A feeling of chilliness, followed by a grateful sensation of drawing closer under some warm covering, a stinging taste in his mouth of fiery liquor and the aromatic steam of hot coffee, were his first returning sensations. His head and neck were swathed in coarse bandages, and his skin stiffened and smarting with soap. He was lying in a rude berth under a half-deck from which he could see the sky and the bellying sail, and presently a bearded face filled with rough and practical concern that peered down upon him.
Hulloo! comin round, eh? Hold on! The next moment the stranger had leaped down beside Elijah. He seemed to be an odd mingling of the sailor and ranchero with the shrewdness of a seaport trader.
Hulloo, boss! What was it? A free fight, or a wash-out?
A wash-out!1 Elijah grasped the idea as an inspiration. Yes, his cabin had been inundated, he had taken to a raft, had been knocked off twice or thrice, and had lost everythingeven his revolver!
The man looked relieved. Then it aint a free fight, nor havin your crust busted and bein robbed by beach combers, eh?
No, said Elijah, with his first faint smile.
Glad o that, said the man bluntly. Then thar aint no police business to tie up to in Frisco? We were stuck thar a week once, just because we chanced to pick up a feller whod been found gagged and then thrown overboard by wharf thieves. Had to dance attendance at court thar and lost our trip. He stopped and looked half-pathetically at the prostrate Elijah. Look yer! ye aint just dyin to go ashore NOW and see yer friends and send messages, are ye?
Elijah shuddered inwardly, but outwardly smiled faintly as he replied, No!
And the tide and wind jest servin us now, ye wouldnt mind keepin straight on with us this trip?
Where to? asked Elijah.
Santy Barbara.
No, said Elijah, after a moments pause. Ill go with you.
The man leaped to his feet, lifted his head above the upper deck, shouted Let her go free, Jerry! and then turned gratefully to his passenger. Look yer! A wash-out is a wash-out, I reckon, put it any way you like; it dont put anything back into the land, or anything back into your pocket afterwards, eh? No! And yer well out of it, pardner! Now theres a right smart chance for locatin jest back of Santy Barbara, where thar aint no God-forsaken tules to overflow; and ez far ez the land and licker lies ye neednt take any water in yours ef ye dont want it. You kin start fresh thar, pardner, and brail up. Whats the matter with you, old man, is only fever n agur ketched in them tules! I kin see it in your eyes. Now you hold on whar you be till I go forrard and see everything taut, and then Ill come back and well have a talk.
And they did. The result of which was that at the end of a weeks tossing and seasickness, Elijah Curtis was landed at Santa Barbara, pale, thin, but self-contained and resolute. And having found favor in the eyes of the skipper of the Kitty Hawk, general trader, lumber-dealer, and ranch-man, a week later he was located on the skippers land and installed in the skippers service. And from that day, for five years Sidon and Tasajara knew him no more.
CHAPER IV
It was part of the functions of John Milton Harkutt to take down the early morning shutters and sweep out the store for his father each day before going to school. It was a peculiarity of this performance that he was apt to linger over it, partly from the fact that it put off the evil hour of lessons, partly that he imparted into the process a purely imaginative and romantic element gathered from his latest novel-reading. In this he was usually assisted by one or two school-fellows on their way to school, who always envied him his superior menial occupation. To go to school, it was felt, was a common calamity of boyhood that called into play only the simplest forms of evasion, whereas to take down actual shutters in a bona fide store, and wield a real broom that raised a palpable cloud of dust, was something that really taxed the noblest exertions. And it was the morning after the arrival of the strangers that John Milton stood on the veranda of the store ostentatiously examining the horizon, with his hand shading his eyes, as one of his companions appeared.
Hollo, Milt! wot yer doin?
John Milton started dramatically, and then violently dashed at one of the shutters and began to detach it. Ha! he said hoarsely. Clear the ship for action! Open the ports! On deck there! Steady, you lubbers! In an instant his enthusiastic school-fellow was at his side attacking another shutter. A long, low schooner bearing down upon us! Lively, lads, lively! continued John Milton, desisting a moment to take another dramatic look at the distant plain. How does she head now? he demanded fiercely.
Sou by soueast, sir, responded the other boy, frantically dancing before the window. But shell weather it.
They each then wrested another shutter away, violently depositing them, as they ran to and fro, in a rack at the corner of the veranda. Added to an extraordinary and unnecessary clattering with their feet, they accompanied their movements with a singular hissing sound, supposed to indicate in one breath the fury of the elements, the bustle of the eager crew, and the wild excitement of the coming conflict. When the last shutter was cleared away, John Milton, with the cry Man the starboard guns! dashed into the store, whose floor was marked by the muddy footprints of yesterdays buyers, seized a broom and began to sweep violently. A cloud of dust arose, into which his companion at once precipitated himself with another broom and a loud BANG! to indicate the somewhat belated sound of cannon. For a few seconds the two boys plied their brooms desperately in that stifling atmosphere, accompanying each long sweep and puff of dust out of the open door with the report of explosions and loud HAS! of defiance, until not only the store, but the veranda was obscured with a cloud which the morning sun struggled vainly to pierce. In the midst of this tumult and dusty confusionhappily unheard and unsuspected in the secluded domestic interior of the buildinga shrill little voice arose from the road.
Think youre mighty smart, dont ye?
The two naval heroes stopped in their imaginary fury, and, as the dust of conflict cleared away, recognized little Johnny Peters gazing at them with mingled inquisitiveness and envy.
Guess ye dont know what happened down the run last night, he continued impatiently. Lige Curtis got killed, or killed hisself! Blood all over the rock down thar. Seed it, myseff. Dad picked up his six-shooter,one barrel gone off. My dad was the first to find it out, and hes bin to Squire Kerby tellin him.
The two companions, albeit burning with curiosity, affected indifference and pre-knowledge.
Dad sez your father druv Lige outer the store lass night! Dad sez your fathers sponsible. Dad sez your father ez good ez killed him. Dad sez the squirell set the constable on your father. Yah! But here the small insulter incontinently fled, pursued by both the boys. Nevertheless, when he had made good his escape, John Milton showed neither a disposition to take up his former nautical role, nor to follow his companion to visit the sanguinary scene of Elijahs disappearance. He walked slowly back to the store and continued his work of sweeping and putting in order with an abstracted regularity, and no trace of his former exuberant spirits.
The first one of those instinctive fears which are common to imaginative children, and often assume the functions of premonition, had taken possession of him. The oddity of his fathers manner the evening before, which had only half consciously made its indelible impression on his sensitive fancy, had recurred to him with Johnny Peterss speech. He had no idea of literally accepting the boys charges; he scarcely understood their gravity; but he had a miserable feeling that his fathers anger and excitement last night was because he had been discovered hunting in the dark for that paper of Lige Curtiss. It WAS Lige Curtiss paper, for he had seen it lying there. A sudden dreadful conviction came over him that he must never, never let any one know that he had seen his father take up that paper; that he must never admit it, even to HIM. It was not the boys first knowledge of that attitude of hypocrisy which the grownup world assumes towards childhood, and in which the innocent victims eventually acquiesce with a Machiavellian subtlety that at last avenges them,but it was his first knowledge that that hypocrisy might not be so innocent. His father had concealed something from him, because it was not right.