"I"m no play actor, even if you are," said Bucky. "I don"t want to be your husband, thank you."
"All you would have to do is to be sullen and rough. It is easy enough."
"And you think you could pa.s.s for a girl? You"re slim and soft enough, but I"ll bet you would give it away inside of an hour."
The boy laughed, and shot a swift glance at O"Connor under his long lashes. "I appeared as a girl in one of the acts of the show for years.
n.o.body ever suspected that I wasn"t."
"We might try it, but we have no clothes for the part."
"Leave that to me. I"ll buy some to-day while you are looking the ground over for our first a.s.sault an the impregnable fortress."
"I don"t know. It seems to me pretty risky. But you might buy the things, and we"ll see how you look in them. Better not get all the things at the same store. Sort of scatter your purchases around."
They separated at the door of the hotel, Frank to choose the materials he needed, and O"Connor to look up O"Halloran and get a permit to visit the prison from the proper authorities. When the latter returned triumphantly with his permit he found the boy busy with a needle and thread and surrounded by a litter of dress-making material.
"I"m altering this to fit me and fixing it up," he explained.
"Holy smoke! Who taught you to sew?" asked Bucky, in surprise.
"My aunt, Mrs. Hardman. I used to do all the plain sewing on my costumes. Did you see your friend and get your permit?"
"You bet I did, and didn"t. Mickey was out, but I left him a note.
The other thing I pulled off all right. I"m to be allowed to visit the prison and make a careful inspection of it at my leisure There"s nothing like a pull, son."
"Does the permit say you are to be allowed to steal any one of the prisoners you take a fancy to? asked Frank, with a smile.
"No, it forgot to say that. When do you expect to have that toggery made?"
"A good deal of it is already made, as you see. I"m just making a few changes. Do you want to try on your suit?"
"Is THIS mine?" asked the ranger, picking up with smiling contempt the rather gaudy blouse that lay on a chair.
"Yes, sir, that is yours. Go and put it on and we"ll see how it fits."
Bucky returned a few minutes later in his gipsy uniform, with a deprecating grin.
"I"ll have to stain your face. Then you"ll do very well," said Frank, patting and pulling at the clothes here and there. "It"s a good fit, if I do say it that chose it. The first thing you want to do when you get out in it is to roll in the dust and get it soiled. No respectable gipsy wears new clothes. Better have a tear or two in it, too."
"You ce"tainly should have been a girl, the way you take to clothes, Curly."
"Making up was my business for a good many years, you know," returned the lad quietly. "If you"ll step into the other room for about fifteen minutes I"ll show you how well I can do it."
It was a long half-hour later that Bucky thumped on the door between the rooms. "Pretty nearly ready, kid? Seems to me it is taking you a thundering long time to get that outfit on."
"How long do you think it ought to take a lady to dress?"
"Ten minutes is long enough, and fifteen, say, if she is going to a dance. You"ve been thirty-five by my Waterbury."
"It"s plain you never were married, Mr. Innocent. Why, a girl can"t fix her hair in less than half an hour."
"Well, you got a wig there, ain"t you? It doesn"t take but about five seconds to stick that on. Hurry up, gringo! I"m clean through this old newspaper."
"Read the advertis.e.m.e.nts," came saucily through the door.
"I"ve read the durned things twice."
"Learn them by heart," the sweet voice advised.
"Oh, you go to Halifax!"
Nevertheless, Mr. Bucky had to wait his comrade"s pleasure. But when he got a vision of the result, it was so little what he had expected that it left him staring in amazement, his jaw fallen and his eyes incredulous.
The vision swept him a low bow. "How do you like Bonita?" it demanded gaily.
Bucky"s eyes circled the room, to make sure that the boy was not hidden somewhere, and came back to rest on his surprise with a look that was almost consternation. Was this vivid, dazzling creature the boy he had been patronizing, lecturing, promising to thrash any time during the past four days? The thing was unbelievable, not yet to be credited by his jarred brain. How incredibly blind he had been! What an idiot of sorts! Why, the marks of s.e.x sat on her beyond any possibility of doubt. Every line of the slim, lissom figure, every curve of the soft, undulating body, the sweep of rounded arm, of tapering waist-line, of well-turned ankle, contributed evidence of what it were folly to ask further proof. How could he have ever seen those lovely, soft-lashed eyes and the delicate little hands without conviction coming home to him? And how could he have heard the low murmur of her voice, the catch of her sobs, without knowing that they were a denial of masculinity?
She was dressed like a Spanish dancing girl, in short kilts, red sash, and jaunty little cap placed sidewise on her head. She wore a wig of black hair, and her face was stained to a dusky, gipsy hue. Over her thumb hung castanets and in her hand was a tambourine. Roguishly she began to sway into a slow, rhythmic dance, beating time with her instruments as she moved. Gradually the speed quickened to a faster time. She swung gracefully to and fro with all the lithe agility of the race she personified. No part could have been better conceived or executed. Even physically she displayed the large, brilliant eyes, the ringleted, coal-black hair, the tawny skin, and the flashing smile that showed small teeth of dazzling ivory, characteristic of the Romanies he had met. It was a daring part to play, but the young man watching realized that she had the free grace to carry it out successfully.
She danced the fandango to a finish, swept him another low bow, and presented laughingly to him the tambourine for his donation. Then, suddenly flinging aside the instrument, she curtsied and caught at his hand.
"Will the senor have his fortune told?"
Bucky drew a handful of change from his pocket and selected a gold eagle. "I suppose I must cross your palm with gold," he said, even while his subconscious mind was running on the new complication presented to him by this discovery.
He was very clear about one thing. He must not let her know that he knew her for a girl. To him she must still be a boy, or their relation would become impossible. She had trusted in her power to keep her secret from him. On no other terms would she have come with him; of so much he was sure, even while his mind groped for a sufficient reason to account for an impulse that might have impelled her. If she found out that he knew, the knowledge would certainly drive her at once from him. For he knew that not the least charm of the extraordinary fascination she had for him lay in her sweet innocence of heart, a fresh innocence that consisted with this gay Romany abandon, and even with a mental experience of the sordid, seamy side of life as comprehensive as that of many a woman twice her age. She had been defrauded out of her childish inheritance of innocence, but, somehow, even in her foul environment the seeds of a rare personal purity had persistently sprung up and flourished. Some flowers are of such native freshness that no nauseous surroundings can kill their fragrance. And this was one of them.
Meanwhile, her voice ran on with the patter of her craft. There was the usual dark woman to be circ.u.mvented and the light one to be rewarded.
Jealousies and rivalries played their part in the nonsense she glibly recited, and somewhere in the future lay, of course, great riches and happiness for him.
With a queer little tug at his heart he watched the dainty finger that ran so lightly over his open palm, watched, too, the bent head so gracefully fine of outline and the face so mobile of expression when the deep eyes lifted to his in question of the correctness of her reading.
He would miss the little partner that had wound himself so tightly round his heart. He wondered if he would find compensating joy in this exquisite creature whom a few moments had taken worlds distant from him.
Suddenly tiring of her diversion, she dropped his hand. "You don"t say I do it well," she charged, aware suspiciously, at last, of his grave silence.
"You do it very well indeed. I didn"t think you had it in you, kid.
What"s worrying me is that I can never live up to such a sure enough gipsy as you."
"All you have to do is to look sour and frown if anybody gets too familiar with me. You can do that, can"t you?"
"You bet I can," he answered promptly, with unnecessary emphasis.
"And look handsome," she teased.
"Oh, that will be easy for me--since you are going to make me up. As a simple child of nature I"m no ornament to the scenery, but art"s a heap improving sometimes."
She thought, but did not say, that art would go a long way before it could show anything more pleasing than this rider of the plains. It was not alone his face, with the likable blue eyes that could say so many things in a minute, but the gallant ease of his bearing. Such a springy lightness, such sinewy grace of undulating muscle, were rare even on the frontier. She had once heard Webb Mackenzie say of him that he could whip his weight in wildcats, and it was easy of belief after seeing how surely he was master of the dynamic power in him. It is the emergency that sifts men, and she had seen him rise to several with a readiness that showed the stuff in him.
That evening they slipped out un.o.bserved in the dusk, and a few minutes later a young gipsy and his bride presented themselves at the inn to be put up. The scowling young Romany was particular, considering that he spent most nights in the open, with a sky for a roof. So the master of the inn thought when he rejected on one pretense or another the first two rooms that were shown him. He wanted two rooms, and they must connect. Had the innkeeper such apartments? The innkeeper had, but he would very much like to see the price in advance if he was going to turn over to guests of such light baggage the best accommodations in the house. This being satisfactorily arranged, the young gipsies were left to themselves in the room they had rented.