Black Caesar's Clan. Albert Payson Terhune
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gray hairs to Brice's shabby trousers. Tiring of this, he minced off, affectedly, toward the distant house that stood at the landward end of the sloping lawn.
As he set the cat down, Brice had stepped out of the shadows of the grove, into the open. And now, not only his face, but his whole body was clearly visible in the dying daylight. The girl's eyes ran appraisingly over the worn clothes and the cracking and dusty shoes. Brice felt, rather than saw, her appraisal. And he knew she was contrasting his costume with his voice and his clean-shaven face. She broke the moment of embarrassed silence by saying "You must be tired after your long tramp, from Miami. Were you walking for fun and exercise, or are you bound for any especial place?" He knew she was fencing, that his clothes made her wonder if she ought not to offer him some cash payment for finding her dog,—a reward she would never have dreamed of offering on the strength of his manner and voice. Also, it seemed, she was seeking some way of closing the interview without dismissing him or walking away. And he answered with perfect simplicity:
"No, I wasn't walking for exercise or fun. There are better and easier ways of acquiring fun than by plodding for hours in the hot sunshine. And of getting exercise, too. I was on my way to Homestead or to some farming place along the line, where I might pick up a job."
"Oh!"
"Yes. I could probably have gotten a place as dishwasher or even as a 'bus' or porter, in one of the big Miami hotels," he pursued, "or a billet with one of the dredging gangs in the harbor. But somehow I'd rather do farm work of some sort. It seems less of a slump, when a chap is down on his luck, than to go in for scrubbing or for section-gang hustling. There are farms and citrus groves, all along here, just back of the bay. And I'm looking for one of them where I can get a decent day's work to do and a decent day's wages for doing it."
He spoke with an almost overdone earnestness. The girl was watching him, attentively, a furrow between her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made him uncomfortable. He continued, with a shade less assurance:
"I was brought up on a farm, though I haven't been on one since I was eighteen. I might have been better off if I'd stayed there. Anyhow, when a man's prospects of starving are growing brighter every day, a farm-job is about the pleasantest sort of work he can find."
"Starving!" she repeated, in something like contempt. "If you had been in this region a little longer—say, long enough to pronounce the name, 'Miami' as it's pronounced down here, instead of calling it 'Me-ah-mee,' as you did—if you'd been here longer, you'd know that nobody need starve in Florida. Nobody who is willing to work. There's the fishing, and the construction gangs, and the groves, and the farms, and a million other ways of making a living. The weather lets you sleep outdoors, if you have to. The…"
"I've done it," he chimed in. "Slept outdoors, I mean. Last night, for instance. I slept very snugly indeed, under a Traveler Tree in the gardens of the Royal Palm Hotel. There was a dance at the hotel. I went to sleep, under the stars, to the lullaby of a corking good orchestra. The only drawback was that a spooning couple who were engineering a 'petting party,' almost sat down on my head, there in the darkness. Not that I'd have minded being a settee for them. But they might have told one of the watchmen about my being there. And I'd have had to hunt other sleeping quarters."
She did not abate that look of quizzical appraisal. And again
Gavin Brice began to feel uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
"You have an orange grove, back yonder, haven't you?" he asked, abruptly, nodding toward a landward stretch of ground shut off from the lawn by a thickset hedge of oleander.
"How did you know?" she demanded in suspicion. "By this light you couldn't possibly see—"
"Oddly enough," he said, in the pleasant drawling voice she was learning to like in spite of her better judgment, "oddly enough, I was born with a serviceable pair of nostrils. There is a scent of orange blossoms hanging fairly strong in the air. It doesn't come from the mangrove swamp behind me or from the highroad in front of your house or from the big garden patch to the south of the lawn. So I made a Sherlock Holmes guess that it must be over there to northward, and pretty close. Besides, that's the only direction the Trade Winds could bring the scent from."
Again, she was aware of a certain glibness in his tone,—a glibness that annoyed her and at the same time piqued her curiosity.
"Yes," she said, none too cordially. "Our orange groves are there. Why do you ask?"
"Only," he replied, "because where there are large citrus groves on one side of a house and fairly big vegetable gardens on the other, it means the need for a good bit of labor. And that may mean a chance for a job. Or it may not. You'll pardon my suggesting it.
"My brother needs no more labor," she replied. "At least, I am quite certain he doesn't. In fact, he has more men working here now than he actually needs. I—I've heard him say so. Of course, I'll be glad to ask him, when he comes back from town. And if you'd care to leave your address—"
"Gladly," said Brice. "Any letter addressed to me, as 'Gavin Brice, in care of Traveler Tree, rear gardens of Royal Palm Hotel,' will reach me. Unless, of course, the night watchmen chance to root me out. In that case, I'll leave word with them where mail may be forwarded. In the meantime, it's getting pretty dark, and I don't know this part of Dade County as well as I'd like to. So I'll be starting on. If you don't mind, I'll cross your lawn, and take the main road. It's easier going, at night than by way of the mangrove swamp and the beach. Good night, Miss—"
"Wait!" she interposed, worry creeping into her sweet voice. "I—I can't let you go like this. Do you really mean you have to sleep out of doors and that you have no money? I don't want to be impertinent, but—"
"'Nobody need starve in Florida,'" he quoted, gravely. "'Nobody who is willing to work. The weather lets you sleep outdoors.' (In which, the weather chimes harmoniously with my pocketbook.) And, as I am extremely 'willing to work,' it follows that I can't possibly starve. But I thank you for feeling concerned about me. It's a long day since a woman has bothered her head whether I live or die. Good night, again, Miss—"
A second time, she ignored his hint that she tell him her name. Too much worried over his light words and the real need they seemed to cover, to heed the subtler intent, she said, a little tremulously:
"I—I don't understand you, at all. Not that it is any business of mine, of course. But I hate to think that any one is in need of food or shelter. Your voice and your face and the way you talk—they don't fit in with the rest of you. Such men as yourself don't drift, penniless, through Lower Florida, looking for day-laborer jobs. I can't understand—"
"Every one who speaks decent English and yet is down-and-out," he said, quietly, "isn't necessarily a tramp or a fugitive from justice. And he doesn't need to be a man of mystery, either. Suppose, let's say, a clerk in New York has been too ill, for a long time, to work. Suppose illness has eaten all his savings, and that he doesn't care to borrow, when he knows he may never be able to pay. Suppose his doctor tells him he must go South, to get braced up, and to avoid a New York February and March. Suppose the patient has only about money enough to get here, and relies on finding something to do to keep him in food and lodging. Well—there's nothing mysterious or especially discreditable in that, is there? … The dew is beginning to fall. And I'm keeping you out here in the damp. Good night, Miss—Miss—"
"Standish," she supplied, but speaking absently, her mind still perturbed at his plight. "My name is Standish. Claire Standish."
"Mine is Gavin Brice," he said. "Good night. Keep hold of Bobby Burns's collar, till I'm well on my way. He may try to follow me. Good-by, old chap," he added, bending down and taking the collie's silken head affectionately between his hands. "You're a good dog, and a good pal. But put the soft pedal on the temperamental stuff, when you're near Simon Cameron. That's the best recipe for avoiding a scratched nose. By the way, Miss Standish, don't encourage him to roam around in the palmetto scrub, on your outings with him. The rattlesnakes have gotten many a good dog, in Florida. He—"
"Mr. Brice!" she broke in. "If I offend you, I can't help it. Won't you please let me—let me lend you enough money to keep