Strange and sad and eventful had been that young life thus far. What strange new thing had Fate in store for her now?

The Idaho dropped anchor at San Lucas and put off a pa.s.senger and took on the mails--two bags with flanks as flat as the sandy strand on which the long white line of breakers beat in ceaseless, soothing melody. The broad blue ocean glistened under the sunshine of another day, and late in the afternoon one or two pallid and attenuated shapes were aided to the deck, where Pancha had been reclining ever since noon, and the captain had come and rallied her upon her big, pathetic eyes and hollow cheeks, and coaxed her to promise to play her guitar that evening, and the purser had been polite and the stewardess had brought up an appetizing lunch, and Colonel Turnbull put in an appearance toward sundown (a grewsome face was his) and all this time Mr. Loring was either briskly pacing the deck or reading in a sheltered nook back of the purser's cabin, but never once did he address her or intrude upon her meditations, and Pancha's spirits and courage--or was it innate coquetry?--began to ferment. That evening no less than five pa.s.sengers appeared at table, though all five did not remain through the several courses. That evening Pancha was again tucked in her chair, and Cousin Inez was aided from her room and placed beside her, and very attentive was Mr. Traynor, the purser, though fair Inez was but languid and unresponsive still, and kept her veil about her face, and Colonel Turnbull came and poured champagne for both with lavish hand, and vowed it was specific against further a.s.saults of the salty seas, and still Mr. Loring never spoke a word. With the sparkling sunshine of yet another day, the little maid was early on the shining deck, fresh from its matutinal ablutions, and there was Loring taking his early exercise, striding up and down, up and down, and drinking in the glorious, invigorating sea air; but even now he came no nearer, and she who feared at first to venture to her accustomed seat, lest he might take advantage of her solitude and come and ask things or say things she could not bear to hear, finally sidled along one side while he was patrolling the other, made her timid way to the stern and stood there clinging to the flagstaff, and became absorbed in the rush of the foaming, boiling waters unrolling a gradually narrowing streak of dazzling white through the blue-green waste of billows, all sparkling in the slanting sunshine.

Wheeling in flapping circles overhead, skimming the crested waves, settling down and lazily floating on the heaving flood, so many dots of snow upon the sapphire, the flock of gulls sailed onward with the ship, white scavengers of the sea, and sometimes dropped so close to the rail on wide extended wing that Pancha could plainly see the eager little red beads of eyes, could almost bury her soft cheek in the thick plumage of their fleecy b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Away out toward the invisible coast a three-master was bowling along under full spread of canvas, and, midway between, some huge black fish were plunging through the swelling brine. Early as it was the deck hands had cast astern the stout trolling line, and far in their wake the spinning, silvery bait came leaping and flashing from the northward slope of each succeeding wave, and Pancha, who had seen the previous day a dolphin hauled in to die in swiftly changing, brilliant hues upon the deck, tested the taut lanyard with her slender fingers, wondering whether she alone could triumph over the frantic struggles of the splendid fish, or what she would do if she found she could not. It was an hour to breakfast time. Only Loring and herself had yet appeared on deck, and she stole a peep at him. There he was tramping up and down as though he had to finish a thousand laps within a given time, and stood at least a hundred laps behind. Four days earlier the child looked with terror to the possibility of his even drawing near her. Now she was beginning to wonder if he never would again. Five days before she could have sobbed her heart out, praying not to be subjected to the possibility of his asking her a question. Now she was wondering if he did not even care to ask--if indeed she would ever have a chance to tell.

She did not know, poor little maid, that late the previous evening, after consultation between Turnbull and Loring, the latter had asked Mr.

Traynor to place a packet of his within the safe, and that then and there Traynor had permitted him a peep at the valuable parcel to be delivered to Escalante's representative in San Francisco. Loring had been allowed to "heft" it in his hand, to curiously study the seals and superscription, to satisfy himself it could not be the tin case stolen from him at Sancho's, for this one was smaller, yet not to satisfy himself it did not contain the missing watch and diamonds, for it was big enough to hold them. Pancha did not know that the two officers had agreed upon a plan of action to be put in operation the moment they were within the Golden Gate. She did not dream that the thoughts of the silent officer dwelt on her and her past intently as did hers on him.

She was heartsick, lonely and oppressed with anxieties, such as seldom fall to the lot of maidens of sixteen, yet her heart was beating with the hope that lives in buoyant health and youth. She had left the father whom she devotedly loved and had believed all that a father could or should be, had received his parting blessing at Hermosillo and his faltering promise to soon be with her--at Guaymas. She had been radiant with the thought of soon again springing to his arms when the Idaho stopped there on the northward trip. She had been stunned and stricken when told it was his wish she should go with her cousins to San Francisco, dwell with them there, be educated there, and without hope of again seeing him until he could come to her perhaps late in the summer.

She had then been told that his life was threatened and that hated Gringos and suspicious compatriots, both, were thirsting for his blood.

She had been told that she herself was in danger of arrest for complicity in robberies at Gila Bend--she, who had overheard the plot to meet the stage, murder the pa.s.sengers and rob the mails, at least that was what the woman whom she was bidden to respect as her stepmother had fearfully told her and asked if there were no way in which she could warn Blake. How was she to know, poor child, what would result? How could she help shrinking from sight of the officers she had watched with such eager interest at Sancho's, when she was later told they were seeking her father's life--told that, could they force a confession from her, nothing on earth could save him? Yet here was the gray-haired colonel devoting himself to Inez and being kind to her own trembling self. Here was the Teniente Loring who had been lovely to her, said the stewardess, until he saw her terror, her shrinking from him, and now when she longed to tell him her simple story, he would not come near her. Of the packet and its contents she knew next to nothing. Of their intention to secure it and, if need be, her arrest with it, the moment they reached the wharf at San Francisco, she could not dream. That that fated packet was destined never to reach the Golden Gate, that every plan and project, based on the safe return of the Idaho to port, was doomed to die, no one of her pa.s.sengers or crew could possibly have predicted this beaming April morning as she cleft the billows on her northward way. Pancha was only wondering how and when Loring's silence would end, when within the minute the end came.

CHAPTER XIII.

The waiters were just beginning to set the tables for breakfast in the "saloon" beneath the broad skylight. The crew had ceased the morning "squilgeeing" and swabbing forward, and were busy stowing away mops, buckets and brooms. One or two pa.s.sengers had crawled up the companion way and dropped into seats amidships, staring in envy, if not disapproval, at the swinging stride of the young officer whose cheeks were beginning to glow again with the flush of health, and Pancha, clinging to her perch at the stern, after following him with her eyes far up the deck until she knew he had almost reached the point where he suddenly faced about in his swift march, again resolutely turned her back upon the Idaho and all that appertained to her, and found herself for the fortieth time gazing out over the glistening wake, and for the first time with a thrill of excitement. The taut trolling line was snapping and swaying, and far astern something gleaming in the slant of the sunshine came springing into view from the crest of a wave, then diving into the depths of the next and darting to right and left beneath the heaving waters--a dolphin! a beauty! she knew in an instant, and grasping the cord she strove with all her strength to haul in. For a second or two it came readily enough, then with sudden jerk, whizzed taut again, as the game victim made a magnificent dash for liberty.

Again she laid hold and, bracing her slender feet, threw her whole weight on the line and pulled away; again with only temporary success, for the dolphin only shook himself and struggled, but suddenly darting forward, he as suddenly slackened the line and Pancha, who had been pulling for dear life with set teeth and straining muscles, fell suddenly back and was spared a hard tumble only by a pair of strong, clasping arms that quickly righted, if they did not as quickly release, her, and Pancha, furiously blushing, excitedly panting, could only show her white teeth one instant as she fluttered out a faint "Gracias" and wriggled out of the gentleman's embrace, then with the instinct of her sport-loving race, grabbed again for the line and now there was seasoned muscle behind her, and the dolphin knew he had met his master. Hand over hand they pulled away, five, ten, fifteen fathoms, and the dripping cord curled upon the deck, and at last the gleaming beauty of the Pacific seas came leaping into view and swinging at the stern, and then Pancha, with sparkling eyes and eagerly flushing cheeks, ducked out of the way as Loring skillfully swung her prize aboard and sent the magnificent fellow gasping and flapping upon the deck.

And so at last the spell was broken. He had spoken slowly and with grave kindness in his modulated voice a few words of the stately and sonorous tongue she loved, and now in the fresh, sweet air of the morning, in the gladness of the ocean breeze and the heyday of life and youth, these two stood there at the taffrail of the Idaho, she so slender, dark and willowly, he almost Saxon in his blue-eyed, fair-haired, fair-skinned manliness, alone with each other and their prize. The child who had fainted at sight of him less than a week agone, was peeping shyly up at him now, and thinking how good a face was that, so fresh and fair and strong, with its smooth-shaven chin and cheeks, its round white throat, and the flawless teeth that glistened under the curling mustache whenever he opened his lips to speak, and that showed so seldom at any other time. Not until this moment had she ever seen him smile.

The fringe of her Mexican _rebosa_ had caught the b.u.t.ton of his snugly-fitting sack coat, and it needed her deft, slim fingers to release it. Then in its frantic struggles the dolphin threatened to spring back to its native element, and Loring had to head him off and thrust him to the middle of the deck again, close to the skylight of the "saloon," and there he bade her come and watch the vivid, swiftly changing, iridescent hues of the beautiful creature, and she obediently drew near and stood bending over in mingled triumph and compa.s.sion.

"_Ah, que es bonito!_" she sighed, as the frantic leapings seemed to cease and the prize lay gasping at full length, exhausted by the violence of the long battle. Presently Loring called the steward to send up for the Senorita's captive, and to serve it at the Senorita's table for breakfast, and then perhaps he might have returned to his solitary walk, but the study of Spanish is never more fascinating than when rosy lips and pearly teeth are framing the courtly phrases. Whatever the cause of her agitation the night of the meeting, whatever his preconceived idea of her complicity in the scheme that robbed him of his guard at Gila Bend and laid him low in the dust of the desert, Loring found, as the result of five days observance and reflection, that his original views had given place to doubt, and doubt at last to confidence in her utter innocence. Knowing what ordeal was before him at the end of the voyage, he had studiously avoided her, but now avoidance was no longer possible. For a few moments they stood there, saying little, for he was not practiced in the speech of Spanish, and at any time his words were few, and then he asked her if she would not like to walk. When Turnbull clambered up the stairway just as the breakfast gong was banging, he was amazed to find the Engineer and Pancha, arm in arm, pacing swiftly up and down the deck in perfect step and apparently in as perfect accord, the girl's delicate face lighted up with a glow that was not all of exercise, her wonderful eyes looking frankly into Loring's fine, thoughtful face, her free hand gesticulating eagerly as she chattered blithely, almost ceaselessly, for Loring was a flattering listener to men or women, old or young. It was a transfigured maiden that met the sisters De la Cruz as they ventured from their staterooms to the table. Even Inez, their boasted beauty, looked sallow and wan beside her radiant cousin, and the fat duenna, their aunt, gazed in mingled astonishment and disapproval at the sight. But Pancha was the heroine of the day. Pancha's hand had caught the dolphin, and the captain showered his loud congratulations, the purser handed her to her seat, and would gladly have sidled into the chair of Senor Sepulvida, who had come aboard with them at Guaymas and kept his berth until the previous evening, yet now came forth to face the gathering company at breakfast. The skipper had placed the stout senora at his own right, with Turnbull just beyond her. To Senorita Inez he had given the left-hand seat, with Loring on her other side, and Senorita Carmen just beyond him. So there was the Engineer flanked by damsels said to enjoy no little wealth and social station, yet his blue eyes ever wandered over across and further down the table where sat Pancha with a stuffy old cigar merchant between her and their party, and that scape-grace, Sepulvida, ogling on the other hand. Two, at least, of that rea.s.sembling company deserved their appet.i.tes at breakfast. But Turnbull had no zest for anything, and the women generally only feebly toyed with their forks. The colonel had found time to seize Loring by the arm and whisper to him on the stairs:

"By Jove, young man, you're playing a deep game! D'you expect to find out anything?"

"I have--already," said Loring.

"The devil you have! What?"

"She's innocent--utterly!"

And that bright morning was followed by a cloudless afternoon and a sweet, still, starlit evening, and by this time all men and all women were on deck, and the Idaho was foaming swiftly on through the summer seas, and people went below reluctantly at night, and woke to new and brighter life on the morrow; and Loring was up with the sun and drinking deep draughts of old ocean's ozone, as he paced the decks till Pancha came. And one day followed another, and Turnbull read and yawned and dozed and tried to talk to the charming senoritas, but couldn't muster enough Castilian, and Traynor chalked the decks for "horse billiards"

and shuffleboard, and everybody took a hand at times, and one evening, despite the havoc moist salt air plays with catgut, Pancha's guitar and that of the purser were brought into requisition, and Pancha was made to sing, a thing she didn't do too well as yet, and Pancha knew it without asking when she looked in Loring's eyes, and no power or persuasion could make her try again--until long, long after.

They were having now an ideal voyage, so far as wind and weather were concerned, but the Senoritas de la Cruz declared it the stupidest they'd ever known, and the officers--_los Americanos_--the least attentive or attractive of those with whom they had ever sailed. And everybody seemed to long for the sight of the green headlands of the Golden Gate and the terraced slopes of San Francisco--all save two; Pancha, to whom the ending of that voyage meant the ending of the sweetest days her life had ever known, and the beginning of a school drudgery she dreaded, and Loring, to whom the return to San Francisco meant the taking up anew of a tangled case that had become hateful to him, to whom there was the prospect of a meeting that he would gladly avoid, to whom there was coming an inevitable parting, the thought of which oppressed him strangely, and he could not yet tell why.

The marvelous green of the California bluffs spanned the horizon for miles on their starboard hand one radiant afternoon as they went below to the captain's dinner, the last before reaching port. The sunshine had been brilliant all the day, yet there came a chilly, shivering air toward two o'clock, and the first officer shrugged his shoulders and looked dubiously ahead, but gave no other sign. Gaily they drank the skipper's health and pledged the Idaho in her best champagne. Long they lingered over the table and laughter, jest and song and story enlivened the hours that came to an end at last, and Pancha stole her little hand within Loring's arm for the last starlight walk along the now familiar decks, and lo, when they issued from the brightly-lighted saloon the stars were gone, the steamer was forging ahead through a chill mist that grew thicker with every moment, and as half-speed was ordered and the mournful notes of the whistle groaned out throbbingly over the leaden sea, she swayed uneasily over a heavy ground swell that careened her deeper and deeper as the mist thickened to fog, and oilskins and sou'westers came out and dark figures went dripping about the decks, and Loring fetched his uniform cape from below and m.u.f.fled in it Pancha's slender form, and for awhile they tottered up and down, then abandoned the attempt to walk, and settled in their chairs at the end of the bench, just where she had sat and clung to the white stanchion and sobbed her heart out that night in Guaymas Bay. _Ay de mi_--Pancha could have sobbed almost as hard, though no longer in loneliness and desolation--this very night.

As early as 9.30 Senora Valdez had gone below, following her lovely nieces, and warning Pancha to come at once. It was too dark, too damp to remain there longer, but Loring begged, and the Idaho lurched and rolled sympathetically at the moment and the duenna found further argument impossible. She had to rush for her room, and later to confide her mandates as to Pancha to the stewardess, who came, peeped, and considered them ill-timed. At six bells Turnbull and a few determined, yet uncomfortable souls were consuming cognac and playing _vingt et un_ in the cabin, while the lookouts were doubled on the deck and every ship's officer stood to his post. The sound of the m.u.f.fled tinkle of the bell roused Pancha from the silence that had fallen on the pair.

"I must go," she murmured for perhaps the twentieth time, and yet she could not.

Once more, mournful, moaning, the deep-toned whistle poured forth its warning on the night, and before the long blast had died away, up from the depths of the dense fog bank ahead arose an echo, accentuated with sharp, staccato shrieks. Then came a sudden, startling cry at the bow; then deep down in the bowels of the ship the clang of the engine gong; then, shouts, and rushings to and fro at the hidden forecastle; and Loring started to his feet only to be hurled headlong to the deck, for, with fearful shock, some mammoth monster struck and pierced and heeled to port the stanch little coaster, and then, withdrawing from the fearful rent in her quarter, came crushing and grinding down the side, sweeping away every boat that hung at the starboard davits, ripping through the shrouds like pack-thread, and rolling and wallowing off astern amid a pandemonium of shouts for aid, and frantic screams of startled women. In one minute the great steamer had vanished as suddenly as she came, and the Idaho was settling by the bows. A signal rocket tore aloft to tell the tale of desperate peril.

"Stand by us, Santiago! Don't you see you've cut us down?" bellowed the captain through his trumpet. Again the steam-pipe roared and the mournful whistle crooned the death song. No answering signal came to cheer their hearts with hope of rescue. The great Pacific mailer was lost in the fog full half a mile away. The crew came rushing up on deck, reporting everything under water below. There was a mad dash of fear-crazed men for the boats, discipline and duty both forgotten.

Over the first officer's prostrate form they sprang at the "falls" of the sternmost--the longboat, a huge, bearded seaman in the lead. The captain, with fury in his eye, leaped in the way, shouting blasphemy and orders to go back, and was knocked flat with a single blow. The brawny hand had seized the swaying tackle and three seamen were already scrambling into the swinging craft when a revolver cracked; the big leader threw up his hands with a yell of agony and toppled headlong upon the deck. Then a lithe figure vaulted over the longboat's gunwale. One after another three seamen came tumbling out abashed and overawed. The captain regained his feet and senses. The boat was lowered by cooler hands until it danced in safety on the waves, and one after another the women were carefully pa.s.sed down to the care of him whose stern, clear-headed sense and instant action had proved their sole salvation--a landsman, Loring of the Engineers.

CHAPTER XIV.

That was a woeful night on the fog-shrouded Pacific. In less than ten minutes from the moment of the crash the Idaho's stern was lifted high, then down she dove for her final berth, untold fathoms underneath--her steadfast captain standing to his post till the last soul left the doomed and deserted wreck. It was G.o.d's mercy that limited the pa.s.senger list to a mere dozen in the first cabin and less than twenty in the second. The boat, with all the women, was pushed off from the side, the first officer taking charge. Through the fog they could dimly see the others lowered, then manned and laden. Discipline had been restored.

Water and bread and blankets had been hastily pa.s.sed to the longboat.

The purser had found time to dive into his safe, and to load up with some, at least, of the valuable contents. There was even a faint cheer when the steamer took the final plunge. Huddled together, many of the women were weeping, all were pale with dread, but Loring and the ship's officer bade them be of good cheer. Even if they were not found by the Santiago they were but a few miles from sh.o.r.e. The sea, though rolling heavily, was not dangerous. They were sure of making land by morning.

But there were women who could not be comforted. Their husbands or brothers were in the two smaller boats, perhaps paddling about in the darkness in vain search for the steamer that cut them down. For awhile there were answering shouts across the heaving waters. Then for half an hour the boat with the second officer, crammed with male pa.s.sengers and members of the crew, kept close alongside--too close, for some of the former scrambled into the bigger craft and others tried to follow; so close that its young commander could mutter to his mate: "The captain's boat is even fuller than mine. Can't you take off half a dozen?"

But the first officer shook his head: "If the worst comes, they've got life preservers and can swim," said he. "These women would be helpless except for what we can do for 'em."

For a time they shouted in hopes of being heard aboard the Santiago, but only those who have tried it know that it is a matter of merest luck when a steamer rounding to in a fog succeeds in finding or even coming anywhere near the spot where she was in collision not ten minutes before. The Santiago's captain swore stoutly that, though badly damaged and compelled to put back to San Francisco, for three mortal hours they cruised about the scene, setting off rockets, firing guns, sounding the whistle, listening intently with lowered boats, but never heard a sound from the wreck, never until two days after knew the fate of the vessel they had cut down. At last the first officer, fearful for his precious freight, bade his four oarsmen to pull for sh.o.r.e, his little pocket compa.s.s pointing the way. At dawn they heard the signals of a steamer through the dripping mist, and raised their voices in prolonged shout.

An hour more and they were lifted, numb and wearied, but, oh, so thankful, to the deck of a coaster creeping up from Wilmington and Santa Barbara, and were comforted with chocolate and coffee, while for long, long hours the steamer cruised up and down, to and fro, seeking for their companions and never desisting until again the pall of night spread over the leaden sea. Late the following morning the fog rolled back before the waking breeze and the Broderick steamed hopefully on for the Golden Gate, and by nightfall was moored at her accustomed dock, there to be met by the tidings that, while the second officer managed to beach his boat in safety, the captain's overloaded craft was swamped in the breakers off Point Pinos, and that brave old Turnbull had lost his life, dragged under by drowning men. At Monterey the people thought the longboat too must have overturned, and that all the women had perished.

The Santiago, nearly sinking, had only just reached port. The beach above Point Pinos was thronged with people searching in the surf for the bodies of the victims, and the captain of the Idaho was broken hearted, if not well-nigh crazed. The news of the safety of the women flew from street to street, fast as the papers could speed their extras. Loving friends came pouring down to meet and care for the survivors on the Broderick. The owners of the Idaho hastened to congratulate and commend their first officer and praise his seamanship and wisdom. The women were conveyed in carriages to the homes of friends or cared for by the company, and after a brief handclasp and parting word with Pancha, whose pathetic eyes haunted him for days, Mr. Loring took a cab and drove alone to headquarters. Evidently the story of the panic and its prompt suppression had not yet been told.

And then for at least five days the papers teemed with details of that marine disaster, and public-spirited citizens started a subscription for a presentation to the first officer, through whose heroism and determination was checked what promised to be a mad scene of disorder and dismay, such as ensued when the Arctic went down and that "stern, brave mate, Gourlay, whom the sailors were wont to obey" was not there to check the undisciplined rush to the boats. For forty-eight hours and thereafter the first officer modestly declared he had merely done his duty, sir, and no good seaman would have done less. The public dinner to be given in his honor, however, languished as a project on the later arrival of survivors from Monterey, and then inquiries began to be made for Lieutenant Loring and new stories to appear in papers that had not already committed themselves to other versions of the affair, and then it transpired that something had gone amiss at Department Headquarters.

Lieutenant Loring, after an interview with the commanding general, had hastened to Monterey in search of the captain and purser. The former he found there prostrate and actually flighty, so much so that he could give no coherent answer to questions propounded to him. In the marine hospital, suffering from a gunshot wound, was the huge sailor who had felled the commander to the deck in the rush for the remaining boats, a rush in which he was ringleader, and a piteous tale he told--that he had been shot by a pa.s.senger whom he was trying to prevent from getting into the boat they were holding for the women. The gallant little second officer had gone to his wife and children in the southern part of the State, and was not there to tell the truth. The captain was almost delirious. The first officer in San Francisco had been tacitly posing as a marine lion, and could not well be expected to volunteer information that might rob him of his laurels. The survivors among the pa.s.sengers were scattered by this time, and the purser, whose testimony might be of great value, had disappeared. "Must be in 'Frisco," said the agent who had been sent down to see that every man was furnished with clothing and money at the company's expense, and sent on his way measurably comforted. "Traynor had a desperate squeak for life," said the agent.

"He was in the captain's boat when she sunk and was weighed down with his money packages, belted about him underneath his coat, and was hauled ash.o.r.e more dead than alive, and some of his valuables were lost--he couldn't tell how much."

And this was the man Mr. Loring most needed to see. There had come to Department Headquarters a person representing himself as the San Francisco agent of the Escalante brothers, presenting a written order for a valuable package which had been given the purser for safe keeping--had been locked by him in his safe, and which now could be found nowhere. Mr. Traynor had declared to the owners that after getting the women aboard the boat he had taken all the money from the safe and such packages as it was possible to carry, and tossed three or four to Loring as he stood balancing himself on a thwart and clinging to the fall, and that he was sure one of them was that of the Senorita Pancha, for she was at the moment clasping Loring's knees and imploring him to sit down. The boat was alternately lifting high and sinking deep as the great waves rolled by, and Traynor, while admitting haste and excitement, declared that he could almost swear that Loring received three packages and one of them must have been that now demanded by the Escalante's agent. Hence the visit of that somber person to headquarters and his importunate appeals to Loring, who told him the whole story was absurd.

But then this agent had appealed to the general, and that officer, whose manner the day of Loring's return to duty had been marked by odd constraint, sent for the Engineer and required of him a statement as to the truth or falsity of these allegations, and when Loring, startled and indignant, answered "False, of course, sir," and demanded what further accusation there was, the chief tossed aside the paper folder he was nervously fingering, sprang up and began to pace the floor, a favorite method, said those who long had known him, of working off steam when he was much excited.

"I can't--discuss this painful matter, Mr. Loring," said he, testily.

"You'll have to see Colonel Strain, the adjutant-general. This deplorable loss of Colonel Turnbull has upset everybody."

So Loring went to Colonel Strain, a man to whom he was but slightly known, and then it was developed that a young lady wearing mourning, a very lovely girl, so every one described her, had called no less than three times to inquire if Mr. Loring were not returned. Once only had the general seen her, but Strain was three times her listener, and a patient one he proved, and a most a.s.siduous friend and sympathizer for several days, until, as it subsequently transpired, in some way matters reached the ears of Mrs. Strain. The colonel very pointedly told the engineer lieutenant that the lady claimed to have received letters proving that he was still in possession of the Nevins jewels while sojourning at Fort Yuma, had endeavored to compromise the matter by the tender of a check for two hundred dollars, which in her dest.i.tute condition her sister had felt compelled to accept until she could have legal advice, "and this," said Colonel Strain, "followed now by the claim of this Mexican agent, has created such a scandal in the general's eyes that you cannot too speedily take steps to a.s.sure him of your innocence, which of course you should have no difficulty in doing unless--unless--" and the colonel coughed dubiously.

For a moment Loring stood there like one in a daze. Good G.o.d! Geraldine Allyn his accuser! The girl who had wronged him so bitterly before! The girl whom he had sought to aid when he found her well-nigh dest.i.tute!

Gradually the whole force of the situation dawned upon him. With Turnbull dead, the captain daft and Traynor telling the strange story of his (Loring's) eagerness to examine the Escalante packet early on the voyage, and now declaring that he had given it into Loring's keeping!

Who in the name of Heaven was left to speak for him? Loring had come a stranger to this distant station. He had chosen to be sent at once to duty in a desert land. He was personally as little known to his superiors here at San Francisco as though they had never met. Even as the men began about the steamship offices and on the streets and in the hotels whither the Idaho's few pa.s.sengers had told the tale, to speak of Walter Loring as the man who really quelled the panic, if not a mutiny, and saved the lives of a score of helpless men and women, that officer stood accused before his comrades of the army of breach of trust, of mean embezzlement, of low-down theft and trickery, and not a man could he name to help to prove him innocent. Blake, to be sure, was at Yuma, but what could he establish save that the stage had been attacked, Loring left alone, and when the cavalry returned there lay the Engineer apparently unconscious, the empty saddle-bag beside him. Blake had seen no robbers. Blake suspected Sancho of every villainy, but could convict him of none. Traynor, the purser, whether he believed or disbelieved his own story that he had pa.s.sed that packet down to Loring, could truthfully declare that Loring had displayed most mysterious and unaccountable interest in it. One talk with Pancha, it seems, had banished Loring's intention of confiding his suspicion and the whole story, in fact, to Mr. Traynor. And so there was no friend to whom he could turn. Five days after his arrival in San Francisco Loring found himself facing charges of the gravest nature, for Traynor, being sent for, told his story to the general in person, and Loring stood alone.

CHAPTER XV.

April had gone, and May and June was well-nigh half over. The old semaph.o.r.e of Telegraph Hill would have worn itself out signaling sidewheel steamers had it still been in operation. The transcontinental railway was stretching out up the valley of the Platte toward the center of the continent, but Wells-Fargo, and the pony express charging a dollar a letter, were the only transcontinental rapid transit of the day. People still went to and from the distant East by way of Aspinwall and Panama, and the big boats of the Pacific mail were crowded, going or coming; and one bright June day two women in mourning were escorted aboard the Sonora and shown to their little stateroom, one a decidedly pretty girl, the other a sad-faced, careworn, delicate looking widow, ten or twelve years apparently the senior. They sailed with only one friend to see them off, an aide-de-camp of the commanding general, yet not without much curiosity on part of the younger woman as to the composition of the pa.s.senger list. Even before they were beyond the rocky scarp of Alcatraz, for few things are impossible to a pretty woman, she had been able to secure a copy and to say, with bated breath, to the languid invalid: "At least he's not going on this ship. It might be better if he were." For Miss Geraldine Allyn had not lost faith in her power to charm.

And one reason why the "he" referred to was not going on this ship was that the sisters Nevins and Allyn had "booked" their pa.s.sage nearly two weeks before, it being useless to remain longer on the Pacific coast in hopes of finding the fugitive husband, for the consul at Guaymas was authorized to report the death at Hermosillo, "through wounds and exposure, of the gallant but unfortunate captain, whose mind must have given way under his acc.u.mulation of troubles." A seal ring that Nevins used to wear and some letters were all he had to leave, and these had been duly forwarded to the address of his wife, whose pathetic inquiries for further particulars elicited nothing more reliable than that Nevins was dead and buried, and that was the end of him. The quartermaster got "transportation" for them to New Orleans. A sum sufficient for their immediate needs was placed in their hands. Another sum, which did not receive immediate acknowledgment, was also sent to the disconsolate widow, and now they were going, and that was all.

Going, too, was Loring, though not on that trip, shaking, so to speak, the dust of California from his feet, a silent but much-disgusted man.

For nearly five weeks he had lived a life that would have tried the endurance of the patriarch of Holy Writ and wrecked the sunny nature of a Tapley. Hounded day after day by the so-called agent of the Escalantes with insolent demands for property that was never in Loring's possession; threatened with arrest if he did not make rest.i.tution or propose an equivalent; sent practically to Coventry by officials at headquarters, to whom he was too proud or too sensitive to dilate upon his wrongs or to tell more than once the straight story of his innocence; saved from military arrest only by the "stalwart" letter written by the Yuma surgeon in response to his urgent appeals; comforted measurably by Blake's eloquent, but emphatically insubordinate, outburst at the expense of department headquarters; unable to bring to bear for nearly five weeks the ma.s.s of testimony as to character forthcoming from the superintendent and officers at West Point, and the letters of cla.s.smates and comrades who knew him and felt that the charges must be false, our Engineer pa.s.sed through an ordeal the like of which few men have had to encounter. Then the unexpected happened. The captain of the Idaho slowly recovered his mind and strength, and with convalescence came keen recollection of all that had occurred. He too made full report to the owners of Loring's coolness and determination the night of the wreck, and was amazed to be told of the charges against that officer.

"Who says so? Who makes such accusations?" he demanded angrily, and was informed that his friend and shipmate, Purser Traynor, was the person; whereat the big skipper gave a long, long whistle, looked dazed again, smote his thigh with a heavy fist, and presently said, "Just you wait a little;" wherewith he took himself off. Traynor and the first officer had been very "thick" for a fortnight or so, though that dinner had never come off. Traynor and the first officer had both been promised excellent berths the moment the new steamer arrived that was to take the place of the Idaho. But the captain went cruising out beyond Sacramento, where the purser had a little nest and brood, and came back later with a tale he poured into the ears of the company, the result of which was that Traynor was informed he would be wise to seek other employment; there would be no place for him on the new Montana; and Traynor took first boat for the Columbia, and got far away from San Francisco. No specific charges had been laid at his door, said the owners, when questioned. Nothing had been proved, nothing probably would be, that they knew of; but the captain had sailed with Traynor several years, and had views of his own as to that gentleman's integrity, which when communicated to Mr. Traynor did not seem to surprise him, and remained uncontradicted.

Then came the captain to department headquarters. The British sailor has scant reverence for soldiers of his own land and less for those of any other, no matter what the rank, and this particular son of the sea was more Briton than Yankee despite the fact that he had "sailed the California trade" long years of his life and had taken out his papers in the early statehood of that wonderful land. Ever since the days of Stockton and Kearny he had fed fat the ancient grudge he bore the army and steered as clear of soldier a.s.sociation as was possible for a man whose ship was dependent in great measure on army patronage. Days before his unheralded coming to general headquarters the rumors of Loring's bravery and coolness the night of the wreck had been floating about the building. But the Engineer had drawn into his sh.e.l.l. He came and went to and from the office a.s.signed to him, working apparently over field reports and maps, and never entered another room in the building unless sent for. It was believed that he had written urgently to the Chief of Engineers, requesting to be relieved from further duty at San Francisco.

He was neither cleared nor convicted of the allegations at his expense.