Quick Action

by Robert W. Chambers

  XIX

  He fell into step beside her, and they walked up from the little coverthrough the beach-grapes and out among the scrubby dunes, where in theheated silence the perfume of sweet-bay and pines mingled with the odourof the sea.

  Everywhere the great sulphur-coloured butterflies were flying, makinggorgeous combinations with the smaller, orange butterflies and thegreat, velvet-winged Palamedes swallow-tail.

  Lizards frisked and raced away before them, emerald tinted, green withsky-blue tails, grey and red; the little gophers scurried into theirburrows along the tangled hammock's edges. Over the palm-trees' featherycrests sailed a black vulture, its palmated wing-tips spread like inkyfingers against the blue. Somewhere in the saw-grass a bittern boomedand boomed; and the seagulls' clamour rang incessantly above the thunderof the surf.

  "I wonder," she murmured, "whether my sunburn makes me drowsy."

  "It's the climate. You'll feel sleepy for a week before you areacclimated," he said.... "Why don't you put down the puppy and let himfollow?"

  She did so; and the little creature frisked and leaped and paddedjoyously about among the bayberry bushes, already possessed with thecanine determination to investigate all the alluring smells in theworld, and miss none of them.

  After a little while they arrived at the bungalow which Constance hadchosen. The girl pushed open the unlocked door; the puppy pranced inlike a diminutive hobby-horse, flushed a big lizard, and went into fitsof excitement till the solitary cabin rang with his treble barking.

  They watched him through the doorway, laughingly; then Gray looked atthe claim notice stuck upright in the sand. Presently he walked to theedge of the coquina quarry and looked down into it.

  Thousands of dollars' worth of the shell deposit lay already exposed.There were great strata of it; ledges, shelves, vast masses in everydirection. The quarry had been worked very little, and that little hadbeen accomplished stupidly. Either in the rough, or merely as lumps ofconglomerate for crushing, the coquina in sight alone was very, veryvaluable. There could be no doubt of that.

  Also, he understood that the strata deposited there continued at leastfor half a mile to the westward, where his own bungalow marked itsprobable termination.

  He turned after a few minutes' inspection, and walked slowly back towhere Constance was standing by the open door. A slight constraint,amounting almost to embarrassment, ensued for a few minutes, but thepuppy dissipated it when he leaped at a butterfly, fell on his nose witha thump, and howled dismally until reassured by his anxiousfoster-parents, who caught him up and generously passed him to eachother, petting him vigourously.

  Twice Gray said good-bye to Constance Leslie and started to go on towardhis own bungalow, but the puppy invariably began a frantic series ofcircles embracing them both, and he had to come back to keep the dogfrom the demoralisation of utter exhaustion.

  "You know," he said, "this is going to be awkward. I believe that dogthinks we are mar--thinks we are sister and brother. Don't you?"

  She replied with a slight flush on her fair face, that the dogundoubtedly cherished some such idea.

  "Take him inside," said Gray firmly. "Then I'll beat it."

  So she took the puppy inside and closed the door, with a smiling nod ofadieu to Gray. But he had not gone very far when he heard her clear, farcall; and, turning, saw her beckon frantically.

  Back he came at top speed.

  "Oh, dear," she exclaimed. "Oh, dear! He's tearing 'round and 'round theroom moaning and whining and barking. I'm very certain he will have fitsif you don't speak to him."

  Gray opened the door cautiously, and the little dog came out, projectedlike a bolt from a catapult, fairly flinging his quivering little bodyinto Gray's arms.

  The reunion was elaborate and mutually satisfying. Constance furtivelytouched her brown eyes with a corner of her handkerchief.

  "What on earth are we to do?" she asked, unfeignedly affected. "I wouldgive him to you in a minute if you think he would be contented withoutme."

  "We can try it."

  So Constance started westward, across the dunes, and Gray went into thebungalow with the dog. But it required only a second or two to convincehim that it wouldn't do, and he opened the door and called franticallyto Constance.

  "There is no use in trying that sort of thing," he admitted, whenConstance hastened back to a touching reunion with the imprisoned dog."Strategy is our only hope. I'll sit here on the threshold with you, andas soon as he goes to sleep I'll slink away."

  So side by side they seated themselves on the sandy threshold of thebungalow, and the little dog, happy and contented, curled up on thefloor of the room, tucked his blunt muzzle into his flank, and took aseries of naps with one eye always open. He was young, but suspicion hadalready done its demoralising work with him, and he intended to keep atleast one eye on his best beloveds.

  She in her fresh and clinging gown, with the first delicate sunmasktinting her unaccustomed skin, sat silent and distrait, her idle fingerslinked in her lap. And, glancing askance at her now and then, the droopof her under lip seemed to him pathetic, like that of a tired child introuble.

  When he was not looking at her he was immersed in perplexed cogitation.The ownership of the dog he had already settled in his mind; theownership of the quarry he had supposed he had settled.

  Therefore, why was he so troubled about it? Why was he so worried abouther, wondering what she would do in the matter?

  The only solution left seemed to lie in a recourse to thelaw--unless--unless----

  But he couldn't--he simply couldn't, merely for a sentimental impulse,give up to a stranger what he honestly considered an inheritance. Thatwould be carrying sentimentalism too far.

  And yet--and yet! He needed the inheritance desperately. Mattersfinancial had gone all wrong with him. How _could_ he turn his back onoffered salvation just because a youthful and pretty girl also requireda financial lift in a cold-blooded and calculating world?

  And yet--and yet! He would sleep over it, of course. But he honestly sawno prospect of changing his opinion concerning the ownership of thequarry.

  As he sat there biting a stem of sweet-bay and listening to thecardinals piping from the forest, he looked down into the heated coquinapit.

  A snake was coiled up on one of the ledges, basking.

  "Miss Leslie!"

  She lifted her head and straightened her drooping shoulders, looking athim from eyes made drowsy and beautiful by the tropic heat.

  "I only wanted to say," he began gravely, "that it is not safe for youto go into the quarry alone--in case you had any such intention."

  "Why?"

  "There are snakes there. Do you see that one? Well, he's harmless, Ithink--a king-snake, if I am not mistaken. But it's a good place forrattlers."

  "Then you should be careful, too."

  "Oh, I'm careful enough, but you might not know when to be on yourguard. This island is a snaky one. It's famous for its diamond-backrattlers and the size of them. Their fangs are an inch long, and itusually means death to be struck by one of them."

  The girl nodded thoughtfully.

  He said with a new anxiety: "As a matter of fact, you really ought notto be down here all alone."

  "I know it. But it meant a race for ownership, and I had to come at aminute's notice."

  "You should have brought a maid."

  "My dear Mr. Gray, I have no maid."

  "Oh, I forgot," he muttered--"but, somehow, you _look_ as though youhad been born to several."

  "I am the daughter of a very poor professor."

  He fidgetted with his sweet-bay twig, considering the aromatic leaveswith a troubled and concentrated scowl.

  "You know," he said, "this wretched island is celebrated for itsunpleasant fauna. Scorpions and wood-ticks are numerous. The sting ofthe one is horribly painful, and might be dangerous; the villainoushabits of the other might throw you into a fever."

  "But what can I do?" she inquired calmly.

  "There a
re other kinds of snakes, too," he went on with increasingsolicitude for this girl for whom, suddenly, he began to considerhimself responsible. "There's a vicious snake called a moccasin; and hewon't get out of your way or warn you. And there's a wicked littleserpent with rings of black, scarlet, and yellow around his body. Hepretends to be harmless, but if he gets your finger into his mouth he'llchew it full of a venom which is precisely the same sort of venom asthat of the deadly East Indian cobra."

  "But--what can I do?" she repeated pitifully. "If I go to St. Augustineand leave you here in possession, it might invalidate my claim."

  He was silent, knowing no more about the law than did she, and afraid todeny her tentative assertion.

  "If it lay with me," he said, "I'd call a truce until you could go toSt. Augustine and return again with the proper people to look out foryou."

  "Even if you were kind enough to do that, I could not afford even aservant under present--and unexpected--conditions."

  "Why?"

  "Because it has suddenly developed that I shall be obliged to engage alawyer. And I had not expected that."

  He reddened to his hair but said nothing. After a while the girl lookedover her shoulder. The puppy slept, this time with both eyes closed.

  When she turned again to Gray, he nodded his comprehension and rose tohis feet cautiously.

  "I'm going to take a walk on the beach and think this thing all out," hewhispered, taking the slim, half-offered hand in adieu. "Don't go out inthe scrub after sun-down. Rattlers move then. Don't go near any swamp;moccasins are the colour of sun-baked mud, and you can't see them. Don'ttouch any pretty little snake marked scarlet, black, and yellow----"

  "How absurd!" she whispered. "As though I were likely to fondle snakes!"

  "I'm terribly worried about you," he insisted, retaining her hand.

  "Please don't be."

  "How can I help it--what with these bungalows full of scorpions and----"

  "Yours is, too," she said anxiously. "You will be very careful, won'tyou?"

  "Yes, of course.... I'm--I'm uncertain about you. That's what istroubling me----"

  "Please don't bother about me. I've had to look out for myself foryears."

  "Have you?" he said, almost tenderly. Then he drew a quick, determinedbreath.

  "You'll be careful, won't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you armed?"

  "I have a shot-gun inside."

  "That's all right. Don't open your door to any stranger.... You know Isimply hate to leave you alone this way----"

  "But I have the dog," she reminded him, with a pretty flush ofgratitude.

  He had retained her hand longer than the easiest convention required orpermitted. So he released it, hesitated, then with a visible effort heturned on his heel and strode away westward across the scrub.

  The sun hung low behind the tall, parti-coloured shaft of the LightHouse, towering smooth and round high above the forest.

  He looked up at Ibis Light, at the circling buzzards above it, thenwalked on, scarcely knowing where he was going, until he walked into thedoor of his own bungalow, and several large spiders scattered intoflight across the floor.

  "There's no use," he said aloud to an audience of lizards clinging tothe silvery bark of the log-room. "I can't take that quarry. I can't doit--whether it belongs to me or not. _How_ can a big, strong, lumberingyoung man do a thing like that? No. No. _No!_"

  He picked up a pencil and a sheet of paper:

  "Oh, Lord! I really do need the money, but I can't do it."

  And he wrote:

  DEAR MISS LESLIE:

  You arrived on the scene before I did. I am now convinced of this. I shall not dispute the ownership of the quarry. It is yours. This statement over my signature is your guarantee that I shall never interfere with your title to the coquina quarry on Ibis Island.

  So now I've got to return to New York and go to work. I'm going across to Augustine in a few moments; and while I'm there I'll engage a white woman as companion for you, and a white servant, and have them drive over at once so they will reach your bungalow before evening. With undisputed title to the quarry, you can easily afford their wages.

  Good-bye. I wish you every happiness and success. Please give my love to the dog.

  Yours very truly, JOHNSON GRAY.

  "It's the only way out of it," he muttered. "I'll leave it with her andbolt before she reads it. There is nothing else to do, absolutelynothing."

  As he came out of his cabin, the sun hung low and red above the palmforest, and a few bats were already flying like tiny black devils abovethe scrub.

  There was a strip of beach near his cabin, and he went down to it andbegan to tramp up and down with a vague idea of composing himself sothat he might accomplish what he had to do gracefully, gaily, and withno suspicion of striking an attitude for gods and men to admire hismoral resignation and his heroic renunciation.

  No; he'd do the thing lightly, smilingly, determined that she should notthink that it was a sacrifice. No; she must believe that a sense offairness alone moved him to an honest recognition of her claims. He mustmake it plain to her that he really believed she had arrived at thequarry before he had.

  And so he meant to leave her the letter, say good-bye, and go.

  When this was all settled in his mind he looked at the ocean verysoberly, then turned his back on the Atlantic and walked back to hiscabin to gather up his effects.

  As he approached the closed door a desolate howl from the interiorgreeted him: he sprang to the door and flung it open; and the puppyrushed into his arms.

  Then, pinned to the scorpion-infested wall, he saw a sheet of writing,and he read:

  DEAR MR. GRAY:

  He woke up and howled for you. It was too tragic for me. I love him but I give him to you. I give the quarry to you, also. Under the circumstances it would be impossible for me to enjoy it, even if the law awarded it to me. Nobody could ever really know which one of us first arrived and staked the claim. No doubt you did.

  I am sorry I came into your life and made trouble for you and for the puppy.

  So I leave you in peaceful possession. It really is a happiness for me to do it.

  I am going North at once. Good-bye; and please give my love to the dog. Poor little darling, he thought we both stood _in loco parentis_. But he'll get over his grief for me.

  Yours truly, CONSTANCE LESLIE.

  The puppy at his feet was howling uncomforted for the best beloved whowas so strangely missing from the delightful combination which he had sojoyously accepted _in loco parentis_.