Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/201

Rh Jack: "Always white?"

Olly: "Yes—and flabby!" They rode along for some time silently. Presently Mr. Hamlin broke into song—a popular song—one verse of which Olly supplied with such deftness of execution and melodiousness of pipe, that Mr. Hamlin instantly suggested a duet. And so over the dead and barren wastes of the Sacramento plains they fell to singing, often barbarously, sometimes melodiously, but never self-consciously, wherein I take it they approximated to the birds and better class of poets, so that rough teamsters, rude packers, and weary wayfarers were often touched, as with the birds and poets aforesaid, to admiration and tenderness. And when they stopped for supper at a wayside station, and Jack Hamlin displayed that readiness of resource, audacity of manner and address, and perfect and natural obliviousness to the criticism of propriety or the limitations of precedent, and when, moreover, the results of all this was a much better supper than perhaps a more reputable companion could have procured, she thought she had never known a more engaging person than this Knave of Clubs. When they were fairly on the road again Olly began to exhibit some curiosity regarding her brother, and asked some few questions about Gabriel's family, which disclosed the fact that Jack's acquaintance with Gabriel was comparatively recent. "Then you never saw July at all?" asked Olly. "July?" queried Jack, reflectively, "what's she like?" "I don't know whether she's a heart or spade," said Olly, as thoughtfully. Jack was silent for some moments, and then after a pause, to Olly's intense astonishment, proceeded to sketch, in a few vigorous phrases, the external characteristics of Mrs. Conroy. "Why, you said you never saw her!" ejaculated Olly.

"No more I did," responded the gambler, with a quick laugh; "this is only a little bluff!" It had grown cold with the brief twilight and the coming on of night. For some time the black, unchanging outlines of the distant Coast Range were sharply silhouetted against a pale, ashen sky, that at last faded utterly, leaving a few stars behind as emblems of the burnt-out sunset. The red road presently lost its calm and even outline in the swiftly gathering shadows, or, to Olly's fancy, was stopped by shapeless masses of rock or giant-like trunks of trees that in turn seemed to give way before the skillful hand and persistent will of her driver. At times a chill exhalation from a road-side ditch came to Olly like the damp breath of an open grave, and the child shivered even beneath the thick traveling shawl of Mr. Hamlin, with which she was inwrapped. Whereat Jack at once produced a flask, and prevailed upon Olly to drink something that set her to coughing, but which that astute and experienced child at once recognized as whisky. Mr. Hamlin, to her surprise, however, did not himself partake, a fact which she at once pointed out to him. "At an early age, Olly," said Mr. Hamlin, with infinite gravity, "I promised an infirm and aged relative never to indulge in spirituous liquors, except on a physician's prescription. I carry this flask subject to the doctor's orders. Never having ordered me to drink any, I don't." As it was too dark for the child to observe Mr. Hamlin's eyes, which, after the fashion of her sex, she consulted much oftener than his speech for his real meaning, and was as often deceived, she said nothing, and Mr. Hamlin relapsed into silence. At the end of five minutes he said: "She was a woman, Olly, you bet!" Olly, with great tact and discernment, instantly referring back to Mr. Hamlin's discourse of an hour before, queried: "That girl in the Southern country?" "Yes," said Mr. Hamlin. "Tell me all about her," said Olly; "all you know." "That ain't much," mused Hamlin, with a slight sigh. "Ah, Oily, she could sing!" "With the piano?" said Oily, a little superciliously. "With the organ," said Hamlin. Olly, whose sole idea of this instrument was of the itinerant barrel variety, yawned slightly, and with a very perceptible lack of interest said that she hoped she would see her some time when she came up that way and was "going 'round." Mr. Hamlin did not laugh, but after a few minutes' rapid driving, began to explain to Olly with great earnestness the character of a church organ. "I used to play one once, Olly, in a church. They did say that I used sometimes to fetch that congregation, jest snatch 'em bald-headed, Olly, but it's a long time ago! There was one hymn in particular that I used to run on consid'rible—one o' them masses o' Mozart's—one that I