The Black Pearl Part 34

"I guess that's straight. You always had it in for me from the first night I saw her. Well, you'll only be finis.h.i.+ng what she begun. She broke me; she drove me straight to h.e.l.l. Maybe it was a mis-spent life I offered her, but when I met her I had money and success, I wasn't a soak. I still had the don't-give-a-d.a.m.n snap in me, and, even if you're middle-aged, that's youth. But she's like a fever that you can't shake off. And she don't play fair. But she's the only one. You know that, Bob Flick, and she didn't have the right--"

"I ain't ever questioned her right, Hanson"--Flick used his name for the first time--"and I'm standing here to prove it now. For the sake of Miss Gallito, because she once took notice of you, I'm going to treat you like you was a gentleman. Here's your gun. Take your twenty paces. And, remember, this ain't to wound, it's to kill."

Hanson took the pistol and measured off the paces. Then he turned and looked from one man to another with a smile of triumph on his evil face.

"Broke by the Black Pearl and then shot by her dog! That's a nice finish. I can shoot some myself, but I ain't in your cla.s.s, Flick, and you know it. I guess not. I prefer my own route." He looked toward the cabin, where it seemed to him that Pearl or her shadow wavered a moment in the doorway. "Here's dying to you, honey," and before either man could stop him he lifted his pistol and shot himself through the heart.

In the meantime certain events of more importance than the pa.s.sing of Hanson, to those involved, were taking place in Mrs. Nitschkan's cabin.

As soon as Gallito had left the mine and taken his way up to Seagreave's Jose also had departed from his cell by way of the ravine and had hastened to the abode of Mrs. Nitschkan, where he and Mrs. Thomas were soon absorbed in the composition of various appetizing dishes, for with the connivance of the two women Jose hoped that evening again to subjugate Gallito with the spell of his cookery, and win back the indulgence he had been steadily losing.

The afternoon, then, was pa.s.sing most pleasantly for both Mrs. Thomas and himself when suddenly the door was flung open and Mrs. Nitschkan, who had been fis.h.i.+ng in a creek further down the hill, came das.h.i.+ng in.

"Jose," she cried, "the Sheriff and his boys is all out after you again.

There's n.o.body else they'd want up this way. They couldn't keep under cover all the way, for they had to cross the bridge, and I happened to see 'em then. Get out quick through the trees for Harry's cabin."

"But I don't know the secret trail."

"Gallito does. Anyway, cut for it an' maybe I can throw them off the scent. Gosh a'mighty! Cut for it. They're here."

With one last, hasty kiss on Mrs. Thomas' cheek, Jose was out of the door like a flash.

"Now quick, Marthy." Mrs. Nitschkan had seized a pair of scissors and cut the pocket from her skirt, tucking the roll of bills which it contained into her man's boot. "Cry, Marthy, cry like you never cried before. Go on, I say. Yelpin's your strong suit. Now yelp."

With that she fell to swearing l.u.s.tily herself and throwing the furniture about, even turning the stove over and sending a great shower of soot about the room.

At the height of all this noise and confusion, dominated, it must be said, by Mrs. Thomas's loud and, to do her justice, sincere weeping, there came a thunderous knocking on the door, and without waiting to have it answered the sheriff threw it open and stepped in.

"Holy smoke!" he cried. "What you knockin' down the cook-stove for?"

"'Cause I'm fightin' mad, that's why," returned Mrs. Nitschkan tartly, "and I sure am glad to see you. I been robbed, that's what. Ain't that so, Marthy?"

Mrs. Thomas lifted her tear-stained face and corroborated this with mournful nods.

"Whilst I was takin' a little nap," went on Mrs. Nitschkan excitedly, "a rascal brother of Gallito's who shouldn't never have been let out of jail cut the pocket clean out of my skirt and stole my roll. Look here!"

exhibiting the jagged hole, and also the empty pocket which lay upon the floor, "I just waked up to find him gone. He can't have got far, though.

I guess he thinks I ain't on to that rock chamber Gallito blasted out for him in the Mont d'Or, but he showed it to Marthy here, and she showed it to me. Come on, and we'll get down there quick."

"Some of us will." The sheriff was inclined to believe her, and yet he was still suspicious. A rock chamber in the Mont d'Or! That certainly accounted for the miraculous escape of last winter.

"Pedro?" he asked. "Are you sure it ain't Jose?"

"I ain't heard of any Jose, have you Marthy?" asked Mrs. Nitschkan innocently. "Pedro was his name. But come on quick."

"Two of you boys search this cabin and the woods around," ordered the sheriff, "and two of you go up to Seagreave's cabin. The rest come along with me."

Led by Mrs. Nitschkan, still volubly lamenting her loss, they started down the hill toward the ravine, when the sheriff suddenly looked up to see upon the crest of the hill just before it dipped into a descending slope two hors.e.m.e.n at full gallop, both horses and riders outlined against the sky.

"Our men are up there, boys," he cried. "Quick. I've got the fastest horse in the county, and we'll get them before they get to three rocks."

He was back to his horse again and on it and up the hill before his men were fairly in the saddle. It was a race after that, and so rapidly did he gain on Gallito and Jose that it looked as if his prediction of getting them before they reached three rocks was about to be verified.

"I must do it, I must do it," he kept muttering to himself, "for it's bad going after that, and it'll take us all some time to find him."

He was lessening the distance between them with every long, powerful stride of his horse, but already the three rocks, gaunt and high, loomed before him as if forming an impa.s.sable barrier across the road.

Suddenly, just as Jose and Gallito had almost reached them and the sheriff was gaining upon the fugitives in great leaps, he saw them swerve their horses aside and dash into a clump of trees to the right of the rocks.

"Oh, the fools! the fools! I got 'em now. Instead of going for the rocks, they've made for the trees."

A few minutes later he and his men found the horses ridden by Gallito and Jose blown and hard-breathing among the trees, but no trace could they discover of the men they sought. Beyond the three rocks the character of the hills changed strikingly. Instead of the wide, undulating, wooded plateau, over which riding was so easy, the mountains suddenly seemed split by mighty gashes, a great pocket of creva.s.ses and towering cliffs.

The sheriff and his men beat about aimlessly and conscientiously for several hours, but in vain. Jose and Gallito had long before "hit" the secret trail. So finally the sheriff, who was inclined to put less faith than ever in Hanson's representations, and convinced in his own mind that Gallito was merely conniving at the escape of an unregenerate brother, and that Mrs. Nitschkan's tale was true, called off his men and rode home. "The cuss ain't important," he remarked, "and I guess Gallito'll be glad enough to make up Nitschkan's loss to her and keep her mouth shut."

It was evening. Pearl and Seagreave sat in the door of the cabin. Her head drooped, her hands lay listlessly in her lap, and her brooding gaze was fixed on the soft, dark night. "Oh," she cried at last, "how can I do anything but leave you? Look at the mischief I've done in the world.

Look at it!"

Seagreave clasped his arms about her and laid his cheek on hers. "Let's forget it all, Pearl, forget that you've been a firebrand and I've been a quitter, and begin life all over again. There's only one thing in it, anyway, and that's love."

"Just love," she answered softly. "Well, love's enough."

APPLETON'S RECENT BOOKS

NOVELS

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