Wild Norene. Johnston McCulley
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her, and when she finds him—ah, señor, when she finds him! Such a woman will know how to take her revenge.
"Her child is a girl—she keeps the little one in a school. I admire Sally Wood, señor; she mingles here with the scum of the earth, yet is not defiled. She is a good girl; countless men will tell you so. Countless men would fight for her in an instant to avenge an insult. They know her story, tell it to every newcomer, help her in every way."
Captain Adams showed sudden interest.
"If that story is true, if she is a good girl and can mingle with this sort and keep her goodness for such an object, I pray Heaven she finds the man," he said earnestly.
"There is also another story," continued Guerrero. "There is a man hereabouts by name Jack Connor, a pleasant giant, a happy-go-lucky devil of a sailorman of the usual sort. He is at present out of a place, and is here in Astoria visiting his aged father. He is a favorite of men and women. He drinks with the men—but he has no use for the women."
"Half sensible, at any rate," said the captain.
"Sally Wood, so the story goes, rebuked him on a certain night because he was drinking heavily. The proprietor of this place even lets her do such a thing as that, for it delights his customers to see one of their number the subject of a sermon. Jack Connor treated the girl courteously, but continued drinking. If he had done as she requested she would have forgotten him; since he refused to obey her wish, she loved him."
"Womanly," said Captain Adams. "So she loves him?"
"In her own sweet way, señor. All have noticed it. Her eyes follow him continually when he is here. And he continues to treat her courteously, but that is all.
"Jack Connor, say his friends, has little use for women. He respects them—the good ones—too much to ask one of them to share his lot, he says; and the other sort he does not respect enough to consider at all."
"He has the making of a man in him then," the captain decided. "Sailorman out of a job, eh? I need a couple more men."
"A very devil of a fellow, señor; I have seen him. I do not know, of course, whether he would be the man for our business. He has an independent way about him. Speak of the angels—"
Voices near the door had been raised in eager greeting; The throng parted, and through it strode a man the appearance of whom made Captain Adams's eyes sparkle.
More than six feet he stood, with shoulders almost the equal of the captain's. His hair was yellow, his eyes blue, his face boyish. He walked with an easy swagger that betrayed his agility.
Such was Jack Connor.
Friends crowded close to him; voices called to ask him what his drink would be. A bartender, smiling in welcome, brought forward a private bottle and sat it on the bar before him and polished a glass and sat beside it. He and his friends drank.
"Jack, the woman-hater, caught at last!" one of the men shrieked in laughter.
Guerrero tapped the captain on the shoulder.
"The man who is talking, the one with his arm on Connor's shoulder, is his best friend, a sailorman by name Morgan," he whispered.
"Listen!" the captain commanded.
There had come a flush into Jack Connor's face not caused by liquor. He turned toward Morgan menacingly, but still smiling.
"Hold him while I tell the story!" Morgan cried. "It is too good to keep."
"If you open your mouth—" Connor began.
But, laughing, three of them held him. The others in the room had grown quiet to listen.
Morgan ran away a few paces and faced them.
"We were walking down Commercial Street," he said. "A girl passed. Her eyes met Connor's. My friend Jack was done then and there!"
"Love at first sight, eh?" cried another.
"Wait!" Morgan cried. "He insisted on following her. Think of that—Jack Connor, who never looks at a woman! Oh, he did it in a proper fashion! He never took his eyes from her. She dropped a handkerchief—"
"They always do something like that," interrupted another.
With a roar of rage Jack Connor hurled away the men who held him and looked into the crowd.
"Understand me?" he cried. "The young lady—lady, I said—dropped her handkerchief. I ran forward and picked it up. I'm not ashamed of it. I never saw her before—I don't know her name!
"But she's a lady—and not to be talked about in a crowd like this. Understand me?
"I walked down the street with her, talked with her while Morgan waited. She's the sweetest girl I ever saw. I'm not worthy to speak of her, and if I am not, neither are any of you. So we'll drop the subject. Understand?"
There was no answer; no man's eyes met his. He smiled at them again and motioned toward the bar. The men crowded forward.
"He strikes me as pretty much of a man," said Captain Adams to Guerrero in their corner.
Sally Wood, sitting at her piano, had heard. Now she began playing furiously, and some of the men near the platform began to sing, and the noise broke out anew.
Jack Connor and half a dozen of his friends made their way across the room to a table within fifteen feet of where Captain Adams and Guerrero were sitting.
The captain turned toward the wall, his back to the room, and there he remained, talking with Guerrero in whispers, until he heard his own name mentioned. It was Jack Connor speaking.
"The Amingo is the cutest little steam schooner that ever carried a cargo of lumber," he was saying. "I never saw her until she dropped down the river from Portland this morning, but I've heard a few things about her and her skipper."
"Who hasn't?" Morgan asked.
"If all I hear of Cap'n Adams is true—"
"You can bet it is," Morgan interrupted, and the others nodded their heads.
"Then I've got to set eyes on the old sea-dog some time. He's turned some good tricks in his day, but he's getting careless. Must be feeling his age."
Captain Adams's shoulders straightened, but Guerrero warned him and he slouched forward in his chair again.
"Meaning just what?" Morgan asked.
"What's his old scow doing?" asked Connor.
"Lumber, Portland to Mazatlan," said Morgan.
"Oh, she carries a deck-load of lumber, all right," said Connor, laughing. "But what she carries in her hold is the joke."
"Contraband?" one of the men asked.
"Not so loud, friend. We don't want to queer Cap'n Adams's deal. Only he's getting careless. I know what he's up to; and if I know it, what must persons know whose business it is to find out. He isn't carrying opium or chinks, if that is what you mean. But he's got an interesting cargo, all the same."
"Meaning?" asked Morgan.
"Meaning it is none of our business," said Connor. "Only I'd hate to see an old sea-dog like Cap'n Adams spend his last years in a Federal prison."
The face of Captain Adams flushed, then grew ashen as the meaning of the man's words came to him.
This man knew—he knew.
And, across the table, Señor Guerrero muttered a good Spanish oath that has no just equivalent in English and started to rise from his chair.
But Captain Adams gripped his arm so that the bone almost snapped, and the señor resumed his seat.
"Queer old fish, the cap'n," Jack Connor went on. "And that niece of his—What about her? I never heard much of it."
Morgan enlightened him.
"They call her Wild Norene; she is Captain