CHAPTER III.
For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along theMonterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range withafternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountaincrest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances ofthe morning sun. For six months that white veil which had once hiddenLance Harriott in its folds returned without him. For that amiableoutlaw no longer needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift wave ofpursuit that had dashed him on the summit had fallen back, and the nextday was broken and scattered. Before the week had passed, a regularjudicial inquiry relieved his crime of premeditation, and showed it tobe a rude duel of two armed and equally desperate men. From a securevantage in a seacoast town Lance challenged a trial by his peers, and,as an already prejudged man escaping from his executioners, obtained achange of venue. Regular justice, seated by the calm Pacific, foundthe action of an interior, irregular jury rash and hasty. Lance wasliberated on bail.
The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had just received the weekly mailand express from San Francisco, and was engaged in examining it. Itconsisted of five letters and two parcels. Of these, three of theletters and the two parcels were directed to Flip. It was not thefirst time during the last six months that this extraordinary event hadoccurred, and the curiosity of the Crossing was duly excited. As Fliphad never called personally for the letters or parcels, but had sent oneof her wild, irregular scouts or henchmen to bring them, and as she wasseldom seen at the Crossing or on the stage road, that curiosity wasnever satisfied. The disappointment to the Postmaster--a man past themiddle age--partook of a sentimental nature. He looked at the lettersand parcels; he looked at his watch; it was yet early, he couldreturn by noon. He again examined the addresses; they were in the samehandwriting as the previous letters. His mind was made up, he woulddeliver them himself. The poetic, soulful side of his mission wasdelicately indicated by a pale blue necktie, a clean shirt, and a smallpackage of gingernuts, of which Flip was extravagantly fond.
The common road to Fairley's Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a pointbelow the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman usually lefthis beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot. It was here thatthe Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of the wood the figure ofan elegantly-dressed woman; she was walking slowly, and apparently ather ease; one hand held her skirts lightly gathered between her glovedfingers, the other slowly swung a riding whip. Was it a picnic of somepeople from Monterey or Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough tojustify his coming nearer. Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lostsight of her; she was gone. He remembered, however, that Flip wasstill to be seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all hisenergies, he was fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly vertical whenhe turned into the canyon, and saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond. Atalmost the same moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting, in the roadbefore him.
"You've got something for me," she said, pointing to the parcel andletters. Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanicallyyielded them up, and as instantly regretted it. "They're paid for,"continued Flip, observing his hesitation.
"That's so," stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his lastchance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; "but I thought ezit's a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine it to see thatit was all right afore ye receipted for it."
"I'll risk it," said Flip, coolly, "and if it ain't right I'll let yeknow."
As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the Postmasterwas driven to other conversation. "We ain't had the pleasure of seeingyou down at the Crossing for a month o' Sundays," he began, with airyyet pronounced gallantry. "Some folks let on you was keepin' companywith some feller like Bijah Brown, and you were getting a little tooset up for the Crossing." The individual here mentioned being the countybutcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip bymaking a long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enter thecanyon for "orders," Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. "Then Iallowed how ez you might have company," he continued; "I reckon there'ssome city folks up at the summit. I saw a mighty smart, fash'n'ble galcavorting round. Had no end o' style and fancy fixin's. That's my kind,I tell you. I just weaken on that sort o' gal," he continued, in thefirm belief that he had awakened Flip's jealousy, as he glanced at herwell-worn homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.
"Strange I ain't got to see her yet," she replied coolly, shoulderingher parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for hisextra-official act.
"But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger Woods,"he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; "if you'll take apasear there with me." Flip's only response was to walk on toward thecabin, whence, with a vague complimentary suggestion of "droppin' in topass the time o' day" with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.
The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new companionrequired no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxedto the extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, duringwhich Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had thatinfelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerateunimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently becameconvinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor ofFlip's. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when hemight bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary,he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy andFlip's indifference, he "deemed it his duty"--using that facile form ofcowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.
Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, sheplunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like aknapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight linethrough cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal,climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a birdfrom branch to branch down the deepest declivity. She soon reachedthat part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster had seen thefascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed, she creptthrough the thicket until she reached a little waterfall and basin thathad served the fugitive Lance for a bath. The spot bore signs of laterand more frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefully removed some barkand brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drew forth various foldedgarments, it was evident she had used it as a sylvan dressing-room. Hereshe opened the parcel; it contained a small and delicate shawl of yellowChina crepe. Flip instantly threw it over her shoulders and steppedhurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then she began to pass backwardand forward before the trunk of a tree. At first nothing was visible onthe tree, but a closer inspection showed a large pane of ordinary windowglass stuck in the fork of the branches. It was placed at such a cunningangle against the darkness of the forest opening that it made a soft andmysterious mirror, not unlike a Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not onlythe passing figure of the young girl was seen, but the dazzling greenand gold of the hillside, and the far-off silhouetted crests of theCoast Range.
But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When shereturned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large pieceof yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting." These shedeposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood toassure herself that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foothad invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and beganto undress. A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to thecircumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs,who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently movingband of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricablymingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiledalike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd. Within these hallowedprecincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling water, and attimes the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlighttrembling over bright flanks, or the white au
stere outline of a childishbosom.
When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out ofthe wood, she was completely transformed. It was the figure that hadappeared to the Postmaster; the slight, erect, graceful form of ayoung woman modishly attired. It was Flip, but Flip made taller by thelengthened skirt and clinging habiliments of fashion. Flip freckled,but, through the cunning of a relief of yellow color in her gown, herpiquant brown-shot face and eyes brightened and intensified until sheseemed like a spicy odor made visible. I cannot affirm that the judgmentof Flip's mysterious modiste was infallible, or that the taste ofMr. Lance Harriott, her patron, was fastidious; enough that it waspicturesque, and perhaps not more glaring and extravagant than the colorin which Spring herself had once clothed the sere hillside where Flipwas now seated. The phantom mirror in the tree fork caught and held herwith the sky, the green leaves, the sunlight and all the graciousnessof her surroundings, and the wind gently tossed her hair and the gayribbons of her gypsy hat. Suddenly she started. Some remote sound inthe trail below, inaudible to any ear less fine than hers, arrested herbreathing. She rose swiftly and darted into cover.
Ten minutes passed. The sun was declining; the white fog was beginningto creep over the Coast Range. From the edge of the wood Cinderellaappeared, disenchanted, and in her homespun garments. The clock hadstruck--the spell was past. As she disappeared down the trail eventhe magic mirror, moved by the wind, slipped from the tree top to theground, and became a piece of common glass.