing else to do but lead cotillions and get up new 
 figures !" 
 
 "Well, what do you propose to do?" asked Ridgeway. 
 "Where are you going now back to Magdalena Bay?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Where then?" 
 
 Wilbur smote the table with his first. 
 
 "Cuba!" he cried. "I ve got a crack little schooner 
 out in the bay here, and I ve got a hundred thousand 
 dollars worth of loot aboard of her. I ve tried beach 
 combing for awhile, and now I ll try filibustering. It 
 may be a crazy idea, but it s better than dancing. I d 
 rather lead an expedition than a german, and you can 
 chew on that, Nathaniel Ridgeway." 
 
 Jerry looked at him as he stood there before them in 
 the filthy, reeking blouse and jeans, the ragged boots, 
 and the mane of hair and tangled beard, and remem 
 bered the Wilbur he used to know the Wilbur of the 
 carefully creased trousers, the satin scarfs and fancy 
 waistcoats. 
 
 "You re a different sort than when you went away, 
 Ross," said Jerry. 
 
NEW CONDITIONS 323 
 
 "Right you are," answered Wilbur. 
 
 "But I will venture a prophecy," continued Jerry, 
 looking keenly at him. "Ross, you are a born-and- 
 bred city man. It s in the blood of you and the bones 
 of you. I ll give you three years for this new notion 
 of yours to wear itself out. You think just now you re 
 going to spend the rest of your life as an amateur buc 
 caneer. In three years, at the outside, you ll be using 
 your loot, as you call it, or the interest of it, to pay 
 your taxes and your tailor, your pew rent and your club 
 dues, and you ll be what the biographers call a respect 
 able member of the community. 
 
 "Did you ever kill a man, Jerry?" asked Wilbur. 
 "No? Well, you kill one some day kill him in a fair 
 give-and-take fight and see how it makes you feel, and 
 what influence it has on you, and then come back and 
 talk to me." 
 
 It was long after midnight. Wilbur rose. 
 
 "We ll ring for a boy," said Ridgeway. "and get you 
 a room. I can fix you out with clothes enough in the 
 morning." 
 
 Wilbur stared in some surprise, and then said: 
 
 "Why, I ve got the schooner to look after. I can t 
 leave those coolies alone all night." 
 
 "You don t mean to say you re going on board at this 
 time in the morning?" 
 
 "Of course!" 
 
 "Why but but you ll catch your death of cold." 
 
 Wilbur stared at Ridgeway, then nodded helplessly, 
 and, scratching his head, said half loud : 
 
 "No, what s the use; I can t make em understand. 
 Good-night. I ll see you in the morning." 
 
 "We ll all come out and visit you on your yacht," 
 Ridgeway called after him; but Wilbur did not hear. 
 
 In answer to Wilbur s whistle, Jim came in with the 
 
3 2 4 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 dory and took him off to the schooner. Moran met him 
 as he came over the side. 
 
 "I took the watch myself to-night and let the boy 
 turn in," she said. "How is it ashore, mate!" 
 
 "We ve come back to the world of little things, 
 Moran," said Wilbur. "But we ll pull out of here in the 
 morning and get back to the places where things are 
 real." 
 
 "And that s a good hearing, mate." 
 
 "Let s get up here on the quarterdeck," added Wilbur. 
 "I ve something to propose to you." 
 
 Moran laid an arm across his shoulder, and the two 
 walked aft. For half an hour Wilbur talked to her 
 earnestly about his new idea of filibustering; and as he 
 told her of the war he warmed to the subject, his face 
 glowing, his eyes sparkling. Suddenly, however, he 
 broke off. 
 
 "But no!" he exclaimed. "You don t understand, 
 Moran. How can you you re foreign -born. It s no 
 affair of yours !" 
 
 "Mate! mate!" cried Moran, her hands upon his 
 shoulders. "It s you who don t understand don t 
 understand me. Don t you know can t you see? 
 Your people are mine now. I m happy only in your 
 happiness. You were right the best happiness is 
 the happiness one shares. And your sorrows belong 
 to me, just as I belong to you, dear. Your enemies are 
 mine, and your quarrels are my quarrels." She drew 
 his head quickly toward her and kissed him. 
 
 In the morning the two had made up their minds to a 
 certain vague course of action. To get away any 
 where was their one aim. Moran was by nature a 
 creature unfit for civilization, and the love of adventure 
 and the desire for action had suddenly leaped to life in 
 Wilbur s blood and was not to be resisted. They would 
 
NEW CONDITIONS 325 
 
 get up to San Francisco, dispose of their "loot," outfit 
 the Bertha Millner as a filibuster, and put to sea again. 
 They had discussed the advisability of rounding the 
 Horn in so small a ship as the Bertha Millner, but Moran 
 had settled that at once. 
 
 "I ve got to know her pretty well," she told Wilbur. 
 "She s sound as a nut. Only let s get away from this 
 place." 
 
 But toward ten o clock on the morning after their 
 arrival off Coronado, and just as they were preparing to 
 get under way, Hoang touched Wilbur s elbow. 
 
 "See-um lil one-piecee smoke-boat; him come chop- 
 chop." 
 
 In fact, a little steam-launch was rapidly approaching 
 the schooner. In another instant she was alongside. 
 Jerry, Nat Ridgeway, Josie Herrick, and an elderly 
 woman, whom Wilbur barely knew as Miss Herrick s 
 married sister, were aboard. 
 
 "We ve come off to see your yacht!" cried Miss 
 Herrick to Wilbur as the launch bumped along the 
 schooner s counter. "Can we come aboard !" She looked 
 very pretty in her crisp pink shirt-waist, her white 
 duck skirt, and white kid shoes, her sailor hat tilted at a 
 barely perceptible angle. The men were in white 
 flannels and smart yachting suits. "Can we come 
 aboard?" she repeated. 
 
 Wilbur gasped and stared. "Good Lord!" he mut 
 tered. "Oh, come along," he added desperately. 
 
 The party came over the side. 
 
 "Oh, my!" said Miss Herrick blankly, stopping 
 short. 
 
 The decks, masts and rails of the shooner were 
 shiny with a black coating of dirt and grease; the sails 
 were gray with grime; a strangling odour of oil and tar, 
 of cooking and of opium, of Chinese punk and drying 
 
326 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 fish, pervaded all the air. In the waist, Hoang and 
 Jim, bare to the belt, their queues looped around their 
 necks to be out of the way, were stowing the dory and 
 exchanging high-pitched monosyllables. Miss Herrick s 
 sister had not come aboard. The three visitors 
 Jerry, Ridgeway, and Josie stood nervously huddled 
 together, their elbows close in, as if to avoid contact with 
 the prevailing filth, their immaculate white outing- 
 clothes detaching themselves violently against the 
 squalour and sordid grime of the schooner s background. 
 
 "Oh, my!" repeated Miss Herrick in dismay, half 
 closing her eyes. "To think of what you must have 
 been through ! I thought you had some kind of a 
 yacht. I had no idea it would be like this." And 
 as she spoke Moran came suddenly upon the group 
 from behind the foresail, and paused in abrupt surprise, 
 her thumbs in her belt. 
 
 She still wore men s clothes and was booted to the 
 knee. The heavy blue woolen shirt was open at the 
 throat, the sleeves rolled half-way up her large white 
 arms. In her belt she carried her haftless Scandinavian 
 dirk. She was hatless as ever, and her heavy, fragrant 
 cables of rye-hued hair fell over her shoulders and 
 breast to far below her belt. 
 
 Miss Herrick started sharply, and Moran turned an 
 inquiring glance upon Wilbur. Wilbur took his reso 
 lution in both hands. 
 
 "Miss Herrick," he said, "this is Moran Moran 
 Sternersen." 
 
 Moran took a step forward, holding out her hand. 
 Josie, all bewildered, put her tight-gloved fingers into 
 the calloused palm, looking up nervously into Moran s 
 face. 
 
 "I m sure," she said feebly, almost breathlessly, "I 
 I m sure I m very pleased to meet Miss Sternersen." 
 
NEW CONDITIONS 327 
 
 It was long before the picture left Wilbur s imagina 
 tion. Josie Herrick, petite, gowned in white, crisp from 
 her maid s grooming; and Moran, sea-rover and daughter 
 of a hundred Vikings, towering above her, booted and 
 belted, gravely clasping Josie s hand in her own huge 
 fist. 
 
XIII 
 
 MORAN STERNERSEN 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO once more ! For two days the 
 Bertha Millner had been beating up the coast, fighting 
 her way against northerly winds, butting into head 
 seas. 
 
 The warmth, the stillness, the placid, drowsing quiet 
 of Magdalena Bay, steaming under the golden eye of a 
 tropic heaven, the white, baked beach, the bayheads, 
 striated with the mirage in the morning, the coruscating 
 sunset, the enchanted mystery of the purple night, 
 with its sheen of stars and riding moon, were now 
 replaced by the hale and vigourous snorting of the 
 trades, the roll of breakers to landward, and the unre 
 mitting gallop of the unnumbered multitudes of gray- 
 green seas, careering silently past the schooner, their 
 crests occasionally hissing into brusque eruptions of 
 white froth, or smiting broad on under her counter, 
 showering her decks with a spout of icy spray. It was 
 cold; at times thick fogs cloaked all the world of water. 
 To the east, a procession of bleak hills defiled slowly 
 southward ; lighthouses were passed ; streamers of smoke 
 on the western horizon marked the passage of steam 
 ships; and once they met and passed close by a huge 
 Cape Homer, a great deep-sea tramp, all sails set and 
 drawing, rolling slowly and leisurely in seas that made 
 the schooner dance. 
 
 At last the Farallones looked over the ocean s edge to 
 the north; then came the whistling-buoy, the Seal Rocks, 
 
 328 
 
MORAN STERNERSEN 329 
 
 the Heads, Point Reyes, the Golden Gate flanked with 
 the old red Presidio, Lime Point, with its watching 
 cannon; and by noon of a gray and boisterous 
 day, under a lusty wind and a slant of rain, just 
 five months after her departure, the Bertha Millner let 
 go her anchor in San Francisco Bay some few hundred 
 yards off the Lifeboat Station. 
 
 In this berth the schooner was still three or four 
 miles from the city and the water-front. But Moran 
 detested any nearer approach to civilization, and Wilbur 
 himself was willing to avoid, at least for one day, the 
 publicity which he believed the Bertha s reappearance 
 was sure to attract. He remembered, too, that the 
 little boat carried with her a fortune of $100,000, and 
 decided that until it could be safely landed and stored 
 it was not desirable that its existence should be known 
 along "the Front." 
 
 For days, weeks even, Wilbur had looked eagerly 
 forward to this return to his home. He had seen him 
 self again in his former haunts, in his club, and in the 
 houses along Pacific Avenue where he was received ; but 
 no sooner had the anchor-chain ceased rattling in the 
 Bertha s hawse-pipe than a strange revulsion came upon 
 him. The new man that seemed to have so suddenly 
 sprung to life within him, the Wilbur who was the mate of 
 the Bertha Millner, the Wilbur who belonged to Moran, 
 believed that he could see nothing to be desired in city 
 life. For him was the unsteady deck of a schooner, 
 and the great winds and the tremendous wheel of the 
 ocean s rim, and the horizon that ever fled before his 
 following prow; so he told himself, so he believed. 
 What attractions could the city offer him? What 
 amusements? What excitement? He had been flung 
 off the smoothly spinning circumference of well- 
 ordered life out into the void. 
 
330 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 He had known romance, and the spell of the great, 
 simple, and primitive emotions; he had sat down to eat 
 with buccaneers; he had seen the fierce, quick leap of 
 unleashed passions, and had felt death swoop close at 
 his nape and pass like a swift spurt of cold air. City 
 life, his old life, had no charm for him now. Wilbur 
 honestly believed that he was changed to his heart s 
 core. He thought that, like Moran, he was henceforth 
 to be a sailor of the sea, a rover, and he saw the rest of 
 his existence passed with her, aboard their faithful 
 little schooner. They would have the whole round 
 world as their playground; they held the earth and the 
 great seas in fief; there was no one to let or to hinder. 
 They two belonged to each other. Once outside the 
 Heads again, and they swept the land of cities and of 
 little things behind them, and they two were left alone 
 once more; alone in the great world of romance. 
 
 About an hour after her arrival off the station, while 
 Hoang and the hands were furling the jib and foresail and 
 getting the dory over the side, Moran remarked to 
 Wilbur: 
 
 "It s good we came in when we did, mate; the glass is 
 going down fast, and the wind s breezing up from the 
 west; we re going to have a blow; the tide will be going 
 out in a little while, and we never could have come in 
 against wind and tide." 
 
 "Moran," said Wilbur, "I m going ashore into the 
 station here; there s a telephone line there; see the wires ? 
 I can t so much as turn my hand over before I have some 
 shore-going clothes. What do you suppose they would 
 do to me if I appeared on Kearney Street in this outfit ? 
 I ll ring up Langley & Michaels they are the wholesale 
 chemists in town and have their agent come out here 
 and talk business to us about our ambergris. We ve got 
 to pay the men their prize-money; then as soon as we 
 
MORAN STERNERSEN 331 
 
 get our own money in hand we can talk about overhaul 
 ing and outfitting the Bertha. 
 
 Moran refused to accompany him ashore and into the 
 Lifeboat Station. Roofed houses were objects of sus 
 picion to her. Already she had begun to be uneasy at 
 the distant sights of the city of San Francisco, Nob, 
 Telegraph, Russian, and Rincon hills, all swarming with 
 buildings and grooved with streets ; even the land-locked 
 harbour fretted her. Wilbur could see she felt impris 
 oned, confined. When he had pointed out the Palace 
 Hotel to her a vast gray cube in the distance, over 
 topping the surrounding roofs she had sworn under her 
 breath. 
 
 "And people can live there! Good heavens ! Why 
 not rabbit -burrows, and be done with it? Mate, 
 how soon can we be out to sea again? I hate this 
 place. " 
 
 Wilbur found the captain of the Lifeboat Station in 
 the act of sitting down to a dinner of boiled beef and 
 cabbage. He was a strongly built, well-looking man, 
 with the air more of a soldier than a sailor. He had 
 already been studying the schooner through his front 
 window and had recognized her, and at once asked 
 Wilbur news of Captain Kitchell. Wilbur told him as 
 much of his story as was necessary, but from the Captain s 
 talk he gathered that the news of his return had long 
 since been wired from Coronado, and that it would be 
 impossible to avoid a nine-days notoriety. The captain 
 of the station (his name was Hodgson) made Wilbur 
 royally welcome, insisted upon his dining with him, and 
 himself called up Langley & Michaels as soon as the meal 
 was over. 
 
 It was he who offered the only plausible solution of the 
 mystery of the lifting and shaking of the schooner and 
 the wrecking of the junk. Though Wilbur was not 
 
332 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 satisfied with Hodgson s explanation, it was the only 
 one he ever heard. 
 
 When he had spoken of the matter, Hodgson had 
 nodded his head. "Sulphur-bottoms," he said. 
 
 Sulphur-bottoms ? 
 
 "Yes; they re a kind of right whale; they get barnacles 
 and a kind of marine lice on their backs, and come up 
 and scratch themselves against a ship s keel, just like a 
 hog under a fence. " 
 
 When Wilbur s business was done, and he was making 
 ready to return to the schooner, Hodgson remarked 
 suddenly : " Hear you ve got a strapping fine girl aboard 
 with you? Where did you fall in with her?" and he 
 winked and grinned. 
 
 Wilbur started as though struck, and took himself 
 hurriedly away; but the man s words had touched off in 
 his brain a veritable mine of conjecture. Moran in 
 Magdalena Bay was consistent, congruous, and fitted 
 into her environment. But how how was Wilbur to 
 explain her to San Francisco, and how could his behaviour 
 seem less than ridiculous to the men of his club and to 
 the women whose dinner invitations he was wont to 
 receive? They could not understand the change that 
 had been wrought in him; they did not know Moran, 
 the savage, half -tamed Valkyrie so suddenly become a 
 woman. Hurry as he would, the schooner could not be 
 put to sea again within a fortnight. Even though he 
 elected to live aboard in the meanwhile, the very business 
 of her preparation would call him to the city again and 
 again. Moran could not be kept a secret. As it was, 
 all the world knew of her by now. On the other hand, 
 he could easily understand her position ; to her it seemed 
 simplicity itself that they two who loved each other 
 should sail away and pass their lives together upon the 
 sea, as she and her father had done before. 
 
MORAN STERNERSEN 333 
 
 Like most men, Wilbur had to walk when he was think 
 ing hard. He sent the dory back to the schooner with 
 word to Moran that he would take a walk around the 
 beach and return in an hour or two. He set off along 
 the shore in the direction of Fort Mason, the old red 
 brick fort at the entrance of the Golden Gate. At 
 this point in the Presidio Government reservation the 
 land is solitary. Wilbur followed the line of the beach 
 to the old fort; and there on the very threshold of the 
 western world, at the very outpost of civilization, sat 
 down in the lee of the crumbling fortification and scene 
 by scene reviewed the extraordinary events of the past 
 six months. 
 
 In front of him ran the narrow channel of the Golden 
 Gate; to the right was the bay and the city; at his left 
 the open Pacific. 
 
 He saw himself the day of his advent aboard the 
 Bertha in his top hat and frock coat; saw himself later 
 "braking down" at the windlass, the Petrel within hail 
 ing distance. 
 
 Then the pictures began to thicken fast; the derelict 
 bark, Lady Letty, rolling to her scuppers, abandoned and 
 lonely; the "boy" in the wheel-box; Kitchell wrenching 
 open the desk in the Captain s stateroom; Captain 
 Sternersen buried at sea, his false teeth upside down; 
 the black fury of the squall, and Moran at the wheel; 
 Moran lying at full length on the deck, getting the 
 altitude of a star; Magdalena Bay; the shark-fishing; 
 the mysterious lifting and shuddering of the schooner; 
 the beachcombers junk, with its staring red eyes; 
 Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat and 
 whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to beach the sinking 
 schooner; the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and 
 Moran had camped together on the beach ; Hoang taken 
 prisoner, and the hideous filing of his teeth; the beach- 
 
334 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 combers, silent and watchful behind their sand breast 
 works; the Chinaman he had killed, twitching and 
 hiccoughing at his feet; Moran turned Bersark, bursting 
 down upon him through a haze of smoke; Charlie dying 
 in the hammock aboard the schooner, ordering his 
 funeral with its "four-piecee horse"; Coronado; the 
 incongruous scene in the ballroom; and, last of all, 
 Josie Herrick, in white duck and kid shoes, giving her 
 hand to Moran in her boots and belt, hatless as ever, her 
 sleeves rolled up to above the elbows, her white, strong 
 arm extended, her ruddy face, and pale, milk-blue eyes 
 gravely observant, her heavy braids, yellow as ripening 
 rye, hanging over shoulder and breast. 
 
 A sudden explosion of cold wind, striking down 
 blanket-wise and bewildering from out the west, made 
 Wilbur look up quickly. The gray sky seemed scudding 
 along close overhead. The bay, the narrow channel of 
 the Golden Gate, the outside ocean, were all whitening 
 with crests of waves. At his feet the huge green ground- 
 swells thundered to the attack of the fort s granite 
 foundations. Through the Gate, the bay seemed rushing 
 out to the Pacific. A bewildered gull shot by, tacking 
 and slanting against the gusts that would drive it out 
 to sea. Evidently the storm was not far off. Wilbur 
 Rose to his feet, and saw the Bertha Millner, close in, 
 unbridled and free as a runaway horse, headed directly 
 for the open sea, and rushing on with all the impetus of 
 wind and tide ! 
 
XIV 
 
 THE OCEAN is CALLING FOR You 
 
 A LITTLE while after Wilbur had set off from the 
 station, while Moran was making the last entries 
 in the log-book, seated at the table in the cabin, Jim 
 appeared at the door. 
 
 "Well," she said, looking up. 
 
 "China boy him want go asho plenty big, see um flen 
 up Chinatown in um city." 
 
 "Shore leave, is it?" said Moran. "You deserted 
 once before without even saying good-by; and my hand 
 in the fire, you ll come back this time dotty with opium. 
 Get away with you. We ll have men aboard here in a 
 few days." 
 
 "Can go?" inquired Jim suavely. 
 
 "I said so. Report our arrival to your Six 
 Companies." 
 
 Hoang rowed Jim and the coolies ashore, and then 
 returned to the schooner with the dory and streamed 
 her astern. As he passed the cabin door on his way 
 forward, Moran hailed him. 
 
 "I thought you went ashore?" she cried. 
 
 "Heap flaid," he answered. "Him other boy go up 
 Chinatown ; him tell Sam Yup ; I tink Sam Yup alia same 
 killee me. I no leave um ship, two, thlee day; bimeby 
 I go Olegon. I stay topside ship. You wantum cook, 
 I cook plenty fine; standum watch for you." 
 
 Indeed, ever since leaving Coronado the ex-beach 
 comber had made himself very useful about the schooner ; 
 
 335 
 
336 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 had been, in fact, obsequiousness itself, and seemed to 
 be particularly desirous of gaming the good-will of the 
 Bertha s officers. He understood pigeon English better 
 than Jim, and spoke it even better than Charlie had 
 done. He acted the part of interpreter between Wilbur 
 and the hands ; even turned to in the galley upon occa 
 sion; and of his own accord offered to give the vessel a 
 coat of paint above the water-line. 
 
 Moran turned back to her log, and Hoang went 
 forward. Standing on the forward deck, he looked 
 after the Bertha s coolies until they disappeared 
 behind a row of pine trees on the Presidio 
 Reservation, going cityward. Wilbur was nowhere 
 in sight. For a long time Hoang studied the Lifeboat 
 Station narrowly, while he made a great show 
 of coiling a length of rope. The station was just out of 
 hailing distance. Nobody seemed stirring. The whole 
 shore and back land thereabouts was deserted; the edge 
 of the city was four miles distant. Hoang returned to 
 the forecastle hatch and went below, groping under his 
 bunk in his ditty-box. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" exclaimed Moran a moment later, 
 as the beachcomber entered the cabin and shut the door 
 behind him. 
 
 Hoang did not answer ; but she did not need to repeat 
 the question. In an instant Moran knew very well what 
 he had come for. 
 
 "God!" she exclaimed under her breath, springing 
 to her feet. " Why didn t we think of this ! " 
 
 Hoang slipped his knife from the sleeve of his blouse. 
 For an instant the old imperiousness, the old savage 
 pride and anger, leaped again into Moran s breast 
 then died away forever. She was no longer the same 
 Moran of that fist-fight aboard the schooner, when the 
 beachcombers had plundered her of her "loot." Only 
 
THE OCEAN IS CALLING FOR YOU 337 
 
 a few weeks ago and she would have fought with Hoang 
 without hesitation and without mercy; would have 
 wrenched a leg from the table and brained him where he 
 stood. But she had learned since to know what it 
 meant to be dependent; to rely for protection on some 
 one who was stronger than she; to know her weakness; 
 to know that she was at last a woman, and to be proud 
 of it. 
 
 She did not fight; she had no thought of fighting. 
 Instinctively she cried aloud: "Mate mate! Oh, 
 mate, where are you? Help me!" and Hoang s knife 
 nailed the words within her throat. 
 
 The "loot" was in a brass-bound chest under one of 
 the cabin s bunks, stowed in two gunny-bags. Hoang 
 drew them out, knotted the two together, and, slinging 
 them over his shoulder, regained the deck. 
 
 He looked carefully at the angry sky and swelling 
 seas, noting the direction of the wind and set of the 
 tide ; then went forward and cast the anchor chains from 
 the windlass in such a manner that the schooner must 
 inevitably wrench free with the first heavy strain. The 
 dory was still tugging at the line astern. Hoang dropped 
 the sacks in the boat, swung himself over the side, and 
 rowed calmly toward the station s wharf. If any notion 
 of putting to sea with the schooner had entered the 
 obscure, perverted cunning of his mind, he had almost 
 instantly rejected it. Chinatown was his aim; once 
 there and under the protection of his tong, Hoang knew 
 that he was safe. He knew the hiding-places that the 
 See Yup Association provided for its members hiding- 
 places whose very existence was unknown to the police 
 of the White Devil. 
 
 No one interrupted no one even noticed his passage 
 to the station. At best it was nothing more than a 
 coolie carrying a couple of gunny-sacks across his 
 
338 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 shoulder. Two hours later, Hoang was lost in San 
 Francisco s Chinatown. 
 
 At the sight of the schooner sweeping out to sea, 
 Wilbur was for an instant smitten rigid. What had 
 happened ? Where was Moran ? Why was there nobody 
 on board? A swift, sharp sense of some unnamed 
 calamity leaped suddenly to his throat. Then he was 
 aware of a clattering of hoofs along the road that led to 
 the fort. Hodgson threw himself from one of the horses 
 that were used in handling the surf -boat, and ran to him 
 hatless and panting. 
 
 "My God!" he shouted. "Look, your schooner, do 
 you see her ? She broke away after I started to tell you 
 
 to tell you your girl there on board It was 
 
 horrible!" 
 
 "Is she all right?" cried Wilbur, at top voice, for the 
 clamour of the gale was increasing every second. 
 
 "All right! No; they ve killed her somebody 
 the coolies, I think knifed her ! I went on deck to ask 
 you people to come into the station to have supper with 
 me " 
 
 "Killed her killed her! Who? I don t believe 
 you " 
 
 "Wait to have supper with me, and I found her 
 there on the cabin floor. She was still breathing. I 
 carried her up on deck. There was nobody else aboard. 
 I carried her up and laid her on the deck and she died 
 there. Just now I came after you to tell you, and 
 
 "Good God Almighty, man! who killed her? Where 
 is she ? Oh but of course it isn t true ! How did you 
 know? Moran killed! Moran killed!" 
 
 "And the schooner broke away after I started ! " 
 
 "Moran killed! But but she s not dead yet; we ll 
 have to see " 
 
THE OCEAN IS CALLING FOR YOU 339 
 
 She died on the deck; I brought her up and laid her 
 
 on- 
 
 " How do you know she s dead? Where is she? 
 Come on, we ll go right back to her to the station ! " 
 
 "She s on board out there!" 
 
 "Where where is she? My God, man, tell me where 
 she is!" 
 
 "Out there aboard the schooner. I brought her up 
 on deck I left her on the schooner on the deck she 
 was stabbed in the throat and then came after you to 
 tell you. Then the schooner broke away while I was 
 coming; she s drifting out to sea now ! " 
 
 "Where is she? Where is she?" 
 
 "Who the girl the schooner which one? The 
 girl is on the schooner and the schooner that s her, 
 right there she s drifting out to sea ! " 
 
 Wilbur put both hands to his temples, closing his eyes. 
 
 "I ll go back!" exclaimed Hodgson. "We ll have 
 the surf -boat out and get after her; we ll bring the body 
 back!" 
 
 "No, no!" cried Wilbur, "it s better this way. 
 Leave her; let her go she s going out to sea out to sea 
 again!" 
 
 "But the schooner won t live two hours outside in 
 this weather; she ll go down!" 
 
 "It s better that way let her go. I want it so. " 
 
 "I can t stay! I can t stay here!" said the other. 
 "There s a storm coming up, and I ve got to be at my 
 station. " 
 
 Wilbur did not answer; he was watching the schooner. 
 
 " I can t stay ! " cried the other again. " If the patrol 
 should signal I can t stop here; I must be on duty. 
 Come back; you can t do anything !" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " I have got to go ! " Hodgson ran back, swung him- 
 
340 MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 
 
 self on the horse, and rode away at a furious gallop, 
 inclining his head against the gusts. 
 
 And the schooner in a whirl of flying spray, white 
 scud and driving spoondrift, her cordage humming, her 
 forefoot churning, the flag at her peak straining stiff in 
 the gale, came up into the narrow passage of the Golden 
 Gate, riding high upon the outgoing tide. On she came, 
 swinging from crest to crest of the waves that kept her 
 company, and that ran to meet the ocean, shouting and 
 calling out beyond there under the low, scudding clouds. 
 
 Wilbur had climbed to the top of the old fort. Erect 
 upon its granite ledge he stood, and watched and waited. 
 
 Not once did the Bertha Millner falter in her race. 
 Like an unbitted horse, all restraint shaken off, she 
 ran free toward the ocean as to her pasture-land. She 
 came nearer, nearer, rising and rolling with the seas, her 
 bowsprit held due west, pointing like a finger out to sea, 
 to the west out to the world of romance. And then at 
 last, as the little vessel drew opposite the old fort and 
 passed not one hundred yards away, Wilbur, watching 
 from the rampart, saw Moran lying upon the deck with 
 outstretched arms and calm, upturned face; lying upon 
 the deck of that lonely fleeing schooner as upon a bed of 
 honour, still and calm, her great braids smooth upon her 
 breast, her arms wide; alone with the sea: alone in death 
 as she had been in life. She passed out of his life as she 
 had come into it alone, upon a derelict ship, abandoned 
 to the sea. She went out with the tide, out with the 
 storm; out, out, out to the great gray Pacific that knew 
 her and loved her, and that shouted and called for her, 
 and thundered in the joy of her as she came to meet him 
 like a bride to meet a bridegroom. 
 
 "Good-by, Moran!" shouted Wilbur as she passed. 
 " Good-by, good-by, Moran ! You were not for me 
 not for me! The ocean is calling for you, dear; don t 
 
THE OCEAN IS CALLING FOR YOU 341 
 
 you hear him ? Don t you hear him ? Good-by, good- 
 by, good-by !" 
 
 The schooner swept by, shot like an arrow through 
 the swirling currents of the Golden Gate, and dipped 
 and bowed and courtesied to the Pacific that reached 
 toward her his myriad curling fingers. They enfolded 
 her, held her close, and drew her swiftly, swiftly out to 
 the great heaving bosom, tumultuous and beating in 
 its mighty joy, its savage exultation of possession. 
 
 Wilbur stood watching. The little schooner lessened 
 in the distance became a shadow in the mist and flying 
 spray a shadow moving upon the face of the great 
 waste of water. Fainter and fainter she grew, vanished, 
 reappeared, was heaved up again a mere speck upon 
 the western sky a speck that dwindled and dwindled, 
 then slowly melted away into the gray of the horizon. 
 

 , 
 
 LOAN DEPT 
 
 . General Library 
 University ? f Calif^ rnj