CHAPTER III
Pearl's father came the next day, an older man than Hanson had imaginedand of a different type. There was no smack of the circus ring abouthim, no swagger of the footlights; nor any hint of the emotional, gaytemperament supposed to be the inheritance of southern blood. He was asaturnine, gnarled old Spaniard with lean jaws and beetling brows. Hisskin was like parchment. It clung to his bones and fell in heavywrinkles in the hollows of his cheeks and about his mouth; and his darkeyes, fierce as a wild hawk's, were as brilliant and piercing as inyouth.
Little resemblance between him, gaunt and stark and seamed as a desertrock, and his tropical blossom of a daughter, and yet, indubitably,Pearl was the child of her father. The secretiveness, the concentratedwill, the unfettered individuality of spirit, which protected its owndefiant isolation at all costs, the subtlety, the ability to seeksanctuary in indefinitely maintained silence, these were their traits incommon.
Hanson, Gallito met with grave and impersonal courtesy which, the formerwas relieved to feel, held a real indifference. There were many mothsever circling about this glowing flame of a daughter. Gallito acceptedthat, met them, observed them, and assumed those introspectivemeditations in which he seemed ever absorbed.
There was evidently an understanding between Pearl and himself, but noshow of affection, and what small tenderness of nature the Spaniardpossessed appeared to be bestowed upon Hugh.
Grim and silent, sipping a little cognac from a glass on a table by hisside, the old man would sit on the porch for an hour at a time listeningto the boy playing the piano in the room within.
Flick and himself also seemed on fair terms of friendship and would holdapparently endless discussions concerning various mining properties. Itwas understood that Gallito had come down now to give his opinion onsome claim that Flick had recently staked, and they two, usuallyaccompanied by Hughie, would ride off over the desert and be gone two orthree days at a time.
Hanson, finding that the theatrical tie, "we be brothers of one blood,"had not that potency for Mr. Gallito that it exercised for his wife, andthat it was not for him as for her the open sesame to confidence andfriendship, speedily ceased to strike this note and approached him onthe ground of pure business. The offer he had made to Pearl he repeatedto her father.
And Gallito had gazed out over the desert and considered the matter withdue deliberation. "Sweeney's been writing to me considerable," he saidat last. "He's made a good deal better proposition that he did lastyear."
"I told your daughter I'd double any offer Sweeney made," Hanson said,and then expatiated on the advantage of the wider circuit and increasedadvertising that he proposed to give.
Gallito nodded without comment. Again he seemed to turn the matter overin his mind. "I'll write to Sweeney," he said finally, "and get him togive me a statement in writing of just what he proposes to do, acomplete outline of his plans down."
The manager could not restrain the question which rose to his lips: "Butyour daughter, is she willing that you should make all thesearrangements?"
Gallito looked at him sharply from under his beetling brows. There wassurprise in his glance and a touch of cynical scorn: "She knows that Ilook out for her interests."
Another query crossed Hanson's mind, one he had no disposition to voice.Was the understanding between father and daughter, and this apparent andmost uncharacteristic submission to his judgment on her part, based on acommon passion, acquisitiveness? He thought of Pearl's jewels. More thanonce he had seen her lift her fingers and caress the gems on her hand,just as the Spaniard sat and shook his buttons and nuggets of goldtogether, pouring them from one palm to another, his frowning gaze fixedon the ground before him.
"Yes, I'll write to Sweeney," continued Gallito. "It'll take a few days,though, before I can get his answer." He looked at the other manquestioningly. "It might be a week in all. I don't want to keep youhere that time. I could write you."
"Nothing to do just now," said Rudolf easily. "Left things in goodhands, business running easily. Came down here to stay a while, needed avacation. And, Lord! This air makes a man feel like he never wanted toleave."
To this Gallito made no comment and, as there was nothing further tosay, the subject was, for the time, dropped between them.
Hanson had made known his reasons, obvious reasons, for his presence inPaloma, so, as he would have expressed it, he let it go at that and leftthe observer to draw any conclusions he pleased as to his almostconstant presence at the Gallito home, and yet, after all, his visitswere only a little more frequent than those of a number of others, andno more so at all than those of Bob Flick.
There were long evenings when Hughie played the piano, and when Pearl,now and then, touched the guitar, when Mrs. Gallito indulged in herquerulous monotonous reminiscences, while Gallito and various men satand smoked cigarettes about the card table; but always, no matter whocame or went, there was Flick, silent, impassive, polite, but, as Hansonrealized with growing irritation, ever watchful.
Gallito sat down to his cards in the evening as regularly as he went tobed exactly at twelve o'clock; and not cards alone. When he came"inside" there were brought forth from various nooks of obscurity in hisdwelling other gambling devices, among them a faro layout, a kenogoose, and a roulette wheel.
Undoubtedly, the play ran high in the Gallito cabin, but although Hansonsometimes sat in at this or that game, more often he sat talking toPearl in the soft shadow of the porch. To her he made no secret of hisinfatuation, but it seemed to him that when with her they were ever moreconstantly and more irritatingly interrupted. Either Mrs. Gallito, orHughie, or some of the visitors would join them and Hanson realized thathis opportunities for speech with Pearl were becoming increasingly rare.
The only times when he could really see her alone were on the occasionsof some morning rides together, which they had begun to take.
As for her, she was still repelling, still alluring, still drawing himon, but how much of it was a game which she played both by nature andpractice with consummate skill, or how much he might have caught herfancy or touched her heart, he had no way of determining, and thistormented him and yet daily, hourly, heightened his infatuation.
And he was still further goaded by the knowledge that he was, in ameasure, under surveillance, which he was sure was instituted by Gallitoand Flick and connived at by Hughie; a watchfulness so subtle that itconvinced him even while he doubted. He felt often as if he were stalkedby some stealthy and implacable animal. This situation, imaginary orreal, began to affect his nerves and he would undoubtedly have left hadit not been for his mounting passion for Pearl, a passion fanned alwaysto a more ardent flame by her tantalizing coquetries.
Then, too, he felt that, although Bob Flick and Gallito had probablyacquired some information about himself which he would gladly havewithheld, still they did not hold all the winning cards. The ace oftrumps, as he exultantly told himself, is bound to take any trick, andthe ace of trumps he felt that he possessed in the information whichMrs. Gallito had so obligingly furnished him. In other words, his acewas Crop-eared Jose, and his ace was not destined to be unsupported byother trump cards.
Only the evening before, he and Mrs. Gallito had sat alone for a fewmoments on the porch gazing out over the wonder and glory of the desertflooded in moonlight, and the patient, flattering interest with which heinvariably received her confidences had gained its reward, for she hadleaned toward him and whispered with many cautious backward glances:
"He's up there in the mountains yet."
"Who?" asked Hanson, attempting to conceal his eagerness under an air ofmystification.
"Crop-eared Jose," she answered, "and Gallito's going to keep him therefor several months yet."
"Is he?" and again Hanson strove to speak with disarming indifference."How do you know?"
"I heard him and Bob Flick planning it," she answered. "They don't thinkit's safe to try and get him out of the country now." Then, havingdelivered herself of her burden of important n
ews, she suffered one ofher quick revulsions of fright, and clapped her hand to her mouth andturned white.
"Oh, Lordy!" she cried. "Lordy! Ain't I the leaky vessel, though! Oh,say, Mr. Hanson," she clutched his arm like a terrified child, "promiseme you won't give me away."
"Sure," soothingly. "Why, Mrs. Gallito, you got to believe thateverything that you tell me just goes in one ear and out of the other.But look here, just to take your mind off of this, I wish you'd do me alittle favor."
"'Deed I will," she fervently assured him. "What is it?"
"Why, Miss Pearl and I are going riding to-morrow morning, and Iparticularly want to talk business to her. You know how anxious I am toget her signed up. Well, I wish you'd manage to keep Hughie from buttingin as usual?"
"Is that all?" she cried. "'Course I'll keep Hughie at home. I didn'trealize how he was tagging round after you and Pearl. I want him to helpme, anyway. We got to patch up my chicken house and yard so's to keepthe coyotes out some way or other."
True to her word, she kept Hugh so busily employed the next morning thatto Hanson's infinite relief he and Pearl were able to ride off alone.
"I'm going to take you to a palm grove to-day," said Pearl, as theystarted off.
She was in the gayest of humors, and for a time she bantered andcoquetted with him with an unrestrained and childlike enjoyment in hermood, taking his ardent lovemaking as a matter of course; but,gradually, as they rode, she became more quiet and fell into silence,the Sphynx expression appearing on her face.
Suddenly she leaned forward in her saddle and looked at him. There was ahint of laughter in her glance, and yet behind it a certain seriousscrutiny.
"I'm wondering a lot about you, do you know it?" she drawled softly.
"Turn about's fair play, then, honey," he answered. "You keep meguessing all the time. But what is it now?"
She did not answer him immediately, but rode on in silence as ifcogitating whether or no she would reply to his question, and in someway he received the impression that it was not the first time she hadmentally debated the matter. But finally she decided to speak, and againshe turned in her saddle and regarded him with that piercing scrutinywhich reminded him uncomfortably of her father.
"Say," she began, with apparent irrelevance, "what you been doing,anyway?"
"Me!" cried Hanson. "You know. Been falling in love with you as hard asI could, and"--his voice ringing with a passionate sincerity--"that'sGod's truth, Pearl."
She looked up at him, her wild eyes melting, her delicately cut lipsupcurling in a smile; then her head drooped, her whole body expressed asoft yielding.
Hanson grew white, almost he stretched out his arms as if to clasp her,when she threw up her head with a low laugh, a tinkle of mockerythrough it, like the jangled strings of her guitar.
"But I mean it," she insisted, and now he saw that she had somethingreally on her mind, something she had determined to say to him. "Listento me," imperiously, "and stop looking at me as if you were lookingthrough me and still didn't see me."
"I'm seeing your eyes, Pearl," he muttered, "and they drown me. And I'mseeing your lips and they draw me like a magnet does a needle; but ifthey drew me through hell, I'd go."
"Listen," she spoke more imperiously than before. "Have you noticed howPop's been watching you--looking slantwise out of the corners of hiseyes whenever you come around."
"I sure have," replied Hanson, "being as I'm not blind. But what of it?I supposed he treated every one that came around you like that."
"No," she shook her head thoughtfully. "I been studying over it, but Ican't quite make it out. Pop don't pay much attention to men that ain'this kind, and you're not. And Bob Flick is always jealous, of course,but he doesn't usually take it out watching folks like a ferret does arat hole. No, it isn't that."
"Well, what do you put it down to?" Rudolf tried to speak easily.
Pearl paid no particular heed to this question. "And it's not allHughie," she mused. "Of course," and here he saw an expression of realregret, almost worry, on her face, "of course it's bad for all of uswhen Hughie takes a dislike to any one."
Hanson's sense of injury was inflamed. "But why the devil," he cried,"should Hughie's unreasoning cranks count with commonsense people? Ican't understand," with wondering impatience, "why you all act like youdo about that boy!"
"We've all learned that Hughie knows things that we don't know."
"Umph!" the exclamation was disgustedly incredulous. "And so, simplybecause Hughie chooses to take a dislike to me, I'm to be watched like acriminal and treated, even by you, with suspicion."
"No," she said, "I've been studying over it, but I can't quite make itout. Pop don't pay much attention, usually. But," she spoke slowly, "Ithought maybe you'd tell me this morning."
"Well, there's nothing to tell," he affirmed obstinately.
She looked out over the desert for a moment. "Bob Flick hit the traillast night," she spoke casually.
"To go where?"
"I don't know. I wish I did. But I kind of feel, I can't help but feel,that it had something to do with you, and I wanted to tell you, to letyou know, so that you can clear out if you've a mind to."
"I've no cause to clear out," said Hanson. "Gee!" his bold eyes lookedgaily into hers, "you all seem determined to make me out bad, don't you?But if that's your way of trying to get rid of me, it don't go. When youtell me that you won't sign up with me, and are going back to Sweeney,for just half of what I offer you, then I'll know that you want to getrid of me, and I'll clear out."
"But I ain't told you that yet," the corners of Pearl's mouth weredimpling.
"No, and, by George, until you do I stay right here."
"Look!" she cried with a change in her voice. They had entered a canon,where palms grew and involuntarily they drew up their horses to gaze atthe sight before them. The stately, exotic palms lifted their shininggreen fronds to the blue, intense, illimitable sky, flooded with thegold of sunshine, and beyond them was the background of the mountains,their dark wooded slopes climbing upward until they reached the white,dazzling peaks of snow.
The sharp and apparently impossible contrasts, the magic illusions ofcolor made it a land of remote enchantment, even to the mostunimaginative. And to Hanson the world outside became as unreal as adream that is past. Here was beauty, and the wide, free spaces ofnature, where every law of man seemed puny, ineffectual and void. Inthis unbounded, uncharted freedom the shackles of conventionality fellfrom him. Here was life and here was love. He was a primitive man, andhere, before him in visible form, stood the world's desire. Barriersthere were none. A man and woman, both as vital as the morning, and lovebetween them. The craving heart of the eternal man rose up in Hanson,imperatively urging him to claim his own.
He drew his hand across his brow almost dazedly. "Whew!" he muttered,"I kind of remember when I was a kid that my mother used to tell meabout the Garden of Eden. I thought it was a pipe dream, but, George!it's true--it's true, and I can't quite believe it."
The Pearl stood leaning against a great palm tree. She seemed hardly tohear him. Her eyes were on the waving, shimmering horizon line of thedesert. Her face held a sort of wistful dreaming.
"'The Garden of Eden!'" she repeated. "I've heard of it, too. It was aplace where you were always happy, but"--still wistfully--"I haven'tfound that place yet." She turned her vaguely troubled eyes on him andthen sighed and drooped against the tree.
"You can have things as you please, if you'll come to me." His speechwas rapid, hard-breathing; it was as if he hardly knew what he wassaying, but was talking merely to relieve the tension. "I'm boss and Ican manage that you shall dance when you please, and come back here fora little breathing spell whenever you want. But," with an impatientgesture, "I ain't here to talk business. That's what I came to Palomafor--business. That's all I was before I met you, just a cold, hardbusiness proposition. I guess I was pretty hard-headed. They seemed tothink so in my line, anyway. I thought I knew it all." He gave a shortlaugh. "I'm
not so young. I thought I knew life pretty well--had kind ofwore it out, in fact. I thought I'd loved more than one woman; but Iknow now that I've never loved, never lived before, that I've just wokeup, here in this Garden of Eden.
"Pearl," the beads of sweat stood out on his brow, "I ain't made youout. I know you're one thing one hour and another the next. I'm no vainboy. I can't tell whether you've been drawing me on one minute andholding me back the next just because you got to annex the scalp ofevery man your sweet eyes fall on. That's all right, honey, I ain'tblaming you; but there's been moments lately, Pearl, when I've thoughtthat maybe you might care, moments when I been plumb crazy with joy. Youain't let 'em last very long, honey," with a strained smile, "but theymost made up for the black question mark that came after 'em." He drewout his handkerchief and wiped his wet brow with a trembling hand.
She threw back her head and smiled into his eyes through her narrowedlids. She held out her hands to him; and with one step Hanson lifted herclear off the ground, gathering her up in his arms, holding her againsthis heart and kissing her scarlet mouth.
And she wound her arms about his neck and returned those kisses.
"Put me down," she said at last, and Hanson did so, although he stillheld her close to his heart with one arm.
"Pearl!" he cried aloud, and it was like some strong affirmation oflife. He lifted his eyes, bold and unafraid, as an eagle's, to thesun-flooded, brazen, blue heavens. Time stood still. He had drunk at anew fountain--love, and, although his thirst was still unquenched, hewas eternal youth. The heart of life breathed through him. He lookedupon the sky, a man unconquered, unbeaten, undaunted by life. He wasits master. Did she ask the snow peaks yonder? He would gather them asfootstools for her little feet. Was it gold she desired? It should be asdust for her hands to scatter to the winds. Was it name, place, state,she asked? They should be plucked forthwith from a supine world andoffered her as a nosegay.
Again, confidently now, he stooped and kissed her lips. It seemed to himthat roses and stars fell about them. "You love me, Pearl," he hadcried, in incredulous joy, "you love me."
For answer she smiled sweetly, ardently into his eyes: "'Love meto-day,'" she sang, nestling close to his heart.