He paused as she neared him, his jaw sagging at the apparition of a dainty, richly dressed, strange female alone on the street of Topaz.
"Good-morning. You"re Mr. Ryder, aren"t you?" she smiled.
"That"s me, Ma"am." He pulled off his soft-brimmed hat, revealing a wide expanse of shining pink scalp, fringed with a scanty growth of grizzled hair.
"The proprietor of the Palace Hotel tells me that you are one of the oldest inhabitants left, Mr. Ryder, and I wonder if you would mind telling me something of the people who used to live in Topaz Gulch years ago. I am trying to locate some lost relatives."
"I"ll be glad to tell you anything I can, Ma"am." His round face quickened with interest. "I keep bachelor house, but if you don"t object to walking through the bar--it"s empty now--there"s a room back where we can talk."
He led the way and Willa followed him. Bare and ramshackle as it was, the sight of the bar and the little tables fronting it brought acutely to her memory a like room, larger and more resplendent, with baize-covered tables and flaring oil lamps; a tall, spare figure inexpressibly dear to her memory replaced for a moment the rotund one before her and the veil of the past seemed lifted. She was back once more in the Blue Chip.
The vision was dispelled, however, when she found herself in the little back room, scarcely more than a closet, with room enough only for the rusty stove, table and chairs.
"Private poker-room," Mr. Ryder announced with pride. "Enough coin"s changed hands here to buy the greatest gold-mine in Nevada! Make yourself comfortable, Ma"am. Now, who was it you was looking for?"
"Do you recall Jake"s place, the dance-hall that was burned down?"
Willa began.
"Like as if it was yesterday!" The little man seated himself in the chair opposite and put his hat on the floor beside him. "Topaz was a roaring gehenna in them days and one night Red-Eye Pete started in to shoot out the lamps at Jake"s. One of "em exploded and it was all over in no time. Red-Eye himself and Ray Clancy, the pianner-player, and two o" the girls was lost. I got a busted arm and most o" my hair singed off going in after "em, but "twarn"t no use."
"You knew the--the girls?" Willa had difficulty in controlling her voice.
"Sure I did! Blonde Annie and Miss Violet. Annie was just a--a girl like you"d expect, Ma"am, but Miss Violet, she was a regular lady.
Young widder with a toddling baby and a voice like an angel.--Say, that"s funny!" He broke off, staring at her. "It ain"t about her that you"ve come, is it?"
Willa nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Well, don"t that beat--beat everything!" Mr. Ryder recovered himself in some confusion. "Two or three years ago a lawyer shark from New York City--a man named North, I remember--come here asking an all-fired lot o" questions, and only last fall another feller turned up on the same game. I told "em all I knew, which warn"t much. They called themselves Murphy, Miss Vi and her husband did, but I guess that warn"t their right name. Nice young feller he was, but quiet and sickly.
When he died we wanted to pa.s.s round the hat for the widder, like we always do, but she wouldn"t have it; she got work instead at Jake"s, singing and dancing, but she kept everyone in their place and there warn"t a man here that wouldn"t have stood up for her till the last gun fired."
"And the baby--do you remember it at all?"
"Little Billie?" Mr. Ryder laughed. "There ain"t enough babies around a mining camp to make you forget any one of "em, and you couldn"t rightly forget Billie if you tried. Fat and curly-headed she was, and the s.p.u.n.kiest little critter you ever see, always falling down hard and scrambling up again by herself and laughing to beat four of a kind.
Her ma tried to keep her home, but there warn"t a chance; she went wherever her little legs would carry her, and the whole town looked out for her. She must be a woman grown, now."
"I don"t suppose you would recognize her if you should see her," Willa observed wistfully.
"Me? Lord, no!" he exclaimed. "Babies grow up into most anything, as far as looks go! She was about four when her ma was burned, and Gentleman Geoff, the gambler, adopted her and took her away. The whole town wanted to keep her, but in them days Topaz was no place for a girl to grow up in and there wasn"t a woman here of her mother"s kind."
"It is possible that a woman might remember her where a man wouldn"t."
Willa was following her own train of thought. "The proprietor of the Palace spoke of two women left who were here at that time; a Mrs.
Atkinson and Klondike Kate. Would they be able to tell me anything more, do you think?"
"Not the widder!" Mr. Ryder responded with emphasis. "She put Miss Vi to work in her hash-house for a week when young Murphy died; starved her, slammed the kid around and drove her till she fainted. She warn"t used to hard work, Miss Vi warn"t, and the Widder Atkinson would have killed a horse. When Miss Vi took to doing turns at Jake"s instead, the Widder "lowed she was no better than she"d ought to"ve been, and near got lynched in consequence. You"ve only got to mention Miss Vi to her even now to have her r"ar right up on her hind legs. She wouldn"t tell you nothing if she could."
"The other one, Klondike Kate. Did she know this Miss Violet?"
"Sure. She was one o" the girls at Jake"s, like Blonde Annie and the rest. I guess you ain"t ever come in contact with that kind, Ma"am, but it wouldn"t hurt you to talk to her once and if anyone could help you maybe she could. That kind don"t get much forbearance from other women, but Miss Vi was good to her and nursed her through a spell o"
sickness and Klondike Kate just about worshiped her and the baby.
"Twas Kate saved little Billie when Jake"s burned. She was the first after poor Miss Violet to remember the baby and she turned back and got her."
"She--she saved the child!" Willa"s voice trembled, and she rose quickly. "Where can I find her? It is good of you to have told me what you could, Mr. Ryder. You don"t remember anything else about this Miss Violet and her baby; she left no papers with anyone?"
"No, not that I know of. The lawyer asked me that, too, and the young feller who came last fall. Riley, his name was, or something like that."
"Starr Wiley?" Willa smiled. "Did he ask you anything else, Mr.
Ryder?"
"He was trying most particular to find out Gentleman Geoff"s last name, but n.o.body ever heard it here. You"ll find Klondike Kate living in the last shack on the west side o" the street before you come to the coal-yard. She ain"t a pleasant sight to look at, poor old Kate! The fire caught her, too, when she rescued the baby, and though she was a fine-appearing girl before then, her own mother wouldn"t know her now, or want to, I guess, for that matter. She"s square, I"ll say that for her; whatever she tells you, you can bank on."
Willa took leave of Mr. Ryder and departed upon her quest. He followed to the cafe door and stood looking perplexedly after her as she made her way down the rambling street. He was trying to fix in his mind the vagrant, subtle sensation of familiarity which possessed him when he had first caught sight of her face. Stolid and slow of wit as he was, the conviction grew that she or someone very like her had crossed his path before. Then the face of the song-and-dance artiste at Jake"s flashed across his memory and the next minute he was pounding heavily after the girl.
"Hey, Ma"am! Wait a second!" he panted.
Willa turned.
"Excuse me, Ma"am, but it come to me that you might be little Billie, yourself! Are you? I"d like powerful well to see her again!"
"Look at me!" commanded Willa. "Could you swear, Mr. Ryder, that I was the child you call "Billie"? Could you take your oath on it?"
He looked long and searchingly while she waited in breathless suspense.
At last he drew back, shaking his head.
"No"m, I couldn"t. Meaning no disrespect, there"s a look about you of Miss Vi, but fifteen or sixteen years is a long time to trust your memory and I couldn"t swear to nothing."
Willa sighed and turned away.
"My name is Abercrombie," she said. "You are right, Mr. Ryder.
Fifteen years are a very long time."
The shack next the coal-yard was more forlorn even than the others, though the sagging porch was swept clean, and ineffectual attempts had been made to mend the breaks in roof and walls with fresher slabs of unpainted wood which stood out against the gray weathered boards like patches on an old coat.
There was no bell, but Willa knocked patiently on the panel until there came a slow tread within and the door opened. A thin, angular woman stood there, her dark hair streaked with gray, and Willa glanced at her, then swiftly averted her gaze in pity. The face before her was drawn and scarred as if the hot hand of wrath had clawed it, searing and distorting it to the hideous, grinning semblance of a mask.
"I beg your pardon." Willa"s voice was very gentle. "I am looking for someone known as Klondike Kate. If you are she, I have a great favor to ask of you."
She had sounded the right note; the woman, who for so long had been the recipient of grudging, half-contemptuous favor herself, gasped and flung wide the door.
"Come in, Miss. I"m Kate, right enough. Sit down close to the stove; I ain"t got much of a fire." The voice was singularly clear and sweet.
Willa glanced about her and then back at the woman who had dropped into a low rocker beside a table heaped with red flannels, which she had evidently been mending. The room was tiny and pitifully bare, but scrubbed clean, and pathetic bows of faded ribbon strove to conceal the worn spots on the coa.r.s.e snowy curtains. A small pot bubbled on the stove and two cold potatoes and half a stale loaf on the shelf betrayed the meagerness of the larder.
The woman had given an impression of age at first, but Willa saw now that she could be scarcely more than forty and her eyes were rather fine despite their hint of tragedy.
"I"m looking for someone who can tell me about Violet, the girl who used to dance at Jake"s." Willa chose her words deliberately. "Mr.
Ryder says you were a friend of hers, years ago."
"Bill Ryder said that?" Klondike Kate drew a deep breath. "A friend?
She was the best friend a body could ever have! But you could hardly have known her; she died fifteen years past."