And indeed they did. As has been said, it was Merry who came upon it. She was passing through a narrow corridor between two doors, when something caused her to look up at the sill of a narrow window just above her head.
At once she let out a little cry of surprise.
“The Marble Falcon!” She could scarcely believe her eyes.
The next instant she did not believe them, for the thing resting there on the window sill turned its head slowly, as though it were set on a wooden pivot, and then quite as slowly winked an eye.
Merry felt her knees sinking beneath her. Gripping the doorknob, she stood there shaking until her senses returned.
She recovered just in time to seize a thin silken cord that dangled from one of the creature’s feet. At that instant the falcon, a real one and quite alive, spread two very capable wings and went flapping away through the half open door.
Only the silken line held tightly in the Irish girl’s hand prevented him from soaring aloft as he had, without doubt, done on other occasions.
Merry gave a little cry as he came fluttering down and alighted on one of her outstretched hands. The cry attracted Florence’s attention. She came hurrying up.
“A falcon, a real live falcon!” cried Merry. “Now, what do you think of that?”
“A live falcon!” Florence stared in astonishment.
Then she went into a brown study.
“Wings,” she murmured after a time. “The flutter of wings. Those were her very words. Merry, you may have made an important discovery!”
“She told me once,” replied the Irish girl, “that gypsies were very fond of falcons. Do you think there could be anything in that?”
“There may be.” Florence’s tone was thoughtful. “There may be a whole lot.”
“What are you going to do next?” Merry demanded with a sudden start.
“I must stay right here until nine o’clock. There was to have been a rehearsal at that hour. The director will be furious.”
“As if she could help it!”
“That’s just the trouble. You see she really had no business being here at that hour. And she was doing a thing that would have angered them beyond words, should they have found it out. How can we tell them anything without going into the whole affair?”
“That’s not an Irish question,” Merry smiled, “so you can’t expect an Irishman to answer it. We Irish folk tell the blunt, unadorned truth. If that means a fight, then we fight.
“And,” she added whimsically, “I don’t think we mind a good fight much, either.
“But say!” she exclaimed. “If you’re going to stay for the scrap, I’m not. It’s not my fight.
“Besides, I’ve something I want to try out. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not in the least.”
With that, the strange little girl from the shop of broken gifts gathered the silk cord into her hands, and with the falcon still perched upon her wrist, walked down the corridor and out into the sunlit street.
Unfortunate for those who awaited him was the mood of Drysdale, the director, on that particular morning. Perhaps he had not slept well. His breakfast may have been overdone, or cold. Men with hard heads, narrow hearts and few smiles seldom sleep well, and rarely do they enjoy their breakfast.
“Where is she?” he demanded as he saw his watch point to the hour of nine. “Where is this young gypsy dancing queen?”
Until this moment he had been told nothing. Hoping against hope that some miracle would bring Petite Jeanne back to them in time for the rehearsal, Angelo, Florence and Dan Baker had put off the inevitable.
Seeing that the zero hour had arrived, Angelo climbed out of the trenches. “She’s gone,” he said simply. “She won’t be here.”
“Gone?” The gray steel face took on the color of glowing metal. “Won’t be here? What do you mean?”
“Been kidnaped.”
“Kidnaped! How? When? Why wasn’t I notified?”
“No reason.” Angelo was still calm. “All’s been done that could be done. The police were here last night. They looked the place over. No clues. She’s gone. That’s all.”
“Police? Here? Last night? This place? Why here last night?” Suspicion had been added to the anger in this man’s hard heart.
Seeing that he had given the thing away, Angelo made a clean breast of the whole affair.
The face of the director, as he learned that Petite Jeanne had been practicing her old dances at night in his theatre with the intention of using those dances on the opening night, was a terrible thing to see.
“That!” he exploded, as Angelo’s story was finished. “That is the end!”
“Yes,” replied Angelo coldly, “no doubt of it. And well ended, too.”
Beckoning to his companions, he walked from the room, down the stairs and out into the autumn morning.
They walked, the three of them, Florence, Angelo and Dan Baker, one full city block. Then Dan Baker spoke. What he said was:
“Coffee. Coffee and waffles, with pure maple syrup. Right in here.”
Thus spoke Dan Baker, the old trouper. He had lost, perhaps forever, his one chance for fame and fortune. But he had not lost his heart of gold.
* * * * * * * *
After leaving the theatre, Merry had gone at once to a nearby store and purchased a spool of stout linen thread.
Once outside the store, she attached the end of the thread to the silk cord on the falcon’s leg. The next thing she did was to shake the falcon from her wrist.
Flapping lazy wings, he soared aloft. Scarcely had he cleared the low building before him, however, than he shot straight away toward the west.
Astonished at the pull he gave upon her thread, and fearful lest he break it, Merry played out the line grudgingly until she had him stopped and then slowly drew him back. Catching sight of her, he soared back to a place on her wrist.
“So that’s settled!” she exclaimed with considerable animation. “I guessed as much. Now for something else.”
Boarding a street car and ignoring the astonished stares of those who rode with her as they saw the falcon, she took a seat and rattled away toward the west.
When she had ridden thirty blocks she left the car, and stood again on a street corner and released her bird.
The performance of half an hour before was repeated in every detail.
“Still westward he wings his flight,” she murmured as she drew the bird back. “That means the Forest Preserve. The flats around the settlement house are at my back now.
“Can’t go out there alone,” she told herself. “Not safe. They might kidnap me, too.”
She thought of Kay King and Weston. Maxwell Street was not far off.
“They’ll help me,” she told herself.
Turning, she walked rapidly toward Maxwell Street and Kay King’s book store.
“He belongs to those gypsies,” she said an hour later, pointing to the falcon.
Kay had stood frowning and silent while she told her story. “Those gypsies kidnaped Petite Jeanne,” she went on. “I thought that from the start. When I found this bird I was sure of it. Since he flies toward the Forest Preserve I’m sure she’s out there somewhere.”
“You’re probably right,” Kay agreed. “And I know where they’re camped. I bought some old French books from them week before last. You can’t go there on a street car. Too far. Weston’s off with his truck. Went for some trunks. When he gets back we can go out there. I’ll call Big John. He keeps a shop down the street. He’s got a gun, a regular cannon. We might need it.”
“Yes,” agreed Merry, as a little thrill ran up her spine, “we might.”
Weston was slow in returning. Big John with his “regular cannon” needed looking up. It was mid-afternoon by the time they went rattling off toward the Forest Preserve.
A strange lot of detectives they were, this “Golden Circle” of Merry’s: Kay King with his sensitive, almost girlish face; Weston, red-faced and habitually smiling; Big John, immense, stoical and slow, with a large gun tucked under his arm; and last, but not least, Merry and her falcon.
The men rode on the broad front seat. Merry brought up the rear. She was comfortably stowed away in a pile of old quilts and blankets that lay on the floor of the closed truck.
“Be almost night before we get there,” the girl thought to herself.
As she closed her eyes she seemed to see gypsy camp fires gleaming in the fading light of day. About one of these fires a blonde girl was dancing. The girl was Petite Jeanne. A strange sort of vision, but not far wrong.
Gypsy camp fires were indeed dispelling dark shadows of a fading day in the heart of a forest glade when the truck bearing Merry’s “Golden Circle” arrived at the scene of the encampment. But no little French girl danced about any of them.
“They’re gone, those Frenchies,” said the greasy gypsy who came out of a tent in answer to their call. “Don’t know much about ’em. They’re not of our tribe. We’re Americans; been here for generations.”
“Did they have a girl with them?” Weston asked.
“Yellow-haired?”
“Yes.”
“She’s with ’em, all right.”
“Bound?”
“How do you mean, bound?” The gypsy stared. “Gypsies don’t tie their folks up.”
“But she was kidnaped,” Merry broke in.
“Listen, young lady!” The man came close. His air was defiant, almost threatening. “Gypsies don’t kidnap girls. Why should they? Got enough of their own.”
At that moment three dirty children crowded around him. The look on his face softened as he patted their tousled heads.
“That girl kidnaped!” He laughed hoarsely. “She’s one of ’em. Talks their French lingo. Talks gypsy talk, too, better’n me. Danced all day, didn’t she, youngsters?” Again he patted the dark hair of the shy children.
“Beautiful, so beautiful dancer!” the oldest girl murmured.
“See!” he exulted. “I tell the truth. Children don’t lie.”
“But where have they gone?” Merry’s mind was in a whirl. Petite Jeanne staying in such a place of her own free will? Petite Jeanne, who was so much needed elsewhere, dancing all day beside a gypsy tent? The thing seemed impossible. Yet here were the guileless little children to confirm the statement.
“Wait! I will show you.” The man disappeared within the tent. He was back in half a minute. In his hand he held a soiled road map. On this, with some skill, he traced a route that ended in a village called Pine Grove, many miles away.
“Beyond this place,” he concluded, “is a great pine grove. Some man planted it there many years ago. You cannot miss it. There is only one like this in the state. This is where they will camp. There are others of their kind camping there. They are gone three hours ago in a motor van. See! There are the wheel tracks. You may follow, but you will not overtake them; not in that.” He pointed at their truck with a smile. “Gypsies have always been blacksmiths. Now many are motor mechanics. They trade for cars, fix ’em up. Always it is for a better car. By and by they have a very fine one. So it is with these.”
Still smiling, he bowed himself into his tent, and closed the flap.
“We may be slow,” Weston said grimly, “but we are sure. We will be in Pine Grove before sunrise. Hop in, little lady, and we’ll step on the gas.”
A motorist traveling that long and lonely road, mapped out by the gypsy and taken by Merry’s “Golden Circle” that night, might, had he been traveling in the opposite direction, have marveled at the motor transports he met that night.
The first was high, broad and long, a gaudily painted house on wheels. On its seat rode three men. At the back of this traveling house was a room, much like the one room apartments of a modern city. Two broad berths let down from the ceiling were occupied; the one on the right by a girl, the one on the left by a woman and child.
The girl was Petite Jeanne. With her golden hair all tossed about on her pillow, she slept the sleep of innocence.
Do you marvel at this? Had not a gypsy van been her home in France for many a happy season? Ah yes, this was truly her home.
From time to time, as the van jolted over its rough way, she half awakened and found herself wondering dimly what beautiful French village they might be near when they camped for breakfast in the morning. Happily sleep found her again ere she was sufficiently awake to realize that she was in the bleak interior of America; that she was with strange gypsies, and that she had no money.
The woman and child across from her were not so fortunate. The child, a girl of two or three years, whose eyes were dark as night and whose tangled curls were like a raven’s wing, tossed about in her bed. She was burning hot with fever. The mother slept fitfully. Often she awakened to sit up and stare with big, motherly eyes at the child; then with tender fingers she tucked it securely in. The gypsy mother loves the children God has given her.
Three hours back on this road a second truck made its lumbering way through the night. On its seat, taking turns at nodding and dozing or driving, sat three men. They were not well clothed. The night wind blew all too frankly through their threadbare coats. But their hearts were warm, so they cared little for the wind.
At the back of this truck, buried deep in a pile of ragged quilts and blankets, was blue-eyed Merry. She slept the long night through.
With the dawn Weston swung his truck sharply to the right, drove on for a quarter of a mile and then brought it to a sputtering halt.
“Hey, Merry!” he shouted back. “We’re here. And over there is your friend. See! She is dancing the sun up. She is dancing around a gypsy camp fire.”
And there, sure enough, radiant as the morn, was the little French girl, dancing her heart away while a broad circle of gypsy folks admired and applauded.
“Now, what,” Merry rubbed her eyes as she tumbled from the truck, “what do you think of that?”
“These people surely did kidnap me. But, oh, for a very good reason!” Petite Jeanne placed her palms against one another and held them up as a child does in a good-night prayer.
Almost on the instant of their arrival, the little French girl’s keen eyes had recognized the men of Merry’s “Golden Circle” and had come dancing out to meet them.
When Merry tumbled out at the back of the van, Jeanne had seized her by the hand and, without a word of explanation, dragged her to a place beside the gypsy camp fire. After a moment in which to regain her breath and overcome her astonishment at the arrival of these friends, she had seized a huge pot of English tea and a plate of cakes and then had dragged Merry away to the shadows of a huge black pine tree, leaving the three men to have breakfast with the gypsies.
“And to think!” she cried, “that you should have come all this way to find me, you and your ‘Golden Circle!’”
“We—we thought you must be in great distress,” Merry murmured.
“Of course you would. And that only goes to prove that I, who have been a gypsy, have no right to try living as those do who have not been gypsies.
“But truly I must tell you!” Jeanne set down her cup of tea. “You see, these gypsies are French. They knew I, too, was French, that I had been a gypsy, and that I had the God of Fire. How?” She threw up her hands. “How do they know many things? Because they are gypsies.
“These people,” she went on, “believe very much in the power of the Fire God. He is able to heal the sick. They believe that.
“They believe more than this. They think that when one is sick he is only sad. If they can cheer him up, then he will be well again. So: sing to him; play the violin and guitar; dance for him. Bring the Fire God and dance before him. That is best of all.
“Did you see that beautiful child?” she asked suddenly. She nodded her head toward the camp. “The one among the blankets before the fire?”
Merry nodded.
“That child has been very, very sick. Now we have sung for her. We have danced for her. The Fire God is here. He has smiled for her. Perhaps she will get well.
“And that,” she concluded, as if all had been explained, “that is why they kidnaped me. They knew I could dance very well. They wished me to dance before the Fire God that the child might be well again.
“And I—” Her voice took on an appealing quality. “I might have escaped. After they had taken me from the theatre, they did not compel me to stay. But how could I come away? There was the child. And is not one child, even a gypsy child, more than friends or plays or money or food, or any of these?”
“Yes,” said Merry thoughtfully, “she is more than all these. But why did they not ask you to come? Why did they carry you away?”
“Ah! They are simple people. They did not believe I would come willingly.
“They were at the theatre three times. Twice they really meant to ask me, but did not dare. The child grew worse. Then they took me.”
“And the falcon—”
“It escaped that night. They told me.”
“And it was the falcon that led us to you,” said Merry. It was her turn to take up the story.
That day a doctor was called. He pronounced the gypsy child out of danger.
“Doctor,” said Merry, looking earnestly into his eyes, “did she truly help?” She threw a glance at Petite Jeanne.
“Without a shadow of doubt.” Here was an understanding doctor. “She helped the mother and father to be cheerful and hopeful. This spirit was imparted to the child. Nothing could have helped her more.”
“Then,” said Merry, “I am glad.”
That afternoon the three men, who had slept the morning through in the back of Weston’s truck, drove Jeanne and Merry to the nearby village where they caught a train to the city.
It was a very sober Jeanne who approached the door of the theatre that evening just as the shadows of skyscrapers were growing long.
To her surprise she found Florence, Angelo, Dan Baker and Swen, gathered there. At their backs were several large trunks.
“Why! What—” She stared from one to the other.
“Been thrown out,” Angelo stated briefly.
“The—the opera? Our beautiful opera?”
“There will be no opera. We have been thrown out.” Angelo seemed tired. “A road company opens here a week from next Sunday.”
Florence saw the little French girl sway, and caught her. As she did so, she heard her murmur:
“The hand of Fate! It has turned the hour glass. The sand is falling on my head.”
She was not ill, as Florence feared; only a little faint from lack of rest and sleep. She had once more caught a vision of that giant hour glass. A cup of coffee from a nearby shop revived her spirits.
She started to tell her story, but Angelo stopped her. “All in good time!” he exclaimed. “You are too tired now. And we must look to our trunks.”
“But I must explain. I—” The little French girl was almost in tears.
“Dear child,” said Angelo, in the gentlest of tones, “we are your friends. We love you. Never explain. Your friends do not require it; your enemies do not deserve it; you—”
“Ah! A very happy little party, I see.” A voice that none of them recognized broke in. The short, stout, rather ugly man with a large nose and a broad smile who had thus spoken was a stranger.
“Thrown out,” said Angelo, jerking a hand toward the trunks.
“So! That’s bad. Winter, too.” The man looked them over calmly.
“That little girl can dance,” he said, nodding at Jeanne, “like an angel. Where’ve I seen her? Can’t recall.
“And you, my friend.” He patted Dan Baker on the shoulder. “Where did I see you?”
“Topeka, Kansas.” The old trouper smiled. “Or was it Joplin, Missouri?”
“Probably Joplin,” said the stranger.
“Mind giving me your card?” He turned to Angelo.
“Haven’t any.”
“Well, then, write it here.” He proffered a blank page of a much-thumbed note book.
Angelo wrote. The stranger departed without another word. He had said nothing of real importance; had not so much as told them who he was, nor how he made his living; yet his pause there among them had inspired them with fresh hope. Such is the buoyancy of youth. And the old trouper was in spirit the youngest of them all.
Before retiring that night Florence and Petite Jeanne sat for a long time in their own small room, discussing the past and future.
They had spent the earlier hours of the evening in Angelo’s studio. There, in frankness and utter sincerity, the little company had discussed its prospects.
No one blamed Petite Jeanne for the part she had played. Being endowed with tender and kindly souls, they one and all felt that under the same conditions they would have acted in an identical manner.
“It is of little consequence,” Angelo had declared magnanimously. “We should never have succeeded under that management. The opera was doomed. And once a failure always a failure in the realm of playland.”
“What does it matter?” Dan Baker’s kindly old eyes had lighted with a smile. “You have youth and love and beauty, all of you. How can you ask for more?”
This speech had seemed quite wonderful at the time. But to these girls sitting on their bed, facing facts, the future did not seem rosy. With only two weeks’ room rent paid, with less than ten dollars between them, with no income save Florence’s meager pay, and with bleak old winter close at hand, they could not but dread what lay ahead.
“Jeanne,” Florence said at last, as if to change the subject, “was the gypsy who chased you, on that morning when you fell into Merry’s cellar, among those you saw at the Forest Preserve?”
“No,” the little French girl said thoughtfully. “No, I am sure he was not.”
“Then,” said her companion, “we had better put his Majesty, the little God of Fire, back to rest in his hole in the floor. You may need him yet.”
“I am sure we shall.” The little French girl’s tone carried assurance. “That opera is beautiful, very, very beautiful. And what is it the poet says?
“‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’
“And still another:
“‘All that is at all
Lasts forever, past recall.’
“If these things are true, how can our beautiful opera fail to live? Believe me, our time will yet come.
“Yes, yes, we must hide the little Fire God very carefully indeed.”
Three weeks passed. Trying weeks they were to the little French girl; weeks in which her faith and courage were severely tested.
As proof of her faith in the beautiful thing Angelo and Swen had created, she kept up her dancing. Sometimes in Angelo’s studio, sometimes in her own small room, sometimes humming snatches of the score, sometimes with Swen beating the battered piano, she danced tirelessly on. There were times, too, when those hardy souls who went to walk in the park on these bleak days saw a golden haired sprite dancing in the sun. This, too, was Jeanne.
But when winter came sweeping down, when on one memorable November day she awoke and found the window ledge piled high with snow and heard the shriek of a wind that, whirling and eddying outside, seemed never to pause, she despaired a little.
“This American winter,” she murmured. “It is terrible.”
And how could it seem otherwise to her? In her beloved France it snowed a little. But the snow was soon gone. No drifts three feet high, no blocked traffic, no terrible thermometer dropping to twenty below. Besides, when winter came in France, the gypsies, “folding their tents like the Arabs,” drifted away toward the south where it was always summer.
By drawing the covers up over her head she was able to shut out from her eyes the sight of the drifting snow and from her ears the sound of the shrieking wind. But she could not hide from her alert mind the fact that her money was gone, that the rent was overdue, nor that Florence’s pitiful salary, if such it might be called, sufficed only to supply them with the plainest of food.
In these last days she had gone less seldom to Angelo’s studio. Matters were no better there. And, though for her sake Angelo and his companions kept up a continuous chatter about future successes and good times just around the corner, she knew in her heart that they, too, were discouraged.
“There are the traveling bags,” she told herself now, as she threw back the covers and sat up. “Those three pigskin traveling bags down there in Angelo’s studio. I have fifteen dollars invested in them. Kay King has always said: ‘You may have the money back any time.’
“Perhaps,” she thought soberly, “it is wrong of me to keep them. But to sell them seems like betraying a friend. To cast all those beautiful treasures, bestowed upon my good friend by those who loved him best, before the eyes of curious, grasping and often stupid people, and to say ‘Come, buy these,’ certainly does seem like the betrayal of a friend.
“And he was so kind to me!” She closed her eyes and saw it all again. “I was so young. The ship, the sea, all the people were so strange. And America. It, at first, was even worse. But he, big-hearted man that he was, treated me as his own daughter. He made everything seem so simple, so joyous, so much like a lark. How can I? Oh, how can I?” She wrung her slender hands in agony. “How can I permit them to be sold?
“And yet,” she thought more calmly, “it has been more than three weeks since I wrote that letter to his hotel in New York. There has been time for it to reach England and for the reply to come. I have heard nothing. Perhaps he is dead.
“No reply,” she thought again. “There may have been one, and yet I may not have known it.”
This was true. Since she did not wish to carry the heavy bags to her room, she had left them at Angelo’s studio, and in writing the letter had given only that address.
“I have not been to the studio for three days. A letter may await me. I shall go to-day. If he reclaims the bags, he will repay me. Perhaps there will be a tiny reward. Then all will be well again. Ah, yes, why despair?”
Thus encouraged, she hopped out of bed, did ten minutes of shadow-dancing and then, having hopped into her clothes, set about the business of making toast and coffee over an electric plate.
“Life,” she murmured as she sipped her coffee, “is after all very, very sweet.”
An afterthought had a tendency to dim the little French girl’s hopes. Angelo, she remembered, had called her on the phone the day before.
He had, he assured her, nothing of importance to say. “And that,” she told herself now, “means no letter. And yet, he may have forgotten. Ah, well, we’ll hope. And I shall not go there until evening. That will give the mailman one more day to do his bit.”
She called to mind the things Angelo had told her. He and his companions were very close to the bottom. His precious treasures, rugs and all, must soon go. They were living from hand to mouth. Dan Baker had been earning a little, three or four dollars a day. “Doing impersonation.” That is what the old trouper had called it, whatever that might mean. Swen had hopes of earning something soon. How? He did not know. As for himself, he had found nothing. He had even offered to sell books on drama at a book store; but they would not have him.
“Sell books.” She sat staring at the wall now. “Who would buy them?”
She was thinking of blue-eyed Merry and of her last visit to the basement shop. “It is hard,” the brave little Irish girl had said to her. “For days and days no one has entered the shop. And we need money so badly.
“But we have hopes,” she had added quickly. “The holiday season is coming. Perhaps those who cannot buy costly presents will come to our shop and buy mended ones that are cheap.”
“I am sure of it,” Jeanne had said.
“And see!” Merry had cried, pointing at the marble falcon with the broken beak, that rested on the shelf above her desk. “See! He is still looking toward the sky. All will be well.”
“Oh, little girl with your smiling Irish eyes,” Jeanne had cried, throwing both arms about her, “How I love you! Some day I’ll be rich. Then I shall give you a falcon all made of gold and he shall be looking toward the sky.”
Now as she sat alone in her room, she thought again of the marble falcon, and murmured, “I wonder if the falcon told the truth. I wonder if all will be well? Truly, in such times as these it is necessary to have great faith if one is to be brave.”
She threw herself into her dances that day with abandon. By the time she had done the last wild whirl she had worked herself up to such heights that she felt sure that a change for the better would come.
“It is as if I were preparing for some great event,” she told herself, “a trial of my skill that will mean great success or terrible defeat!”
But as she went toward the studio she was given a shock that came near to breaking her poor little heart.
She had rounded a corner when a sudden rush of wind seized her and all but threw her against a beggar who, tin cup in hand, stood against the wall.
The sight of the beggar caused her to halt. There was, she remembered, a dime in her side coat pocket.
She looked again at the beggar, then thrust her hand deep for the dime. The beggar seemed pitifully, hopelessly forlorn. His battered hat was drooping with snow. His long gray hair was powdered with it. The hand that held the cup was blue with cold. In a sad and forlorn world he seemed the saddest and most forlorn being of all.
She had the dime between her fingers and was about to draw it forth when another look at the old man made her start. A second look was needed before she could be convinced that her eyes had not deceived her. Then, with a sound in her throat suspiciously like a sob, she dropped the dime back in her pocket and hastened away on the wings of the wind, as if she had seen a ghost.
“Impersonations,” she whispered to herself, as a chill shook her from head to foot. “Impersonation. He called it that. He would do even this for his friends!”
The beggar standing there in the storm was none other than Dan Baker.
“I’ll call Kay King,” she said to herself, with another shudder. “I’ll call him to-night. I’ll tell him he may have those bags. And when he brings me the money I shall give it to Dan Baker. And he must accept it, every dollar.”
She found Angelo at the studio when she arrived. No one else was there. Swen, he explained, had gone out on some sort of work. Dan Baker was doing his “impersonations.” Again Jeanne shuddered at that word.
Angelo had greeted her with the warm affection characteristic of his race. Now he led her to a place beside the fire.
After that neither seemed to find words for small talk. Each was busy with thoughts that could not well be expressed. Angelo, too, hailed from a warm and sunny clime. This wild storm, ushering in winter so early in the year, had sobered his usually buoyant soul.
After a time she asked him about the letter.
“A letter?” he asked, seeming puzzled. “Did you expect a letter to come here?”
“Perhaps I did not tell you.” She nodded toward the corner where the three pigskin bags stood. “When I wrote the letter to my friend, I gave him this address.”
“I see. Well, there has been no letter.”
“I suppose,” she said dully, “that I may as well turn the bags back to Kay King and get the money.”
“Must you?” He looked at her sharply.
“I think I must. I’ll call him on the phone now.”
Before she could put this plan into execution, Swen came bursting into the room. He wore no cap. His hair was filled with snow. His face was red with the cold. But his spirits were buoyant.
“Had a whale of a time,” he shouted boisterously. “And see! I have three whole dollars! To-night we feast.”
Petite Jeanne heaved a sigh of relief. There was money in the house. Now she need not call Kay King, at least not until morning.
“A day of grace,” she told herself.
It was some time later that, chancing to catch a glimpse of the talented young musician’s hand, she saw with a shock that they were covered with blisters.
“He has been shoveling snow in the street,” she told herself. An added ache came to her overburdened heart.
Dan Baker came in a moment later. Beating the snow from his hat, he threw it into a corner. Having shaken the snow from his hair, he advanced to greet Jeanne.
“He doesn’t know I saw him,” she thought, as she looked straight into his transparent blue eyes. “I am so glad.”
At first he seemed too tired for talk. Taking a place before the fire, he appeared to fall into a dreamy reverie.
At last, rousing himself, he drew from his pocket a coin that shone in the dim light. It was a gold piece, one of those rare two-dollar-and-a-half pieces. Jeanne started at the sight of it. How had he come by it? Had some one, mistaking it for a penny, dropped it in his cup?
Still looking at the coin, Dan Baker spoke one word: “Gold.”
His weary old eyes took on an unwonted brightness. “That reminds me. Once I was down on my luck as an actor. That was in Colorado.” He paused and his eyes appeared to grow misty with recollection.
“He’s off again,” Jeanne told herself. “But how wonderful!” Her eyes grew dim with tears. “How marvelous to be able to forget all that is sordid, cold and mean, all the heartaches of the present in one’s dreams of an unreal but charming past.”
“As I was about to say,” Dan Baker made a fresh start, “I was no longer an actor. No one wished me to act. So, securing pick, a pan and a burro—or was it two burros?”
“Oh!” murmured Petite Jeanne. “Just as you were to do in our play.”
“Just as he is to do,” Angelo corrected stoutly.
“Yes, yes,” Dan Baker broke in, like a child whose story has been interrupted. “But the burros. There were two, I am sure. Well, I recall the jingle of picks and shovels, pots and pans as we traveled up Bear Creek Canyon in Colorado—beautiful, wonderful Colorado, where the snow-capped mountains are reflected in tiny lakes whose waters are blue-black.
“Three days we traveled. Three nights I slept by a burned out camp fire on the banks of a madly rushing stream.
“From time to time I caught the gleam of a golden speck in the sand at the river’s bottom.
“But the gold,” I told myself, “is higher up. And so it was.”
He paused to poke at the fire. As his eyes reflected the gleam of the fire the little French girl knew that he was not in the heart of a great, sordid and selfish city, but far, far away, prodding a camp fire in beautiful Colorado where snow-capped mountains are reflected in tiny lakes whose waters are a deep blue-black. And she was glad.
“Gold,” he began once more. “Ah, yes. There was gold. You would be surprised.
“I built a cabin, all of logs save the floor. That was of fragrant fir and spruce boughs.
“One day as I panned the sand I came upon a brownish object that seemed to be an ancient copper kettle turned upside down and half buried in the sand.
“‘Aha!’ I cried, ‘A relic of the past. Some Forty-niner must have passed this way and left his kettle.’
“I struck it lightly with the side of my pick. Naturally I expected it to give off a hollow sound. No hollow sound came; only a dull thud, as if I had struck a rock.
“Instantly my heart beat wildly. I had made a great discovery—how great I could only guess.
“Quickly I drew my sheath knife. Using this as a chisel, and a stone as a hammer, I cut off a chip of this yellow boulder.
“Imagine my joy when it came off gleaming like yellow fire.
“‘Gold!’ I cried. ‘A boulder of pure gold!’
“Then I fell suddenly silent. What if some one had heard me?
“I tried to pry the boulder from the sand. It would not budge. Gold is heavy. Do you know how heavy?
“Darkness was falling. The curtain of night would hide my treasure. I returned to my cabin, fried a supply of bacon, baked corn-cakes over hot coals, and enjoyed a regal repast. And why not? Was I not rich as any king?”
Once more the beloved wanderer prodded the fire. As he did so a dramatic look of gray despair overspread his face.
“I slept well that night. Awakened sometime before dawn by the dull roar of thunder, I looked out on a world of inky blackness.
“‘Going to rain,’ I thought. Then I crawled back between the blankets.
“Not for long. To the occasional roar of thunder was added a more terrifying sound. An endless, ever increasing roar came echoing down the canyon.
“Knowing its meaning, I wrenched my cabin door from its hinges, and then awaited the worst.