The Long Chance Part 6

It has not. Donna has never been away from San Pasqual since the day she entered it a babe in arms, but--she presides over the news counter in addition to her other duties. Here she has access to all the latest "best-sellers," also the big national magazines, and through these means she has kept pace with a world that is continually pa.s.sing her by in Pullman sleepers. To her has been given the glorious gift of imagination, and dull, sordid, lonely San Pasqual, squatting there in the desert sands, cannot rob her of her dreams. Rather has she grown to tolerate the place, for at her will she can summon up a host of unreal people to throng its dreary single street; she can metamorphose the water tank into a sky-sc.r.a.per, the long red lines of box cars on the sidings into rows of stately mansions. She reads and dreams much, for only between the arrival and departure of trains is she kept busy. She sends for books that would never find a sale in San Pasqual, and some day--ah! the glory of antic.i.p.ation! she is going to Los Angeles, where the event of her life is to take place. Going to be married? No? No, indeed. She is going to a theater.

So much for an intimate description of our leading lady as she appears when the curtain rises. But in all plays, whether in real life or on the stage, there must be a leading man. Very well, be patient. In due course he will appear. Donna has been dreaming much of this hero of late. His name is Gerald Van Alstyne, and he is tall, with curly golden hair, piercing blue eyes and a cleft chin; in short, a veritable Adonis and different, so different, from the traveling salesmen who leer at her across the counter and the loutish youths of San Pasqual who, despairing of her favor, call her by her first name because they know it annoys her. Donna has not the slightest doubt but that this young fellow will come rus.h.i.+ng in to the eating-house some day, discover her when he comes to pay his check, and eventually return and keep on returning until that final happy day when they shall go away together, to walk hand in hand through green fields and listen to the birds and bees, to linger under the shade of green trees, to wander in an Elysium. She does not know what green fields and running water look like, but she has read about them--

The director's whistle is heard in the wings; the play is on at last!

As Donna thrust the last hatpin through her glorious hair and turned to leave the place of her employment, her glance rested upon Mr. Harley P. Hennage, covertly watching her over the edge of his soup spoon. She removed her glove, walked around the end of the lunch counter and held out her hand.

"Well, Mr. Hennage. This _is_ a delightful surprise. I'm _so_ glad to see you back in San Pasqual. Where have you been these past three years?"

Harley P. scrambled down from his high stool, took her cool hand and blushed.

"I wouldn't like to tell you," he said, "but I've been in some mighty-y-y funn-y-y places, where I didn't meet no beautiful young ladies like you, Miss Donnie. I ain't much of a man at handin' out compliments--I never was one o' the presumin' kind--but you sure do put San Pasqual on the map. Miss Donnie, you do, for a fact."

Donna smiled her appreciation of Harley P.'s gallantry. "You left without saying good-by" she reminded him. "If I had needed you I couldn't have found you. Do you remember? You said if I ever needed a friend--"

The big gambler grinned. "You never needed me, Miss Donnie. You never would need a man like me, but you might have needed money. If you'd a-needed money, now, why, Dan Pennycook he'd a-seen you through."

Mr. Hennage did not judge it necessary to tell Donna that he had left the worthy yardmaster in charge of her destinies, with a thousand dollars on deposit in a bank in Bakersfield, in Dan's name, for Donna's use in case of emergency. Mr. Hennage lived in an atmosphere of money, where everybody fought to get his money away from him and where he fought to get theirs; hence finances were ever his first thought. As for Donna, she did not think it necessary that she should express a contrary opinion regarding Dan Pennycook. She said:

"Why didn't you come to the counter at once and say h.e.l.lo?"

He shook his head, "I wanted to all right, but I hated to appear presumin', an' with my rep in this village you know how people are liable to talk. World treatin' you well, Miss Donnie?"

"I think I get more fun out of San Pasqual than most of the people in it."

"Well, then, you must spend a lot o' time lookin' into a mirror" replied Harley P., and blushed at his effrontery. "That's the only way the San Pasqual folks can get any fun--a-lookin' at your face."

"Mr. Hennage, I fear you're getting to be one of the presuming kind.

I declare I haven't had such pretty speeches made me this year. By the way, how's the kitty?"

Harley P.'s russet countenance swelled like the wattles on a Thanksgiving turkey. He leaned over the counter and gazed under it; his glance swept the room; he even, peered under his stool. Finally he looked up at Donna with his three gold teeth flas.h.i.+ng through his trustful, childish smile.

"I dunno" he answered. "I guess she's around the house somewheres. I ain't seen her in quite a spell."

"I thought so," she answered gravely, "or you wouldn't have returned to San Pasqual. Small game for a small pocketbook, eh, Mr. Hennage?" She came closer to him. "I don't mind telling you--just between friends, you understand--that I have a couple of hundred to stake you to if you're hard up, but for goodness sake don't tell Mrs. Pennycook. She talks."

"Good Lord" gasped the gambler, and choked on a crouton. "D'ye mean it, Miss Donna?"

"Certainly."

"You're a dead game sport and I'd take you up, because I understand that it's between pals, but you ain't got no notion o' tryin' to square me for--you know!"

"I might--if I didn't understand all about that--you know? As it is I want to show you that I'm grateful, and my experienced eye informs me that you arrived in a box car. An empty furniture car, I should say, judging by that sc.r.a.p of excelsior in your back hair, although the car might have been loaded with crockery."

Mr. Hennage removed the evidence and gazed at it reflectively.

"I suppose, now, if that'd been a feather, you'd a-swore I flew in."

"Possibly. You've been a high flyer in your day, haven't you?"

Mr. Hennage grinned. "I've flew some, but I've come home to roost now.

How's the old savage down at the Hat Ranch?"

"Sam Singer is unchanged. Nothing ever changes in this country, Mr.

Hennage."

"Nothin' but money," he corrected, as he fished a bill out of his vest pocket, "an' money sure changes hands, more particular when I'm around."

"Are you going back to the Silver Dollar saloon?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Faro, roulette, black jack, c.o.o.n can or c.r.a.ps?"

"The old game--faro."

"I'll bank you up to five hundred."

"That's not the right thing for a young lady to do, is it?" queried the gambler. "Havin' truck wit' my kind o' people. Me--I'll do anything, but a young lady, now--"

"Please do not compare me with Mrs. Pennycook" Donna pleaded. "I am not the guardian of San Pasqual's morals. I'll stake you because I like you and I don't care who knows it--if you don't."

"You're a brick" the gambler declared. "I don't need your money, you blessed woman. I'm 'fat'" and he waved a thousand-dollar bill at her.

"I did ride into San Pasqual on a freight, but I did it from choice, an'

not necessity. The brakie was an old friend o' mine an' asked me to ride in wit' him. But all the same it's grand to think that there's women like you in this tough old world. It helps out a heap. You're just like your poor mother--a real lady an' no mistake."

Donna blushed. She was embarra.s.sed, despite the earnest praise of Harley P. She gave him her hand. He took it with inward trembling, lest she might be seen shaking hands with him and dishonored. She said good-night.

"Walkin' home alone?" Harley P. was much concerned. "Not that I'm fis.h.i.+n' for an invitation to see you safe to the Hat Ranch, because that'd start talk, an' anyhow I ain't one o' the presumin' kind an' you know it; but it's dark an' the zephyr's blowin' like sixty, an' if there was one hobo on that freight I come in on there was a dozen."

"Why, I didn't realize it was so late," Donna answered. "I'll have to wait until the moon comes up. But I never walk home when I'm kept late.

The division superintendent lends me the track-walker's velocipede and I whiz home like the limited. There isn't any danger, and if there was I could outrun it. Do you wish to register before I go, Mr. Hennage? I suppose you'll want your old room?"

The gambler nodded and Donna returned to the cas.h.i.+er's counter. After a.s.signing Mr. Hennage to his quarters she telephoned to the baggage room next door where the track-walker for that division stored his velocipede, and asked to have the machine brought out and placed on the tracks.

For perhaps half an hour she conversed with Harley P., much to that careless soul's discomfort, for he was terribly afraid of affording the San Pasqualians grounds for "talk." And as she waited the moon arose, lighting up the half mile of track that led past the Hat Ranch; and Fate, under whose direction all the dramas of life are staged, gave the cue to the Leading Man.

He entered San Pasqual, riding down through the desert from Owens river valley. But he was not in the least such a Leading Man as Donna had pictured in her dreams. He was tall enough but his hair was not crisp and curly and golden. Most people would have called it red. Not, praise be, a carroty red, a dull negative, scrubby red, but a nicer red than that--dark auburn, in fact. And he had an Irish nose and an Irish jaw and Irish eyes of bonny brown. In but one particular did he resemble the dream man. He did have a cleft in his chin. But even that was none of nature's doing. A Mexican with a knife was solely responsible. Yet, worse than all of these disappointments is the fact that his name was _not_ Gerald Van Alstyne. No, indeed. The Leading Man owned to the plain, homely, unromantic patronymic of Bob McGraw. The only thing romantic and--er--literary about Bob McGraw was his Roman-nosed mustang, Friar Tuck--so called because he had been foaled and raised on a wooded range near Sherwood in Mendocino county. As a product of Sherwood forest, Mr. McGraw had very properly christened him Friar Tuck, and as Friar Tuck's colthood home lay five hundred miles to the north, it will be seen that Mr. McGraw was a wanderer. Hence, if the reader is at all imaginative or inclined to the science of deduction, he will at one mental bound, so to speak, arrive at the conclusion that Bob McGraw, if not actually an adventurous person, was at least fond of adventure--which amounts to the same thing in the long run. Most people who read Robin Hood are, as witness Mr. Tom Sawyer.

The moon was coming up just as the red-headed young man from Owens river valley rode into San Pasqual. As he approached the railroad hotel and eating-house he saw a girl emerge, and pause for a moment before walking out to climb aboard a track-walker's velocipede. In the light that streamed through the open door he saw her face, framed in a tangle of black wind-blown wisps of hair; so he reined in Friar Tuck and stared, for he--well! Most people looked twice at Donna Corblay, and the red-headed man was young.

So he sat his horse in the dribbling moonlight and watched her seize the handles of the lever and glide silently off into the night. He had been standing in the stirrups, leaning forward to look at her hands as they grasped the lever, and now he sat back in his saddle, much relieved.

"No wedding ring in sight" he mused. "My lady of the velocipede, I'll marry you, or my name's not Bob McGraw."

Just then Mr. Harley P. Hennage appeared in the doorway. He saw Bob McGraw, recognized him, and immediately dodged back and went out another door. He wanted to rush out and shake hands with Mr. McGraw, of whom he was very fond, but we regret to state that Mr. McGraw owed Harley P.

Hennage the sum of fifty dollars and had owed it for three years, and Mr. Hennage hesitated to seek Mr. McGraw out for purposes of friends.h.i.+p, fearing that Mr. McGraw might construe his advances as a roundabout dun.

Ergo, Mr. Hennage fled.