"What does he do with these skins?"
"Trades "em off for grub and fixin"s. But he don"t believe in trottin"
round in the mud for gold."
"Don"t you suppose these animals would have preferred it if he had? Gold hunting takes nothing from anybody."
The girl stared at him, and then, to his great surprise, laughed instead of being angry. It was a very fascinating laugh in her imperfectly nourished pale face, and her little teeth revealed the bluish milky whiteness of pips of young Indian corn.
"Wot yer lookin" at?" she asked frankly.
"You," he replied, with equal frankness.
"It"s them duds," she said, looking down at her dress; "I reckon I ain"t got the hang o" "em."
Yet there was not the slightest tone of embarra.s.sment or even coquetry in her manner, as with both hands she tried to gather in the loose folds around her waist.
"Let me help you," he said gravely.
She lifted up her arms with childlike simplicity and backed toward him as he stepped behind her, drew in the folds, and pinned them around what proved a very small waist indeed. Then he untied the ap.r.o.n, took it off, folded it in half, and retied its curtailed proportions around the waist. "It does feel a heap easier," she said, with a little shiver of satisfaction, as she lifted her round cheek, and the tail of her blue eyes with their brown lashes, over her shoulder. It was a tempting moment--but Jack felt that the whole race of gold hunters was on trial just then, and was adamant! Perhaps he was a gentle fellow at heart, too.
"I could loop up that dress also, if I had more pins," he remarked tentatively. Jack had sisters of his own.
The pins were forthcoming. In this operation--a kind of festooning--the girl"s petticoat, a piece of common washed-out blue flannel, as pale as her eyes, but of the commonest material, became visible, but without fear or reproach to either.
"There, that looks more tidy," said Jack, critically surveying his work and a little of the small ankles revealed. The girl also examined it carefully by its reflection on the surface of the saucepan. "Looks a little like a chiny girl, don"t it?"
Jack would have resented this, thinking she meant a Chinese, until he saw her pointing to a cheap crockery ornament, representing a Dutch shepherdess, on the shelf. There was some resemblance.
"You beat mammy out o" sight!" she exclaimed gleefully. "It will jest set her clear crazy when she sees me."
"Then you had better say you did it yourself," said Fleming.
"Why?" asked the girl, suddenly opening her eyes on him with relentless frankness.
"You said your father didn"t like miners, and he mightn"t like your lending your pan to me."
"I"m more afraid o" lyin" than o" dad," she said with an elevation of moral sentiment that was, however, slightly weakened by the addition, "Mammy"ll say anything I"ll tell her to say."
"Well, good-by," said Fleming, extending his hand.
"Ye didn"t tell me what luck ye had with the pan," she said, delaying taking his hand.
Fleming shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, my usual luck,--nothing," he returned, with a smile.
"Ye seem to keer more for gettin" yer old ring back than for any luck,"
she continued. "I reckon you ain"t much o" a miner."
"I"m afraid not."
"Ye didn"t say wot yer name was, in case dad wants to know."
"I don"t think he will want to; but it"s John Fleming."
She took his hand. "You didn"t tell me yours," he said, holding the little red fingers, "in case I wanted to know."
It pleased her to consider the rejoinder intensely witty. She showed all her little teeth, threw away his hand, and said:--
"G" long with ye, Mr. Fleming. It"s Tinka"--
"Tinker?"
"Yes; short for Katinka,--Katinka Jallinger."
"Good-by, Miss Jallinger."
"Good-by. Dad"s name is Henry Boone Jallinger, of Kentucky, ef ye was ever askin"."
"Thank you."
He turned away as she swiftly re-entered the house. As he walked away, he half expected to hear her voice uplifted again in the camp-meeting chant, but he was disappointed. When he reached the top of the hill he turned and looked back at the cabin.
She was apparently waiting for this, and waved him an adieu with the humble pan he had borrowed. It flashed a moment dazzlingly as it caught the declining sun, and then went out, even obliterating the little figure behind it.
PART II
Mr. Jack Fleming was indeed "not much of a miner." He and his partners--both as young, hopeful, and inefficient as himself--had for three months worked a claim in a mountain mining settlement which yielded them a certain amount of healthy exercise, good-humored grumbling, and exalted independence. To dig for three or four hours in the morning, smoke their pipes under a redwood-tree for an hour at noon, take up their labors again until sunset, when they "washed up"
and gathered sufficient gold to pay for their daily wants, was, without their seeking it, or even knowing it, the realization of a charming socialistic ideal which better men than themselves had only dreamed of.
Fleming fell back into this refined barbarism, giving little thought to his woodland experience, and no revelation of it to his partners. He had transacted their business at the mining town. His deviations en route were nothing to them, and small account to himself.
The third day after his return he was lying under a redwood when his partner approached him.
"You aren"t uneasy in your mind about any unpaid bill--say a wash bill--that you"re owing?"
"Why?"
"There"s a big n.i.g.g.e.r woman in camp looking for you; she"s got a folded account paper in her hand. It looks deucedly like a bill."
"There must be some mistake," suggested Fleming, sitting up.
"She says not, and she"s got your name pat enough! Faulkner" (his other partner) "headed her straight up the gulch, away from camp, while I came down to warn you. So if you choose to skedaddle into the brush out there and lie low until we get her away, we"ll fix it!"
"Nonsense! I"ll see her."
His partner looked aghast at this temerity, but Fleming, jumping to his feet, at once set out to meet his mysterious visitor. This was no easy matter, as the ingenious Faulkner was laboriously leading his charge up the steep gulch road, with great politeness, but many audible misgivings as to whether this was not "Jack Fleming"s day for going to Jamestown."
He was further lightening the journey by cheering accounts of the recent depredations of bears and panthers in that immediate locality. When overtaken by Fleming he affected a start of joyful surprise, to conceal the look of warning which Fleming did not heed,--having no eyes but for Faulkners companion. She was a very fat negro woman, panting with exertion and suppressed impatience. Fleming"s heart was filled with compunction.