She had been used to strange company all her life, and ever since her childhood, on her brief visits to her father's cabin, she had been accustomed to his cronies, lean, brown, scarred pirates and picaroons, full of strange Spanish oaths.

"You will not mention this in letters to your mother," ordered Gallito, glooming at her with fierce eyes. "You know her. Caramba! If she should guess, the world would know it."

"Lord, yes!" agreed Pearl uninterestedly. "You needn't be afraid of me,"

to Jose, "I don't tell what I know."

"That is true," commended Gallito, motioning her at the same time to the table.

It seems a pity to record that such a supper was set before a woman suffering from a wound of the heart. Women at all times are held to be lacking in that epicurean appreciation of good food which man justly extols; but when a woman's whole being is absorbed in a disappointment in love, nectar and ambrosia are as sawdust to her.

On the outer rim of that circle which knew him but slightly, or merely knew of him, the causes of the charmed life which Jose bore were a matter of frequent speculation, also continual wonder was expressed that his friends would sometimes take incredible risks in effecting the escape of this rogue after one of his reckless escapades. But Jose had certain positive qualities, had these gossips but known it, which endeared him to his companions; although among them could never be numbered grat.i.tude, a lively appreciation of benefits received or a tried and true affection.

Certainly a dog-like fidelity was not among Jose's virtues. He would lift the purse of his best friend or his rescuer from a desperate impa.s.se, provided it were sufficiently heavy. A favor of a nature to put him under obligations for a lifetime he forgot as soon as it was accepted. He caricatured a benefactor to his face, nor ever dreamed of sparing friend or foe his light, pointed jibes which excoriated the surface of the smoothest vanity.

No, the only virtues which could be accredited to Jose, and these were sufficient, were an unfailing lightness of heart, the facile and fascinating gift of yarn-spinning--for he was a born raconteur, with a varied experience to draw upon--a readiness for high play, at which he lost and won with the same gay and unruffled humor, and an incomparable and heaven-bestowed gift of cookery.

To-night the very sight of the supper set before him softened Gallito's harsh face. Brook trout, freshly caught that afternoon from the rushing mountain stream not far away from the cabin, and smoking hot from the frying pan; an omelette, golden brown and b.u.t.tercup yellow, of a fluff, a fragrance, with savories hidden beneath its surface, a conserve of fruits, luscious, amber and subtly biting, the coffee of dreams and a bottle of red wine, smooth as honey.

"I hope you don't think that we're the kind of wolves that's always gatherin' round wherever there's a snack of food," murmured Mrs. Thomas softly as she took a seat beside Pearl. "We got our own cabin just a piece up in the woods, but Jose, he kind of wanted to make a celebration of your coming up."

Pearl did not answer, but slipped languidly out of her cloak, untwisted her heavy veil, removed her hat, Jose's eyes as well as Mrs. Thomas's following her the while with unmixed admiration, and sat down.

Jose immediately began to roll cigarettes and smoke them while he ate.

"Well, what is the news?" asked Gallito, as he, at least, began his evening meal with every evidence of appreciation; "good fishing, good hunting, good prospecting, eh, Mrs. Nitschkan?"

The gipsy, for she was one by birth as well as by inclination, nodded and showed her teeth in a satisfied smile. "So good that it looks like we'd be kep' here even longer than I expected when we come." She drew some bits of quartz from her pocket and threw them out on the table before him. "Some specimens I chipped off in my new prospect," she said, her eyes upon him.

"So," he said, examining them with interest, "your luck, Mrs. Nitschkan, as usual. Where--? Excuse me," a dark flush rose on his parchment skin at this breach of mining-camp etiquette which he had almost committed.

For a few moments they talked exclusively of the mining interests of the locality. It is this feverish, inexhaustible topic that is almost exclusively dwelt upon in mining camps, all other topics seeming tame and commonplace beside this fascinating subject, presided over by the golden fairy of fortune and involving her. To-day she tempts and eludes, she tantalizes and mocks and flies her thousands of wooers who follow her to the rocks, seeking her with back-breaking toil and dreaming ever of her by day and by night. Variable and cruel, deaf to all beseeching, she picks out her favorites by some rule of caprice which none but herself understands.

Supper over, Gallito ensconced his two feminine visitors in easy chairs and took one himself, while Jose, with noiseless deftness, cleared away the remains of food. Pearl had wandered to the window and, drawing the curtain aside, stood gazing out into the featureless, black expanse of the night.

"Quite a few things has happened since I saw you last, Gallito," said Mrs. Nitschkan conversationally, filling a short and stubby black pipe with loose tobacco from the pocket of her coat. "For one, I got converted."

"Ah!" returned Gallito with his unvarying courtesy, although his raised eyebrows showed some perplexity, "to--to--a religion?"

"'Course." Mrs. Nitschkan leaned forward, her arms upon her knees. "This world's the limit, Gallito, and queer things is going to happen whether you're looking for 'em or not. About a year ago Jack and the boys went off on a long prospectin' spell, the girls you know are all married and have homes of their own, an' there was me left free as air with a dandy spell of laziness right in front of me ready to be catched up 'twixt my thumb and forefinger and put in my pipe and smoked, and I hadn't even the spirit to grab it."

"Why didn't you think about getting yourself some new clothes, like any other woman would?" asked Jose, eyeing her curiously.

"What I got's good enough for me," she returned shortly.

"You should have gave your place a nice cleaning and cooked a little for a change, Sadie," said Mrs. Thomas softly and virtuously.

"Such things look worse'n dying to me," replied the gipsy. "And,"

turning again to Gallito, "the taste goin' out of my tea and coffee wasn't the worst. It went out of my pipe, too. Gosh a'mighty, Gallito!

I'll never forget the night I sat beside my dyin' fire and felt that I didn't even take no interest in winnin' their money from the boys; and then suddenly most like a voice from outside somep'n in me says: 'What's the matter with you, Sadie Nitschkan, is that you're a reapin' the harvest you've sowed, gipsyin' and junketin', fightin' and gamblin' with no thought of the serious side of life?'"

"And what is the serious side of life, Nitschkan?" asked Jose, sipping delicately his gla.s.s of wine as if to taste to the full its ambrosial flavors, like the epicure he was. "I have not yet discovered it."

"You will soon." There was meaning in the gipsy's tone and in the glance she bestowed upon him. "It's doin' good. I tell you boys when I realized that I'd probably have to change myself within and without and be like some of the pious folks I'd seen, it give me a gone feeling in the pit of my stomach. But you can't keep me down, and after I'd saw I was a sinner and repented 'cause I was so bad, I saw that the whole trouble was this, I'd tried everything else, but I hadn't never tried doin' good."

"No, Sadie, you sure hadn't made duty the watch-word of your life,"

agreed Mrs. Thomas.

Mrs. Nitschkan ignored this. "Now doin' good, for I know you don't know what that means, Jose, is seein' the right path and makin' other folks walk in it whether they're a mind to or not. Well I cert'ny gave the sinners of Zenith a run for their money."

She smoked a moment or two in silence, sunk in agreeable remembrance.

She had been true to her word and, having decided to reform as much of the community as in her estimation needed that trial as by fire, she had plunged into her self-appointed task with l.u.s.ty enthusiasm. As soon as her conversion and the outlet she had chosen for her superabundant energy were noised abroad, there was an immediate and noticeable change in the entire deportment of the camp. Those long grown careless drew forth their old morals and manners, brushed the moths from them, burnished the rust and wore them with undeniable self-consciousness, but without ostentation.

Upon these lukewarm and conforming souls Mrs. Nitschkan cast a darkling eye. It was the recalcitrant, the defiant, the professing sinner upon whom she concentrated her energies.

"So you see, Gallito," rousing herself from pleasant contemplation of past triumphs, "it wasn't only a chance to hunt and prospect that brought me. I heard from Bob Flick that Jose was still here and I see a duty before me."

"She could not keep away from me," Jose rolled his eyes sentimentally.

"You see beneath that rough old jacket of her husband's which she wears there beats a heart."

"I got some'p'n else that can beat and that's a fist." She stretched out her arm and drew it back, gazing with pride at her great, swelling muscles.

"But never me, who will tidy your cabin and cook half your meals for you." He smiled ingratiatingly at Mrs. Thomas, who grew deeply pink under his admiring smile. "Why do you not convert Saint Harry?"

"Harry's all right," she said. "You need convertin', he don't. I got an idea that he's been right through the fiery furnace like them Bible boys in their asbestos coats, he's smelted."

"Harry got my telegram?" asked Gallito, speaking in a low tone, after first glancing toward Pearl, "and you have made a room ready for her?"

"Clean as a convent cell," said Jose, with his upcurling, mordant smile.

"The wind has roared through it all day and swept away every trace of tobacco and my thoughts."

"That is well," replied Gallito with a sardonic twist of the mouth, "and where do you sleep to-night?"

"In Saint Harry's cabin."

"So," Gallito nodded as if content. "That will be best."

"Best for both," agreed Jose, a flicker of mirth on his face. "My constant companionship is good for Harry. It is not well to think you have shown the Devil the door, kicked him down the hill and forgotten him; and that he has taken his beating, learned his lesson and gone forever. It is then that the Devil is dangerous. It is better, Gallito, believe me, to remain on good terms with him, to humor him and to pa.s.s the time of day. Humility is a great virtue and you should be willing to learn something even of the Devil, not set yourself up on a high, cold, sharp mountain peak, where you keep his fingers itching from morning to night to throw you off. I have observed these things through the years of my life, and the middle course is ever the safest. Give to the church, observe her laws as a true and obedient son, in so far as possible, and only so far. Let her get her foot on your neck and she will demand such sacrifices!" He lifted his hands and rolled his eyes upward, "but the Devil is more reasonable; treat him civilly, be a good comrade to him and he will let you alone. But Saint Harry does not understand that. Saint Harry on his ice peak, and the Devil straddling around trying to find a foothold so that he can climb up to Harry and seize him with those itching fingers. Ho, ho!" Jose's laughter rang loud and shrill.

Pearl, hearing it, turned from the window with a disturbed frown and began to walk up and down the far end of the room, and Mrs. Nitschkan frowned ominously. "That's enough of your talk, Jose," she said peremptorily. "It sounds like blasphemin' to me, talkin' about the Devil that light way. Remember one of the reasons I come here. Gallito, you'd better lay out the cards and let's get down to our game. What's the limit?"

"Does Mrs. Thomas play as high as you?" asked Gallito.

"I don't care much for a tame game," said Mrs. Thomas modestly, with lowered lids. "They're too many long, sad winters in the mountains when gentl--, I mean friends, can't cross the trails to see you, an' you got to fill up your heart with cards and religion and things like that."

Jose had paused to watch, with a keen appreciation, the grace of Pearl's movements. "Caramba!" he muttered. "How sprang that flower of Spain from such a gnarled old tree as you, Gallito? Dios! But she is salado!"

Gallito frowned a little, which did not in the least disconcert Jose, and, rising, he moved a small table forward, opened it and then going to a cupboard in the wall drew from it a short, squat bottle, four gla.s.ses and a pack of cards. "Your room is just beyond this," he said, turning to Pearl. "Jose says that you will find everything ready for you. You must be tired. You had better go to bed."

Pearl twitched her shoulders impatiently. "I am not sleepy," she said sullenly. She threw herself in the chair that Gallito had vacated and lay there watching the fire with somber, wild eyes.