Wild Norene. Johnston McCulley

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      "Not the sort you think, señor. She lived in Seattle as a girl. A man won and married her. Then he took her aged father's savings and deserted her, left her penniless with a baby—the old story."

      "And she turned to this sort of thing?"

      "Again, señor, not as you think. She turned to this sort of thing because she can play a piano, and because she gets more money here in a night than she could any place else in a month. The sailors worship her, señor. Sometimes when she plays they throw silver and gold on the platform, showers of it, and she thanks them prettily."

      "Pity she wouldn't take her silver and gold and get out of here, then."

      "She stays because she needs much silver and gold. Every one seems to know the story. She is laying it by. When she has an adequate amount she intends trailing the man who deserted her, and when she finds him—ah, señor, when she finds him! Such a woman will know how to take her revenge.

      "Her child is a girl—she keeps the little one in a school. I admire Sally Wood, señor; she mingles here with the scum of the earth, yet is not defiled. She is a good girl; countless men will tell you so. Countless men would fight for her in an instant to avenge an insult. They know her story, tell it to every newcomer, help her in every way."

      Captain Adams showed sudden interest.

      "If that story is true, if she is a good girl and can mingle with this sort and keep her goodness for such an object, I pray Heaven she finds the man," he said earnestly.

      "There is also another story," continued Guerrero. "There is a man hereabouts by name Jack Connor, a pleasant giant, a happy-go-lucky devil of a sailorman of the usual sort. He is at present out of a place, and is here in Astoria visiting his aged father. He is a favorite of men and women. He drinks with the men—but he has no use for the women."

      "Half sensible, at any rate," said the captain.

      "Sally Wood, so the story goes, rebuked him on a certain night because he was drinking heavily. The proprietor of this place even lets her do such a thing as that, for it delights his customers to see one of their number the subject of a sermon. Jack Connor treated the girl courteously, but continued drinking. If he had done as she requested she would have forgotten him; since he refused to obey her wish, she loved him."

      "Womanly," said Captain Adams. "So she loves him?"

      "In her own sweet way, señor. All have noticed it. Her eyes follow him continually when he is here. And he continues to treat her courteously, but that is all.

      "Jack Connor, say his friends, has little use for women. He respects them—the good ones—too much to ask one of them to share his lot, he says; and the other sort he does not respect enough to consider at all."

      "He has the making of a man in him then," the captain decided. "Sailorman out of a job, eh? I need a couple more men."

      "A very devil of a fellow, señor; I have seen him. I do not know, of course, whether he would be the man for our business. He has an independent way about him. Speak of the angels—"

      Voices near the door had been raised in eager greeting; The throng parted, and through it strode a man the appearance of whom made Captain Adams's eyes sparkle.

      More than six feet he stood, with shoulders almost the equal of the captain's. His hair was yellow, his eyes blue, his face boyish. He walked with an easy swagger that betrayed his agility.

      Such was Jack Connor.

      Friends crowded close to him; voices called to ask him what his drink would be. A bartender, smiling in welcome, brought forward a private bottle and sat it on the bar before him and polished a glass and sat beside it. He and his friends drank.

      "Jack, the woman-hater, caught at last!" one of the men shrieked in laughter.

      Guerrero tapped the captain on the shoulder.

      "The man who is talking, the one with his arm on Connor's shoulder, is his best friend, a sailorman by name Morgan," he whispered.

      "Listen!" the captain commanded.

      There had come a flush into Jack Connor's face not caused by liquor. He turned toward Morgan menacingly, but still smiling.

      "Hold him while I tell the story!" Morgan cried. "It is too good to keep."

      "If you open your mouth—" Connor began.

      But, laughing, three of them held him. The others in the room had grown quiet to listen.

      Morgan ran away a few paces and faced them.

      "We were walking down Commercial Street," he said. "A girl passed. Her eyes met Connor's. My friend Jack was done then and there!"

      "Love at first sight, eh?" cried another.

      "Wait!" Morgan cried. "He insisted on following her. Think of that—Jack Connor, who never looks at a woman! Oh, he did it in a proper fashion! He never took his eyes from her. She dropped a handkerchief—"

      "They always do something like that," interrupted another.

      With a roar of rage Jack Connor hurled away the men who held him and looked into the crowd.

      "Understand me?" he cried. "The young lady—lady, I said—dropped her handkerchief. I ran forward and picked it up. I'm not ashamed of it. I never saw her before—I don't know her name!

      "But she's a lady—and not to be talked about in a crowd like this. Understand me?

      "I walked down the street with her, talked with her while Morgan waited. She's the sweetest girl I ever saw. I'm not worthy to speak of her, and if I am not, neither are any of you. So we'll drop the subject. Understand?"

      There was no answer; no man's eyes met his. He smiled at them again and motioned toward the bar. The men crowded forward.

      "He strikes me as pretty much of a man," said Captain Adams to Guerrero in their corner.

      Sally Wood, sitting at her piano, had heard. Now she began playing furiously, and some of the men near the platform began to sing, and the noise broke out anew.

      Jack Connor and half a dozen of his friends made their way across the room to a table within fifteen feet of where Captain Adams and Guerrero were sitting.

      The captain turned toward the wall, his back to the room, and there he remained, talking with Guerrero in whispers, until he heard his own name mentioned. It was Jack Connor speaking.

      "The Amingo is the cutest little steam schooner that ever carried a cargo of lumber," he was saying. "I never saw her until she dropped down the river from Portland this morning, but I've heard a few things about her and her skipper."

      "Who hasn't?" Morgan asked.

      "If all I hear of Cap'n Adams is true—"

      "You can bet it is," Morgan interrupted, and the others nodded their heads.

      "Then I've got to set eyes on the old sea-dog some СКАЧАТЬ