Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation Part 20

The girl could not comprehend what they said, and even thought them a little silly. But she advanced towards them; at which they stopped short, staring at her. With feminine instinct she addressed the more important one:--

"Ye ain't pa.s.sed no wagon nor team goin' on, hev ye?"

"What sort of wagon?" said the man.

"Em'grant wagon, two yaller hosses. Old man--my dad--drivin'." She added the latter kins.h.i.+p as a protecting influence against strangers, in spite of her previous independence.

The men glanced at each other.

"How long ago?"

The girl suddenly remembered that she had slept two hours.

"Sens noon," she said hesitatingly.

"Since the earthquake?"

"Wot's that?"

The man came impatiently towards her. "How did you come here?"

"Got outer the wagon to walk. I reckon dad missed the trail, and hez got off somewhere where I can't find him."

"What trail was he on,--where was he going?"

"Sank Hozay,* I reckon. He was goin' up the grade--side o' the hill; he must hev turned off where there's a big rock hangin' over."

* San Jose.

"Did you SEE him turn off?"

"No."

The second man, who was in hearing distance, had turned away, and was ostentatiously examining the sky and the treetops; the man who had spoken to her joined him, and they said something in a low voice. They turned again and came slowly towards her. She, from some obscure sense of imitation, stared at the treetops and the sky as the second man had done. But the first man now laid his hand kindly on her shoulder and said, "Sit down."

Then they told her there had been an earthquake so strong that it had thrown down a part of the hillside, including the wagon trail. That a wagon team and driver, such as she had described, had been carried down with it, crushed to fragments, and buried under a hundred feet of rock in the gulch below. A party had gone down to examine, but it would be weeks perhaps before they found it, and she must be prepared for the worst. She looked at them vaguely and with tearless eyes.

"Then ye reckon dad's dead?"

"We fear it."

"Then wot's a-goin' to become o' me?" she said simply.

They glanced again at each other. "Have you no friends in California?"

said the elder man.

"Nary one."

"What was your father going to do?"

"Dunno. I reckon HE didn't either."

"You may stay here for the present," said the elder man meditatively.

"Can you milk?"

The girl nodded. "And I suppose you know something about looking after stock?" he continued.

The girl remembered that her father thought she didn't, but this was no time for criticism, and she again nodded.

"Come with me," said the older man, rising. "I suppose," he added, glancing at her ragged frock, "everything you have is in the wagon."

She nodded, adding with the same cold naivete, "It ain't much!"

They walked on, the girl following; at times straying furtively on either side, as if meditating an escape in the woods,--which indeed had once or twice been vaguely in her thoughts,--but chiefly to avoid further questioning and not to hear what the men said to each other. For they were evidently speaking of her, and she could not help hearing the younger repeat her words, "Wot's agoin' to become o' me?" with considerable amus.e.m.e.nt, and the addition: "She'll take care of herself, you bet! I call that remark o' hers the richest thing out."

"And I call the state of things that provoked it--monstrous!" said the elder man grimly. "You don't know the lives of these people."

Presently they came to an open clearing in the forest, yet so incomplete that many of the felled trees, partly lopped of their boughs, still lay where they had fallen. There was a cabin or dwelling of unplaned, unpainted boards; very simple in structure, yet made in a workmanlike fas.h.i.+on, quite unlike the usual log cabin she had seen. This made her think that the elder man was a "towny," and not a frontiersman like the other.

As they approached the cabin the elder man stopped, and turning to her, said:--

"Do you know Indians?"

The girl started, and then recovering herself with a quick laugh: "G'lang!--there ain't any Injins here!"

"Not the kind YOU mean; these are very peaceful. There's a squaw here whom you will"--he stopped, hesitated as he looked critically at the girl, and then corrected himself--"who will help you."

He pushed open the cabin door and showed an interior, equally simple but well joined and fitted,--a marvel of neatness and finish to the frontier girl's eye. There were shelves and cupboards and other conveniences, yet with no ostentation of refinement to frighten her rustic sensibilities.

Then he pushed open another door leading into a shed and called "Waya."

A stout, undersized Indian woman, fitted with a coa.r.s.e cotton gown, but cleaner and more presentable than the girl's one frock, appeared in the doorway. "This is Waya, who attends to the cooking and cleaning," he said; "and by the way, what is your name?"

"Libby Jones."

He took a small memorandum book and a "stub" of pencil from his pocket.

"Elizabeth Jones," he said, writing it down. The girl interposed a long red hand.

"No," she interrupted sharply, "not Elizabeth, but Libby, short for Lib'rty."

"Liberty?"

"Yes."

"Liberty Jones, then. Well, Waya, this is Miss Jones, who will look after the cows and calves--and the dairy." Then glancing at her torn dress, he added: "You'll find some clean things in there, until I can send up something from San Jose. Waya will show you."

Without further speech he turned away with the other man. When they were some distance from the cabin, the younger remarked:--

"More like a boy than a girl, ain't she?"