The Hussy
THERE are some stories that have to be true - the sort that cannotbe fabricated by a ready fiction-reckoner. And by the same tokenthere are some men with stories to tell who cannot be doubted.Such a man was Julian Jones. Although I doubt if the averagereader of this will believe the story Julian Jones told me.Nevertheless I believe it. So thoroughly am I convinced of itsverity that I am willing, nay, eager, to invest capital in theenterprise and embark personally on the adventure to a far land.It was in the Australian Building at the Panama Pacific Expositionthat I met him. I was standing before an exhibit of facsimiles ofthe record nuggets which had been discovered in the goldfields ofthe Antipodes. Knobbed, misshapen and massive, it was as difficultto believe that they were not real gold as it was to believe theaccompanying statistics of their weights and values."That's what those kangaroo-hunters call a nugget," boomed over myshoulder directly at the largest of the specimens.I turned and looked up into the dim blue eyes of Julian Jones. Ilooked up, for he stood something like six feet four inches inheight. His hair, a wispy, sandy yellow, seemed as dimmed andfaded as his eyes. It may have been the sun which had washed outhis colouring; at least his face bore the evidence of a prodigiousand ardent sun-burn which had long since faded to yellow. As hiseyes turned from the exhibit and focussed on mine I noted a queerlook in them as of one who vainly tries to recall some fact ofsupreme importance."What's the matter with it as a nugget?" I demanded.The remote, indwelling expression went out of his eyes as he boomed"Why, its size.""It does seem large," I admitted. "But there's no doubt it'sauthentic. The Australian Government would scarcely dare - ""Large!" he interrupted, with a sniff and a sneer."Largest ever discovered - " I started on."Ever discovered!" His dim eyes smouldered hotly as he proceeded."Do you think that every lump of gold ever discovered has got intothe newspapers and encyclopedias?""Well," I replied judicially, "if there's one that hasn't, I don'tsee how we're to know about it. If a really big nugget, or nugget-finder, elects to blush unseen - ""But it didn't," he broke in quickly. "I saw it with my own eyes,and, besides, I'm too tanned to blush anyway. I'm a railroad manand I've been in the tropics a lot. Why, I used to be the colourof mahogany - real old mahogany, and have been taken for a blue-eyed Spaniard more than once - "It was my turn to interrupt, and I did."Was that nugget bigger than those in there, Mr. - er - ?""Jones, Julian Jones is my name."He dug into an inner pocket and produced an envelope addressed tosuch a person, care of General Delivery, San Francisco; and I, inturn, presented him with my card."Pleased to know you, sir," he said, extending his hand, his voicebooming as if accustomed to loud noises or wide spaces. "Of courseI've heard of you, seen your picture in the papers, and all that,and, though I say it that shouldn't, I want to say that I didn'tcare a rap about those articles you wrote on Mexico. You're wrong,all wrong. You make the mistake of all Gringos in thinking aMexican is a white man. He ain't. None of them ain't - Greasers,Spiggoties, Latin-Americans and all the rest of the cattle. Why,sir, they don't think like we think, or reason, or act. Even theirmultiplication table is different. You think seven times seven isforty-nine; but not them. They work it out different. And whiteisn't white to them, either. Let me give you an example. Buyingcoffee retail for house-keeping in one-pound or ten-pound lots - ""How big was that nugget you referred to?" I queried firmly. "Asbig as the biggest of those?""Bigger," he said quietly. "Bigger than the whole blamed exhibitof them put together, and then some." He paused and regarded mewith a steadfast gaze. "I don't see no reason why I shouldn't gointo the matter with you. You've got a reputation a man ought tobe able to trust, and I've read you've done some tall skylarkingyourself in out-of-the-way places. I've been browsing around withan eye open for some one to go in with me on the proposition.""You can trust me," I said.And here I am, blazing out into print with the whole story just ashe told it to me as we sat on a bench by the lagoon before thePalace of Fine Arts with the cries of the sea gulls in our ears.Well, he should have kept his appointment with me. But Ianticipate.As we started to leave the building and hunt for a seat, a smallwoman, possibly thirty years of age, with a washed-out complexionof the farmer's wife sort, darted up to him in a bird-like way, forall the world like the darting veering gulls over our heads andfastened herself to his arm with the accuracy and dispatch andinevitableness of a piece of machinery."There you go!" she shrilled. "A-trottin' right off and nevergivin' me a thought."I was formally introduced to her. It was patent that she had neverheard of me, and she surveyed me bleakly with shrewd black eyes,set close together and as beady and restless as a bird's."You ain't goin' to tell him about that hussy?" she complained."Well, now, Sarah, this is business, you see," he arguedplaintively. "I've been lookin' for a likely man this long while,and now that he's shown up it seems to me I got a right to give himthe hang of what happened."The small woman made no reply, but set her thin lips in a needle-like line. She gazed straight before her at the Tower of Jewelswith so austere an expression that no glint of refracted sunlightcould soften it. We proceeded slowly to the lagoon, managed toobtain an unoccupied seat, and sat down with mutual sighs of reliefas we released our weights from our tortured sightseeing feet."One does get so mortal weary," asserted the small woman, almostdefiantly.Two swans waddled up from the mirroring water and investigated us.When their suspicions of our niggardliness or lack of peanuts hadbeen confirmed, Jones half-turned his back on his life-partner andgave me his story."Ever been in Ecuador? Then take my advice - and don't. Though Itake that back, for you and me might be hitting it for theretogether if you can rustle up the faith in me and the backbone inyourself for the trip. Well, anyway, it ain't so many years agothat I came ambling in there on a rusty, foul-bottomed, trampcollier from Australia, forty-three days from land to land. Sevenknots was her speed when everything favoured, and we'd had a twoweeks' gale to the north'ard of New Zealand, and broke our enginesdown for two days off Pitcairn Island."I was no sailor on her. I'm a locomotive engineer. But I'd madefriends with the skipper at Newcastle an' come along as his guestfor as far as Guayaquil. You see, I'd heard wages was 'way up onthe American railroad runnin' from that place over the Andes toQuito. Now Guayaquil - ""Is a fever-hole," I interpolated.Julian Jones nodded."Thomas Nast died there of it within a month after he landed. - Hewas our great American cartoonist," I added."Don't know him," Julian Jones said shortly. "But I do know hewasn't the first to pass out by a long shot. Why, look you the wayI found it. The pilot grounds is sixty miles down the river.'How's the fever?' said I to the pilot who came aboard in the earlymorning. 'See that Hamburg barque,' said he, pointing to a sizableship at anchor. 'Captain and fourteen men dead of it already, andthe cook and two men dying right now, and they're the last left ofher.'"And by jinks he told the truth. And right then they were dyingforty a day in Guayaquil of Yellow Jack. But that was nothing, asI was to find out. Bubonic plague and small-pox were raging, whiledysentery and pneumonia were reducing the population, and therailroad was raging worst of all. I mean that. For them thatinsisted in riding on it, it was more dangerous than all the otherdiseases put together."When we dropped anchor off Guayaquil half a dozen skippers fromother steamers came on board to warn our skipper not to let any ofhis crew or officers go ashore except the ones he wanted to lose.A launch came off for me from Duran, which is on the other side ofthe river and is the terminal of the railroad. And it brought offa man that soared up the gangway three jumps at a time he was thateager to get aboard. When he hit the deck he hadn't time to speakto any of us. He just leaned out over the rail and shook his fistat Duran and shouted: 'I beat you to it! I beat you to it!'"'Who'd you beat to it, friend?' I asked. 'The railroad,' he said,as he unbuckled the straps and took off a big '44 Colt's automaticfrom where he wore it handy on his left side under his coat, 'Istaved as long as I agreed - three months - and it didn't get me.I was a conductor.'"And that was the railroad I was to work for. All of which wasnothing to what he told me in the next few minutes. The road ranfrom sea level at Duran up to twelve thousand feet on Chimborazoand down to ten thousand at Quito on the other side the range. Andit was so dangerous that the trains didn't run nights. The throughpassengers had to get off and sleep in the towns at night while thetrain waited for daylight. And each train carried a guard ofEcuadoriano soldiers which was the most dangerous of all. Theywere supposed to protect the train crews, but whenever troublestarted they unlimbered their rifles and joined the mob. You see,whenever a train wreck occurred, the first cry of the spiggotieswas 'Kill the Gringos!' They always did that, and proceeded tokill the train crew and whatever chance Gringo passengers that'descaped being killed in the accident. Which is their kind ofarithmetic, which I told you a while back as being different fromours."Shucks! Before the day was out I was to find out for myself thatthat ex-conductor wasn't lying. It was over at Duran. I was totake my run on the first division out to Quito, for which place Iwas to start next morning - only one through train running everytwenty-four hours. It was the afternoon of my first day, alongabout four o'clock, when the boilers of the GOVERNOR HANCOCKexploded and she sank in sixty feet of water alongside the dock.She was the big ferry boat that carried the railroad passengersacross the river to Guayaquil. It was a bad accident, but it wasthe cause of worse that followed. By half-past four, bigtrainloads began to arrive. It was a feast day and they'd run anexcursion up country but of Guayaquil, and this was the crowdcoming back."And the crowd - there was five thousand of them - wanted to getferried across, and the ferry was at the bottom of the river, whichwasn't our fault. But by the Spiggoty arithmetic, it was. 'Killthe Gringos!' shouts one of them. And right there the beans werespilled. Most of us got away by the skin of our teeth. I raced onthe heels of the Master Mechanic, carrying one of his babies forhim, for the locomotives that was just pulling out. You see, waydown there away from everywhere they just got to save theirlocomotives in times of trouble, because, without them, a railroadcan't be run. Half a dozen American wives and as many childrenwere crouching on the cab floors along with the rest of us when wepulled out; and the Ecuadoriano soldiers, who should have beenprotecting our lives and property, turned loose with their riflesand must have given us all of a thousand rounds before we got outof range."We camped up country and didn't come back to clean up until nextday. It was some cleaning. Every flat-car, box-car, coach,asthmatic switch engine, and even hand-car that mob of Spiggotieshad shoved off the dock into sixty feet of water on top of theGOVERNOR HANCOCK. They'd burnt the round house, set fire to thecoal bunkers, and made a scandal of the repair shops. Oh, yes, andthere were three of our fellows they'd got that we had to burymighty quick. It's hot weather all the time down there."Julian Jones came to a full pause and over his shoulder studied thestraight-before-her gaze and forbidding expression of his wife'sface."I ain't forgotten the nugget," he assured me."Nor the hussy," the little woman snapped, apparently at the mud-hens paddling on the surface of the lagoon."I've been travelling toward the nugget right along - ""There was never no reason for you to stay in that dangerouscountry," his wife snapped in on him."Now, Sarah," he appealed. "I was working for you right along."And to me he explained: "The risk was big, but so was the pay.Some months I earned as high as five hundred gold. And here wasSarah waiting for me back in Nebraska - ""An' us engaged two years," she complained to the Tower of Jewels." - What of the strike, and me being blacklisted, and gettingtyphoid down in Australia, and everything," he went on. "And luckwas with me on that railroad. Why, I saw fellows fresh from theStates pass out, some of them not a week on their first run. Ifthe diseases and the railroad didn't get them, then it was theSpiggoties got them. But it just wasn't my fate, even that time Irode my engine down to the bottom of a forty-foot washout. I lostmy fireman; and the conductor and the Superintendent of RollingStock (who happened to be running down to Duran to meet his bride)had their heads knifed off by the Spiggoties and paraded around onpoles. But I lay snug as a bug under a couple of feet of tendercoal, and they thought I'd headed for tall timber - lay there a dayand a night till the excitement cooled down. Yes, I was lucky.The worst that happened to me was I caught a cold once, and anothertime had a carbuncle. But the other fellows! They died likeflies, what of Yellow Jack, pneumonia, the Spiggoties, and therailroad. The trouble was I didn't have much chance to pal withthem. No sooner'd I get some intimate with one of them he'd up anddie - all but a fireman named Andrews, and he went loco for keeps."I made good on my job from the first, and lived in Quito in a'dobe house with whacking big Spanish tiles on the roof that I'drented. And I never had much trouble with the Spiggoties, what ofletting them sneak free rides in the tender or on the cowcatcher.Me throw them off? Never! I took notice, when Jack Harris put offa bunch of them, that I attended his funeral MUY PRONTO - ""Speak English," the little woman beside him snapped."Sarah just can't bear to tolerate me speaking Spanish," heapologized. "It gets so on her nerves that I promised not to.Well, as I was saying, the goose hung high and everything was goinghunky-dory, and I was piling up my wages to come north to Nebraskaand marry Sarah, when I run on to Vahna - ""The hussy!" Sarah hissed."Now, Sarah," her towering giant of a husband begged, "I just gotto mention her or I can't tell about the nugget. - It was one nightwhen I was taking a locomotive - no train - down to Amato, aboutthirty miles from Quito. Seth Manners was my fireman. I wasbreaking him in to engineer for himself, and I was letting him runthe locomotive while I sat up in his seat meditating about Sarahhere. I'd just got a letter from her, begging as usual for me tocome home and hinting as usual about the dangers of an unmarriedman like me running around loose in a country full of senoritas andfandangos. Lord! If she could only a-seen them. Positivefrights, that's what they are, their faces painted white as corpsesand their lips red as - as some of the train wrecks I've helpedclean up."It was a lovely April night, not a breath of wind, and atremendous big moon shining right over the top of Chimborazo. -Some mountain that. The railroad skirted it twelve thousand feetabove sea level, and the top of it ten thousand feet higher thanthat."Mebbe I was drowsing, with Seth running the engine; but he slammedon the brakes so sudden hard that I darn near went through the cabwindow."'What the - ' I started to yell, and 'Holy hell,' Seth says, asboth of us looked at what was on the track. And I agreed with Sethentirely in his remark. It was an Indian girl - and take it fromme, Indians ain't Spiggoties by any manner of means. Seth hadmanaged to fetch a stop within twenty feet of her, and us bowlingdown hill at that! But the girl. She - "I saw the form of Mrs. Julian Jones stiffen, although she kept hergaze fixed balefully upon two mud-hens that were prowling along thelagoon shallows below us. "The hussy!" she hissed, once andimplacably. Jones had stopped at the sound, but went onimmediately."She was a tall girl, slim and slender, you know the kind, withblack hair, remarkably long hanging, down loose behind her, as shestood there no more afraid than nothing, her arms spread out tostop the engine. She was wearing a slimpsy sort of garment wrappedaround her that wasn't cloth but ocelot skins, soft and dappled,and silky. It was all she had on - ""The hussy!" breathed Mrs. Jones.But Mr. Jones went on, making believe that he was unaware of theinterruption."'Hell of a way to stop a locomotive,' I complained at Seth, as Iclimbed down on to the right of way. I walked past our engine andup to the girl, and what do you think? Her eyes were shut tight.She was trembling that violent that you would see it by themoonlight. And she was barefoot, too."'What's the row?' I said, none too gentle. She gave a start,seemed to come out of her trance, and opened her eyes. Say! Theywere big and black and beautiful. Believe me, she was some looker- ""The hussy!" At which hiss the two mud-hens veered away a fewfeet. But Jones was getting himself in hand, and didn't evenblink."'What are you stopping this locomotive for?' I demanded inSpanish. Nary an answer. She stared at me, then at the snortingengine and then burst into tears, which you'll admit is uncommonbehaviour for an Indian woman."'If you try to get rides that way,' I slung at her in SpiggotySpanish (which they tell me is some different from regularSpanish), 'you'll be taking one smeared all over our cowcatcher andheadlight, and it'll be up to my fireman to scrape you off.'"My Spiggoty Spanish wasn't much to brag on, but I could see sheunderstood, though she only shook her head and wouldn't speak. Butgreat Moses, she was some looker - "I glanced apprehensively at Mrs. Jones, who must have caught me outof the tail of her eye, for she muttered: "If she hadn't been doyou think he'd a-taken her into his house to live?""Now hold on, Sarah," he protested. "That ain't fair. Besides,I'm telling this. - Next thing, Seth yells at me, 'Goin' to stayhere all night?'"'Come on,' I said to the girl, 'and climb on board. But next timeyou want a ride don't flag a locomotive between stations.' Shefollowed along; but when I got to the step and turned to give her alift-up, she wasn't there. I went forward again. Not a sign ofher. Above and below was sheer cliff, and the track stretchedahead a hundred yards clear and empty. And then I spotted her,crouched down right against the cowcatcher, that close I'd almoststepped on her. If we'd started up, we'd have run over her in asecond. It was all so nonsensical, I never could make out heractions. Maybe she was trying to suicide. I grabbed her by thewrist and jerked her none too gentle to her feet. And she camealong all right. Women do know when a man means business."I glanced from this Goliath to his little, bird-eyed spouse, andwondered if he had ever tried to mean business with her."Seth kicked at first, but I boosted her into the cab and made hersit up beside me - ""And I suppose Seth was busy running the engine," Mrs. Jonesobserved."I was breaking him in, wasn't I?" Mr. Jones protested. "So wemade the run into Amato. She'd never opened her mouth once, and nosooner'd the engine stopped than she'd jumped to the ground and wasgone. Just like that. Not a thank you kindly. Nothing."But next morning when we came to pull out for Quito with a dozenflat cars loaded with rails, there she was in the cab waiting forus; and in the daylight I could see how much better a looker shewas than the night before."'Huh! she's adopted you,' Seth grins. And it looked like it. Shejust stood there and looked at me - at us - like a loving hound dogthat you love, that you've caught with a string of sausages insideof him, and that just knows you ain't going to lift a hand to him.'Go chase yourself!' I told her PRONTO." (Mrs. Jones her proximitynoticeable with a wince at the Spanish word.) "You see, Sarah, I'dno use for her, even at the start."Mrs. Jones stiffened. Her lips moved soundlessly, but I knew towhat syllables."And what made it hardest was Seth jeering at me. 'You can't shakeher that way,' he said. 'You saved her life - ' 'I didn't,' Isaid sharply; 'it was you.' 'But she thinks you did, which is thesame thing,' he came back at me. 'And now she belongs to you.Custom of the country, as you ought to know.'""Heathenish," said Mrs. Jones, and though her steady gaze was setupon the Tower of Jewels I knew she was making no reference to itsarchitecture."'She's come to do light housekeeping for you,' Seth grinned. Ilet him rave, though afterwards I kept him throwing in the coal toofast to work his mouth very much. Why, say, when I got to the spotwhere I picked her up, and stopped the train for her to get off,she just flopped down on her knees, got a hammerlock with her armsaround my knees, and cried all over my shoes. What was I to do?"With no perceptible movement that I was aware of, Mrs. Jonesadvertised her certitude of knowledge of what SHE would have done."And the moment we pulled into Quito, she did what she'd donebefore - vanished. Sarah never believes me when I say how relievedI felt to be quit of her. But it was not to be. I got to my 'dobehouse and managed a cracking fine dinner my cook had ready for me.She was mostly Spiggoty and half Indian, and her name was Paloma. -Now, Sarah, haven't I told you she was older'n a grandmother, andlooked more like a buzzard than a dove? Why, I couldn't bear toeat with her around where I could look at her. But she did makethings comfortable, and she was some economical when it came tomarketing."That afternoon, after a big long siesta, what'd I find in thekitchen, just as much at home as if she belonged there, but thatblamed Indian girl. And old Paloma was squatting at the girl'sfeet and rubbing the girl's knees and legs like for rheumatism,which I knew the girl didn't have from the way I'd sized up thewalk of her, and keeping time to the rubbing with a funny sort ofgibberish chant. And I let loose right there and then. As Sarahknows, I never could a-bear women around the house - young,unmarried women, I mean. But it was no go! Old Paloma sided withthe girl, and said if the girl went she went, too. Also, shecalled me more kinds of a fool than the English language hasaccommodation for. You'd like the Spanish lingo, Sarah, forexpressing yourself in such ways, and you'd have liked old Paloma,too. She was a good woman, though she didn't have any teeth andher face could kill a strong man's appetite in the cradle."I gave in. I had to. Except for the excuse that she neededVahna's help around the house (which she didn't at all), old Palomanever said why she stuck up for the girl. Anyway, Vahna was aquiet thing, never in the way. And she never gadded. Just sat in-doors jabbering with Paloma and helping with the chores. But Iwasn't long in getting on to that she was afraid of something. Shewould look up, that anxious it hurt, whenever anybody called, likesome of the boys to have a gas or a game of pedro. I tried to wormit out of Paloma what was worrying the girl, but all the old womandid was to look solemn and shake her head like all the devils inhell was liable to precipitate a visit on us."And then one day Vahna had a visitor. I'd just come in from a runand was passing the time of day with her - I had to be polite, evenif she had butted in on me and come to live in my house for keeps -when I saw a queer expression come into her eyes. In the doorwaystood an Indian boy. He looked like her, but was younger andslimmer. She took him into the kitchen and they must have had agreat palaver, for he didn't leave until after dark. Inside theweek he came back, but I missed him. When I got home, Paloma put afat nugget of gold into my hand, which Vahna had sent him for. Theblamed thing weighed all of two pounds and was worth more than fivehundred dollars. She explained that Vahna wanted me to take it topay for her keep. And I had to take it to keep peace in the house."Then, after a long time, came another visitor. We were sittingbefore the fire - ""Him and the hussy," quoth Mrs. Jones."And Paloma," he added quickly."Him and his cook and his light housekeeper sitting by the fire,"she amended."Oh, I admit Vahna did like me a whole heap," he assertedrecklessly, then modified with a pang of caution: "A heap morethan was good for her, seeing that I had no inclination her way."Well, as I was saying, she had another visitor. He was a lean,tall, white-headed old Indian, with a beak on him like an eagle.He walked right in without knocking. Vahna gave a little cry thatwas half like a yelp and half like a gasp, and flumped down on herknees before me, pleading to me with deer's eyes and to him withthe eyes of a deer about to be killed that don't want to be killed.Then, for a minute that seemed as long as a life-time, she and theold fellow glared at each other. Paloma was the first to talk, inhis own lingo, for he talked back to her. But great Moses, if hewasn't the high and mighty one! Paloma's old knees were shaking,and she cringed to him like a hound dog. And all this in my ownhouse! I'd have thrown him out on his neck, only he was so old."If the things he said to Vahna were as terrible as the way helooked! Say! He just spit words at her! But Paloma keptwhimpering and butting in, till something she said got across,because his face relaxed. He condescended to give me the once overand fired some question at Vahna. She hung her head, and lookedfoolish, and blushed, and then replied with a single word and ashake of the head. And with that he just naturally turned on hisheel and beat it. I guess she'd said 'No.'"For some time after that Vahna used to fluster up whenever she sawme. Then she took to the kitchen for a spell. But after a longtime she began hanging around the big room again. She was stillmighty shy, but she'd keep on following me about with those bigeyes of hers - ""The hussy!" I heard plainly. But Julian Jones and I were prettywell used to it by this time."I don't mind saying that I was getting some interested myself -oh, not in the way Sarah never lets up letting me know she thinks.That two-pound nugget was what had me going. If Vahna'd put mewise to where it came from, I could say good-bye to railroading andhit the high places for Nebraska and Sarah."And then the beans were spilled . . . by accident. Come a letterfrom Wisconsin. My Aunt Eliza 'd died and up and left me her bigfarm. I let out a whoop when I read it; but I could have canned myjoy, for I was jobbed out of it by the courts and lawyers afterward- not a cent to me, and I'm still paying 'm in instalments."But I didn't know, then; and I prepared to pull back to God'scountry. Paloma got sore, and Vahna got the weeps. 'Don't go!Don't go!' That was her song. But I gave notice on my job, andwrote a letter to Sarah here - didn't I, Sarah?"That night, sitting by the fire like at a funeral, Vahna reallyloosened up for the first time."'Don't go,' she says to me, with old Paloma nodding agreement withher. 'I'll show you where my brother got the nugget, if you don'tgo.' 'Too late,' said I. And I told her why."And told her about me waiting for you back in Nebraska," Mrs.Jones observed in cold, passionless tones."Now, Sarah, why should I hurt a poor Indian girl's feelings? Ofcourse I didn't."Well, she and Paloma talked Indian some more, and then Vahna says:'If you stay, I'll show you the biggest nugget that is the fatherof all other nuggets.' 'How big?' I asked. 'As big as me?' Shelaughed. 'Bigger than you,' she says, 'much, much bigger.' 'Theydon't grow that way,' I said. But she said she'd seen it andPaloma backed her up. Why, to listen to them you'd have thoughtthere was millions in that one nugget. Paloma 'd never seen itherself, but she'd heard about it. A secret of the tribe which shecouldn't share, being only half Indian herself."Julian Jones paused and heaved a sigh."And they kept on insisting until I fell for - ""The hussy," said Mrs. Jones, pert as a bird, at the ready instant."'No; for the nugget. What of Aunt Eliza's farm I was rich enoughto quit railroading, but not rich enough to turn my back on bigmoney - and I just couldn't help believing them two women. Gee! Icould be another Vanderbilt, or J. P. Morgan. That's the way Ithought; and I started in to pump Vahna. But she wouldn't givedown. 'You come along with me,' she says. 'We can be back here ina couple of weeks with all the gold the both of us can carry.''We'll take a burro, or a pack-train of burros,' was my suggestion.But nothing doing. And Paloma agreed with her. It was toodangerous. The Indians would catch us."The two of us pulled out when the nights were moonlight. Wetravelled only at night, and laid up in the days. Vahna wouldn'tlet me light a fire, and I missed my coffee something fierce. Wegot up in the real high mountains of the main Andes, where the snowon one pass gave us some trouble; but the girl knew the trails,and, though we didn't waste any time, we were a full week gettingthere. I know the general trend of our travel, because I carried apocket compass; and the general trend is all I need to get thereagain, because of that peak. There's no mistaking it. There ain'tanother peak like it in the world. Now, I'm not telling you itsparticular shape, but when you and I head out for it from QuitoI'll take you straight to it."It's no easy thing to climb, and the person doesn't live that canclimb it at night. We had to take the daylight to it, and didn'treach the top till after sunset. Why, I could take hours and hourstelling you about that last climb, which I won't. The top was flatas a billiard table, about a quarter of an acre in size, and wasalmost clean of snow. Vahna told me that the great winds thatusually blew, kept the snow off of it."We were winded, and I got mountain sickness so bad that I had tostretch out for a spell. Then, when the moon come up, I took aprowl around. It didn't take long, and I didn't catch a sight or asmell of anything that looked like gold. And when I asked Vahna,she only laughed and clapped her hands. Meantime my mountainsickness tuned up something fierce, and I sat down on a big rock towait for it to ease down."'Come on, now,' I said, when I felt better. 'Stop your foolingand tell me where that nugget is.' 'It's nearer to you right nowthan I'll ever get,' she answered, her big eyes going suddenwistful. 'All you Gringos are alike. Gold is the love of yourheart, and women don't count much.'"I didn't say anything. That was no time to tell her about Sarahhere. But Vahna seemed to shake off her depressed feelings, andbegan to laugh and tease again. 'How do you like it?' she asked.'Like what?' 'The nugget you're sitting on.'"I jumped up as though it was a red-hot stove. And all it was wasa rock. I felt nay heart sink. Either she had gone clean loco orthis was her idea of a joke. Wrong on both counts. She gave methe hatchet and told me to take a hack at the boulder, which I did,again and again, for yellow spots sprang up from under every blow.By the great Moses! it was gold! The whole blamed boulder!"Jones rose suddenly to his full height and flung out his long arms,his face turned to the southern skies. The movement shot panicinto the heart of a swan that had drawn nearer with amiablypredatory designs. Its consequent abrupt retreat collided it witha stout old lady, who squealed and dropped her bag of peanuts.Jones sat down and resumed."Gold, I tell you, solid gold and that pure and soft that I choppedchips out of it. It had been coated with some sort of rain-proofpaint or lacquer made out of asphalt or something. No wonder I'dtaken it for a rock. It was ten feet long, all of five feetthrough, and tapering to both ends like an egg. Here. Take a lookat this."From his pocket he drew and opened a leather case, from which hetook an object wrapped in tissue-paper. Unwrapping it, he droppedinto my hand a chip of pure soft gold, the size of a ten-dollargold-piece. I could make out the greyish substance on one sidewith which it had been painted."I chopped that from one end of the thing," Jones went on,replacing the chip in its paper and leather case. "And lucky I putit in my pocket. For right at my back came one loud word - morelike a croak than a word, in my way of thinking. And there wasthat lean old fellow with the eagle beak that had dropped in on usone night. And there was about thirty Indians with him - all slimyoung fellows."Vahna'd flopped down and begun whimpering, but I told her, 'Get upand make friends with them for me.' 'No, no,' she cried. 'This isdeath. Good-bye, AMIGO - '"Here Mrs. Jones winced, and her husband abruptly checked theparticular flow of his narrative."'Then get up and fight along with me,' I said to her. And shedid. She was some hellion, there on the top of the world, clawingand scratching tooth and nail - a regular she cat. And I wasn'tidle, though all I had was that hatchet and my long arms. But theywere too many for me, and there was no place for me to put my backagainst a wall. When I come to, minutes after they'd cracked me onthe head - here, feel this."Removing his hat, Julian Jones guided my finger tips through histhatch of sandy hair until they sank into an indentation. It wasfully three inches long, and went into the bone itself of theskull."When I come to, there was Vahna spread-eagled on top of thenugget, and the old fellow with a beak jabbering away solemnly asif going through some sort of religious exercises. In his hand hehad a stone knife - you know, a thin, sharp sliver of someobsidian-like stuff same as they make arrow-heads out of. Icouldn't lift a hand, being held down, and being too weak besides.And - well, anyway, that stone knife did for her, and me theydidn't even do the honour of killing there on top their sacredpeak. They chucked me off of it like so much carrion."And the buzzards didn't get me either. I can see the moonlightyet, shining on all those peaks of snow, as I went down. Why, sir,it was a five-hundred-foot fall, only I didn't make it. I wentinto a big snow-drift in a crevice. And when I come to (hoursafter I know, for it was full day when I next saw the sun), I foundmyself in a regular snow-cave or tunnel caused by the water fromthe melting snow running along the ledge. In fact, the stone aboveactually overhung just beyond where I first landed. A few feetmore to the side, either way, and I'd almost be going yet. It wasa straight miracle, that's what it was."But I paid for it. It was two years and over before I knew whathappened. All I knew was that I was Julian Jones and that I'd beenblacklisted in the big strike, and that I was married to Sarahhere. I mean that. I didn't know anything in between, and whenSarah tried to talk about it, it gave me pains in the head. I meanmy head was queer, and I knew it was queer."And then, sitting on the porch of her father's farmhouse back inNebraska one moonlight evening, Sarah came out and put that goldchip into my hand. Seems she'd just found it in the torn lining ofthe trunk I'd brought back from Ecuador - I who for two yearsdidn't even know I'd been to Ecuador, or Australia, or anything!Well, I just sat there looking at the chip in the moonlight, andturning it over and over and figuring what it was and where it'dcome from, when all of a sudden there was a snap inside my head asif something had broken, and then I could see Vahna spread-eagledon that big nugget and the old fellow with the beak waving thestone knife, and . . . and everything. That is, everything thathad happened from the time I first left Nebraska to when I crawledto the daylight out of the snow after they had chucked me off themountain-top. But everything that'd happened after that I'd cleanforgotten. When Sarah said I was her husband, I wouldn't listen toher. Took all her family and the preacher that'd married us toconvince me."Later on I wrote to Seth Manners. The railroad hadn't killed himyet, and he pieced out a lot for me. I'll show you his letters.I've got them at the hotel. One day, he said, making his regularrun, I crawled out on to the track. I didn't stand upright, I justcrawled. He took me for a calf, or a big dog, at first. I wasn'tanything human, he said, and I didn't know him or anything. Asnear as I can make out, it was ten days after the mountain-top tothe time Seth picked me up. What I ate I don't know. Maybe Ididn't eat. Then it was doctors at Quito, and Paloma nursing me(she must have packed that gold chip in my trunk), until they foundout I was a man without a mind, and the railroad sent me back toNebraska. At any rate, that's what Seth writes me. Of myself, Idon't know. But Sarah here knows. She corresponded with therailroad before they shipped me and all that."Mrs. Jones nodded affirmation of his words, sighed and evidencedunmistakable signs of eagerness to go."I ain't been able to work since," her husband continued. "And Iain't been able to figure out how to get back that big nugget.Sarah's got money of her own, and she won't let go a penny - ""He won't get down to THAT country no more!" she broke forth."But, Sarah, Vahna's dead - you know that," Julian Jones protested."I don't know anything about anything," she answered decisively,"except that THAT country is no place for a married man."Her lips snapped together, and she fixed an unseeing stare acrossto where the afternoon sun was beginning to glow into sunset. Igazed for a moment at her face, white, plump, tiny, and implacable,and gave her up."How do you account for such a mass of gold being there?" I queriedof Julian Jones. "A solid-gold meteor that fell out of the sky?""Not for a moment." He shook his head. " It was carried there bythe Indians.""Up a mountain like that - and such enormous weight and size!" Iobjected."Just as easy," he smiled. "I used to be stumped by thatproposition myself, after I got my memory back. Now how in SamHill - ' I used to begin, and then spend hours figuring at it. Andthen when I got the answer I felt downright idiotic, it was thateasy." He paused, then announced: "They didn't.""But you just - said they did.""They did and they didn't," was his enigmatic reply. "Of coursethey never carried that monster nugget up there. What they did wasto carry up its contents."He waited until he saw enlightenment dawn in my face."And then of course melted all the gold, or welded it, or smeltedit, all into one piece. You know the first Spaniards down there,under a leader named Pizarro, were a gang of robbers and cut-throats. They went through the country like the hoof-and-mouthdisease, and killed the Indians off like cattle. You see, theIndians had lots of gold. Well, what the Spaniards didn't get, thesurviving Indians hid away in that one big chunk on top themountain, and it's been waiting there ever since for me - and foryou, if you want to go in on it."And here, by the Lagoon of the Palace of Fine Arts, ended myacquaintance with Julian Jones. On my agreeing to finance theadventure, he promised to call on me at my hotel next morning withthe letters of Seth Manners and the railroad, and concludearrangements. But he did not call. That evening I telephoned hishotel and was informed by the clerk that Mr. Julian Jones and wifehad departed in the early afternoon, with their baggage.Can Mrs. Jones have rushed him back and hidden him away inNebraska? I remember that as we said good-bye, there was that inher smile that recalled the vulpine complacency of Mona Lisa, theWise.Kohala, Hawaii,MAY 5, 1916.
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