Isabel Ostrander

“ Gentleman Geoff waved the young engineer to a narrow window beside the entrance door.
Down the straight level expanse of the Calle Rivera clattered an unending stream of horsemen, their accoutrements jingling a sinister diapason as they poured helter-skelter across the plaza in the waning moonlight. Tatterdemalion as they were, the ragged army were well-organized as Thode saw at a glance; no haphazard, leaderless crew was this, for at their head rode a diminutive, jockey-like figure, his face glistening and ebony in the eerie radiance, his teeth flashing white as he turned in the saddle. ”

“ Willa stared with dazed eyes about the pretty room to which she was ushered. The furniture was of ivory and dull gold, the walls, draperies and floor a soft French blue, and delicate rose-shaded lights glowed delicately in many brackets.
The drawing-room she had taken as a matter of course; it impressed her as being not unlike that of the big hotel at Tampico, but to be expected to live and move around and sleep in this fragile, stifling, cluttered doll's house of a room was unthinkable. It was hers, the maid had said so; therefore, she would make the best of it, in her own fashion. ”

“ Limasito's principal street was well-nigh deserted in the lethargy of the noon-day siesta, but the flower-market was a riotous blaze of color in the glistening white plaza, from which radiated broad vistas of fantastically painted adobe and soberer concrete, ending in a soft green blur.
The young petroleum engineer had pictured a ten-year-old boom town in the Mexican oil belt as a wilderness of rough shacks and board sidewalks, with possibly a dancehall or two and an open-air movie as the only attractions, and the thriving little city had proved a welcome surprise. ”

“ Willa rose.
"You are all very kind," she said in a stifled voice. "I'm bound to be a heap of nuisance to you, I'm afraid, though I made up my mind not to buck the game strong till I'd learned the rules. But don't ask me to be a piker and forget Dad! You don't know what he was to me! I appreciate what you-all are trying to do, Mrs. Halstead, and I sympathize with you, for it's going to be a tough job all around, no matter how I try to follow your lead, but don't stack the cards on the first deal, please. All I've got in the world now is my memory of the best friend that ever lived!" ”

“ Dan Morrissey knew the city as only one can who has grown up practically on its streets and he was following a well-defined route in his mind as he wove back and forth through the myriad threads which held together the vast and varied pattern on the loom which was New York, drawing ever nearer the great bridge. The runabout had been left behind, but the larger car still trailed and the sharp exhaust of the motor-cycle reached their ears tauntingly above the subdued rattle of occasional traffic. ”

“ Don't you imagine that I can see through a scurvy trick of Starr Wiley's to get back at the man who beat him twice to a mere pulp? I do not want to see the letter, I will not read it. It is all a lie!"
"Then listen!" Angie smoothed the sheet of paper and fairly danced in her excitement. "You shall listen! You shall know what that man is scheming to marry you for! There is only a part of it here, but it ought to be enough to open your eyes, blinded with conceit as you are!"
"I will not——!" Willa began indignantly, but Angie's voice silenced her. ”

“ When Klondike Kate descended she bore in her hands a folded paper, yellowed and worn, and a tarnished locket on a bit of faded, scorched blue ribbon.
"I was sick when Gentleman Geoff left town with you or I'd have tied the locket on you myself," she said. "It's got both their pictures in it, mother and father. See!"
She opened the case, and Willa gazed through renewed tears at the two young faces vibrant with life which smiled back at her: the man's thin and intellectual with the eyes of a dreamer and the chiseled lips of a poet ”

“ No attempt had been made to render the place attractive and in this Gentleman Geoff's psychology was sound; Limasito wanted its play, like its liquor, without frills.
Leisurely, Thode approached the roulette-table and stood looking over the shoulder of a burly drill-shirted tool-dresser as the little ball spun in the whirling wheel and dropped into seventeen. The tool-dresser grunted with satisfaction and raked in the heap of silver pushed toward him by the croupier, but one or two of the watchers turned away. ”

“ Why don't you marry me, dear?"
Willa started up in unutterable amazement. The mild round face of the boy before her seemed all at once to have taken on a deeper, more mature expression, strengthening and ennobling it, and a wistful light which there was no mistaking glowed in his eyes.
"Winnie!"
"Oh, I know it sounds silly and presumptuous of me! You've known real men in your life, men who have fought and accomplished things and I've been just an idler. ”

“ Willa cried. "I am exasperated with you! Do you suppose I am the sort of woman to care what a man has, rather than what he is? Am I a painted pampered doll that I must be approached with gifts and sweets and dangled before the highest bidder? My mother married the man she loved and starved with him and died working to take care of his child! Am I less a woman than she?" ”

“ José knows no more than the idle words he repeated one evil day to the Señor Hallock, for which I beat him soundly! It is I who have seen the Pool of the Lost Souls, only I who knows where Dolores and her lover sleep."
Her voice died in an unintelligible murmur, and the rhythmic swaying recommenced. The legend of the Lost Souls' Pool was no new one to Billie; she had heard it often from the lips of the old crone, who could never be persuaded to divulge its supposed location and the myth had become an old settlers' joke around Limasito. ”

“ In the first place, the old woman was heart and soul in the plan in which Willa herself was the moving spirit, and well content to leave all things to the guidance of her idolized young friend. Then, too, she had the dread of the strange new city of one who had followed a long and open trail and would scarcely in her right mind have ventured forth to brave it on her own initiative. Had some cajoling or threatening message reached her which induced her to play into Wiley's hands, or could it be that Señora Rodriguez had been bribed to aid in her abduction? ”

“ If those two poor young folks you tell me about were really my father and mother, he was as guilty of their deaths as if he'd shot them down in cold blood! Of course, he did not need to help them if they defied his wishes, but to starve them, to drive them from pillar to post and deny them the right to earn the money with which to live, to force other people to close their doors—oh, he wasn't square!"
"But, my dear young lady! All that was long ago, and he is dead. He regretted the past, he tried to make restitution. As an evidence of that he has made you his heiress——"
"Not if I refuse." ”

“ Wiley. Please, let me pass."
"It does rather jar on one, doesn't it? A reminder of the low, primitive life down there is out of place in this highly esthetic atmosphere." He made no move to step aside, and a shade of deeper meaning crept into his tones. "It would be a pity if one were compelled to return to it. The charms of Limasito would pall, I fancy, after all this; yet such things sometimes happen."
"I trust not, for your sake," Willa responded. "You would scarcely find the climate of Limasito a healthy one, if your activities were fully comprehended there." ”

“ I know you don't like me to speak of Dad, but I only wanted you to know that I'm really quite capable."
"Willa, my dear—" began Halstead, but the lawyer stopped him with a gesture.
"Do you realize that we can have the entire estate taken out of your hands by process of law and turned over to us as your guardians? We most certainly shall, if you persist, in order to protect you against your own wilful recklessness. My dear, you will not force us to such a disagreeable and expensive step? You are not going to disappoint us by proving ungrateful for the interest we have taken in you?" ”

“ I know I could do big things, too, if I had you with me, and I—I love you most tremendously, dear! I've cared ever since that very first night when you broke into Vernon's game in that splendid fearless way and drove Cal Shirley out as a cheat. I never saw a girl with such spirit and I've worshiped you more and more! Willa, won't you let me go to my father and tell him it's all right, that you will stay? He may not have found the Murdaugh heiress in Limasito, but I'd like to tell him that he found my wife! ”

“ After Starr Wiley's departure Mason North placed the documents in Willa's hands, explaining each in turn and she forced herself to a stern concentration on them that she might master every detail. Already she was gathering her forces, although no definite purpose outlined itself in the chaos of her thoughts. Only a blind, as yet unreasoning, repudiation of the story to which she had just listened sprang full-grown to life within her and the very strength of her conviction urged her to examine well the evidence against herself. ”

“ With the departure of Kearn Thode on his mission Gentleman Geoff sank into a stupor from which all Billie's efforts failed to arouse him. She glanced at the little watch on her wrist. Twenty minutes past four! One hour for the massive door to hold against those crashing blows which seemed beating upon her brain. One hour for the young engineer to ride ten miles on an already jaded horse, provided he had succeeded in making his perilous start, and bring the Carranzistas to the rescue! ”

“ I wonder if you ever heard an old legend around Limasito concerning the lost location of a marvelous oil well?"
Willa laughed nervously, a little taken aback by the abruptness of the question.
"One hears so many legends in every country of lost or buried or hidden treasure," she parried. "Scarcely anyone pays attention to them except the tenderfoots. You know up in the mining country one is forever hearing such tales of vast deposits of ore, but nobody can ever find the lead." ”

“ Are you aware that Starr Wiley and his partner, Harrington Chase, have purchased from Tia Juana Reyes the property known as the Lost Souls lease and are already issuing stock and developing the well?"
Willa rose slowly to her feet, staring at him as if she could not believe the evidence of her own ears.
"You—you cannot mean it!" she gasped. "It cannot be true; there is a mistake somewhere! Please, say that again, Mr. Thode!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is you who are waiting for anyone's hand! Starr Wiley made a fool of you, and you simpered and purred and thought you were taking him from me, when he was only amusing himself for the moment because he was jealous of me with Art. Judson! Now, in your bursting conceit you think this impecunious fortune-hunter, Thode, is in love with you. I listened because it was my duty to keep any member of the family from throwing herself away and I wanted to see how far he would dare to go. I'm here now to tell you the truth."
"I do not want to hear another word!" Willa cried hotly. ”

“ A mild, genial voice sounded from the stairs' foot, and the three young people turned. "Let me welcome you to your home. We hope to make up to you for being exiled for so long from it."
A tall, iron-gray head bent, and Willa found herself gazing into keen, kindly eyes. Her own blurred as her hand rested between those of Ripley Halstead and something seemed to grip her by the throat. Gentleman Geoff's face swam for a moment before her in a mist of tears.
She essayed an unintelligible phrase, and perceiving her emotion, he tactfully covered it.
"You must be starved; I know we are. ”

“ Willa said reflectively. "He interests me."
"Evidently!" Angie sneered. "So do a few others, I imagine, but you shouldn't show it so plainly. I admit that you've gotten on very well so far, but your methods are horribly crude, still."
"My methods?" Willa was honestly puzzled. "I wasn't aware that I had any. When people bore me I let them alone; but those I find interesting for one reason or another I listen to. Is it crude to discriminate?"
Angie bit her lip.
"You can be very simple and naïve when you want to!" she burst out. "But do reserve it for outsiders, and spare us! ”

“ Halstead's surface cordiality, and the bewitching Angelica seemed too seraphically sweet and gentle to ring quite true. Vernon was a type with which in a more crude stratum of humanity she had become familiar in the gaming-rooms of the Blue Chip. Weak without being absolutely vicious, crafty without initiative, he would be a mere tool in dominant unscrupulous hands or an average, decent fellow if his better instincts were aroused.
Dinner over, they repaired to the drawing-room, but the little family gathering soon disintegrated, to Willa's profound relief. ”