Essential Novelists - Bret Harte. Bret Harte
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remained motionless in the doorway. From behind the screen came the sound of voices. The stranger hesitated, and then uttered a slight cough.
In an instant Gabriel reappeared. The look of angry concern at the intrusion turned to one of absolute stupefaction as he examined the stranger more attentively. The new-comer smiled faintly, yet politely, and then, with a slight halt in his step, moved towards a chair, into which he dropped with a deprecating gesture.
"I shall sit—and you shall pardon me. You have surprise! Yes? Five, six hour ago you leave me very sick on a bed—where you are so kind—so good. Yes? Ah? You see me here now, and you say crazy! Mad!"
He raised his right hand with the fingers upward, twirled them to signify Gabriel's supposed idea of a whirling brain, and smiled again.
"Listen. Comes to me an hour ago a message most important. Most necessary it is I go to-night—now, to Marysville. You see. Yes? I rise and dress myself. Ha! I have great strength for the effort. I am better. But I say to myself, 'Victor, you shall first pay your respects to the good Pike who have been so kind, so good. You shall press the hand of the noble grand miner who have recover you. Bueno, I am here!"
He extended a thin, nervous brown hand, and for the first time since his entrance concentrated his keen black eyes, which had roved over the apartment and taken in its minutest details, upon his host. Gabriel, lost in bewilderment, could only gasp—"But you ain't well enough, you know. You can't walk yet. You'll kill yourself!"
The stranger smiled.
"Yes?—you think—you think? Look now! Waits me, outside, the horse of the livery-stable man. How many miles you think to the stage town? Fifteen." (He emphasized them with his five uplifted fingers.) "It is nothing. Two hour comes the stage and I am there. Ha!"
Even as he spoke, with a gesture, as if brushing away all difficulties, his keen eyes were resting upon a little shelf above the chimney, whereon stood an old-fashioned daguerreotype case open. He rose, and, with a slight halting step and an expression of pain, limped across the room to the shelf, and took up the daguerreotype.
"What have we?" he asked.
"It is Gracie," said Gabriel, brightening up. "Taken the day we started from St. Jo."
"How long?"
"Six years ago. She was fourteen then," said Gabriel, taking the case in his hand and brushing the glass fondly with his palm. "Thar warn't no puttier gal in all Missouri," he added, with fraternal pride, looking down upon the picture with moistened eyes. "Eh—what did you say?"
The stranger had uttered a few words hastily in a foreign tongue. But they were apparently complimentary, for when Gabriel looked up at him with an inquiring glance, he was smiling and saying, "Beautiful! Angelic! Very pretty!" with eyes still fixed upon the picture. "And it is like—ah, I see the brother's face, too," he said, gravely, comparing Gabriel's face with the picture. Gabriel looked pleased. Any nature less simple than his would have detected the polite fiction. In the square, honest face of the brother there was not the faintest suggestion of the delicate, girlish, poetical oval before him.
"It is precious," said the stranger: "and it is all, ha?"
"All?" echoed Gabriel, inquiringly.
"You have nothing more?"
"No."
"A line of her writing, a letter, her private papers would be a treasure, eh?"
"She left nothing," said Gabriel, simply, "but her clothes. You know she put on a boy's suit—Johnny's clothes—when she left. Thet's how it allus puzzles me thet they knew who she was, when they came across the poor child dead."
The stranger did not speak, and Gabriel went on—
"It was nigh on a month afore I got back. When I did, the snow was gone, and there warn't no track or trace of anybody. Then I heerd the story I told ye—thet a relief party had found 'em all dead—and thet among the dead was Grace. How that poor child ever got back thar alone (for thar warn't no trace or mention of the man she went away with) is what gets me. And that there's my trouble, Mr. Ramirez! To think of thet pooty darlin' climbing back to the old nest, and finding no one thar! To think of her coming back, as she allowed, to Olly and me, and findin' all her own blood gone, is suthin' thet, at times, drives me almost mad. She didn't die of starvation; she didn't die of cold. Her heart was broke, Mr. Ramirez; her little heart was broke!"
The stranger looked at him curiously, but did not speak. After a moment's pause, he lifted his bowed head from his hands, wiped his eyes with Olly's flannel petticoat, and went on—
"For more than a year I tried to get sight o' that report. Then I tried to find the Mission or the Presidio that the relief party started from, and may be see some of that party. But then kem the gold excitement, and the Americans took possession of the Missions and Presidios, and when I got to San—San—San——"
"Geronimo," interrupted Ramirez, hastily.
"Did I tell?" asked Gabriel, simply; "I don't remember that."
Ramirez showed all his teeth in quick assent, and motioned him with his finger to go on.
"When I got to San Geronimo, there was nobody, and no records left. Then I put a notiss in the San Francisco paper for Philip Ashley—that was the man as helped her away—to communicate with me. But thar weren't no answer."
Ramirez rose.
"You are not rich, friend Gabriel?"
"No," said Gabriel.
"But you expect—ah—you expect?"
"Well, I reckon some day to make a strike like the rest."
"Anywhere, my friend?"
"Anywhere," repeated Gabriel, smiling.
"Adios," said the stranger, going to the door.
"Adios," repeated Gabriel. "Must you go to-night? What's your hurry? You're sure you feel better now?"
"Better?" answered Ramirez, with a singular smile. "Better! Look, I am so strong!"
He stretched out his arms, and expanded his chest, and walked erect to the door.
"You have cured my rheumatism, friend Gabriel. Good night."
The door closed behind him. In another moment he was in the saddle, and speeding so swiftly that, in spite of mud and darkness, in two hours he had reached the mining town where the Wingdam and Sacramento stage-coach changed horses. The next morning, while Olly and Gabriel were eating breakfast, Mr. Victor Ramirez stepped briskly from the stage that drew up at Marysville Hotel, and entered the hotel office. As the clerk looked up inquiringly, Mr. Ramirez handed him a card—
"Send that, if you please, to Miss Grace Conroy."
CHAPTER II. MADAME DEVARGES.
Mr. Ramirez followed the porter upstairs, and along a narrow passage, until he reached a larger hall. Here the porter indicated that he should wait until he returned, and then disappeared down the darkened vista of another passage. Mr. Ramirez had ample time to observe the freshness of the boarded partitions and scant details of the interior of the International Hotel; he even had time to attempt to grapple the foreign mystery of the notice conspicuously on the wall, "Gentlemen are requested not to sleep on the stairs," before his companion reappeared. Beckoning to Mr. Ramirez, with an air of surly suspicion, the porter led him along the darkened passage until he paused before a door at its farther extremity and knocked gently. Slight as was the knock, it had the mysterious effect of causing all the other doors along the passage to open, and a masculine head to appear at each opening. Mr. Ramirez's brow darkened quickly. He was sufficiently conversant with the conditions of that early civilization to know that, as a visitor to a lady, he was the object of every man's curious envy and aggressive suspicion. There was the sound of light footsteps within, and the door opened. The porter lingered long enough to be able to decide upon the character and propriety of the