by Frank Norris
From his seat in the bow, Condy cast a glance at Blix. She was holding her rod in both hands, absorbed, watchful, very intent. She was as trim as ever, even in the old clothes she had worn for the occasion. Her round, strong neck was as usual swathed high and tight in white, and the huge dog-collar girdled her waist according to her custom. She had taken off her hat. Her yellow hair rolled back from her round forehead and cool pink cheeks like a veritable nimbus, and for the fiftieth time Condy remarked the charming contrast of her small, deep-brown eyes in the midst of this white satin, yellow hair, white skin, and exquisite pink cheeks.
An hour passed. Then two.
“No fish,” murmured Condy, drawing in his line to examine the bait. But, as he was fumbling with the flies he was startled by a sharp exclamation from Blix.
“Oh-Condy-I’ve-got-a-bite!”
He looked up just in time to see the tip of her rod twitch, twitch, twitch. Then the whole rod arched suddenly, the reel sang, the line tautened and cut diagonally through the water.
“You got him! you got him!” he shouted, palpitating with excitement. “And he’s a good one!”
Blix rose, reeling in as rapidly as was possible, the butt of the twitching, living rod braced against her belt. All at once the rod straightened out again, the strain was released, and the line began to slant rapidly away from the boat.
“He’s off!” she cried.
“Off, nothing! HE’S GOING TO JUMP. Look out for him, now!”
And then the two watching from the boat, tense and quivering with the drama of the moment, saw that most inspiriting of sights — the “break” of a salmon-trout. Up he went, from a brusque explosion of ripples and foam — up into the gray of the morning from out the gray of the water: scales all gleaming, hackles all a-bristle; a sudden flash of silver, a sweep as of a scimitar in gray smoke, with a splash, a turmoil, an abrupt burst of troubled sound that stabbed through the silence of the morning, and in a single instant dissipated all the placid calm of the previous hours.
“Keep the line taut,” whispered Condy, gritting his teeth. “When he comes toward you, reel him in; an’ if he pulls too hard, give him his head.”
Blix was breathing fast, her cheeks blazing, her eyes all alight.
“Oh,” she gasped, “I’m so afraid I’ll lose him! Oh, look at that!” she cried, as the trout darted straight for the bottom, bending the rod till the tip was submerged. “Condy, I’ll lose him — I know I shall; you, YOU take the rod!”
“Not for a thousand dollars! Steady, there, he’s away again! Oh, talk about SPORT!”
Yard by yard Blix reeled in until they began to see the silver glint of the trout’s flanks through the green water. She brought him nearer. Swimming parallel with the boat, he was plainly visible from his wide-opened mouth — the hook and fly protruding from his lower jaw — to the red, quivering flanges of the tail. His sides were faintly speckled, his belly white as chalk. He was almost as long as Condy’s forearm.
“Oh, he’s a beauty! Oh, isn’t he a beauty!” murmured Condy. “Now, careful, careful; bring him up to the boat where I can reach him; e-easy, Blix. If he bolts again, let him run.”
Twice the trout shied from the boat’s shadow, and twice, as Blix gave him his head, the reel sang and hummed like a watch-man’s rattle. But the third time he came to the surface and turned slowly on his side, the white belly and one red fin out of the water, the gills opening and shutting. He was tired out. A third time Blix drew him gently to the boat’s side. Condy reached out and down into the water till his very shoulder was wet, hooked two fingers under the distended gills, and with a long, easy movement of the arm swung him into the boat.
Their exultation was that of veritable children. Condy whooped like an Apache, throwing his hat into the air; Blix was hardly articulate, her hands clasped, her hair in disarray, her eyes swimming with tears of sheer excitement. They shook each other’s hands; they talked wildly at the same time: they pounded on the boat’s thwarts with their fists; they laughed at their own absurdity; they looked at the trout again and again, guessed at his weight, and recalled to each other details of the struggle.
“When he broke that time, wasn’t it grand?”
“And when I first felt him bite! It was so sudden — why, it actually frightened me. I never — no, never in my life!” exclaimed Blix, “was so happy as I am at this moment. Oh, Condy, to think — just to THINK!”
“Isn’t it glory hallelujah?”
“Isn’t it better than teas, and dancing, and functions?”
“Blix — how old are we?”
“I don’t care how old we are; I think that trout will weigh two pounds.”
When they were calm again, they returned to their fishing. The morning passed, and it was noon before they were aware of it. By half-past twelve Blix had caught three trout, though the first was by far the heaviest. Condy had not had so much as a bite. At one o’clock they rowed ashore and had lunch under a huge live-oak in a little amphitheatre of manzanita.
Never had a lunch tasted so delicious. What if the wine was warm and the stuffed olives oily? What if the pepper for the hard-boiled eggs had sifted all over the “devilish” ham sandwiches? What if the eggs themselves had not been sufficiently cooked, and the corkscrew forgotten? They COULD not be anything else but inordinately happy, sublimely gay. Nothing short of actual tragedy could have marred the joy of that day.
But after they were done eating, and Blix had put away the forks and spoons, and while Condy was stretched upon his back smoking a cigar, she said to him:
“Now, Condy, what do you say to a little game of cards with me?”
The cigar dropped from Condy’s lips, and he sat suddenly upright, brushing the fallen leaves from his hair. Blix had taken a deck of cards from the lunch-basket, and four rolls of chips wrapped in tissue paper. He stared at her in speechless amazement.
“What do you say?” she repeated, looking at him and smiling.
“Why, Blix!” he exclaimed in amazement, “what do you mean?”
“Just what I say. I want you to play cards with me.”
“I’ll not to do it,” he declared, almost coldly.
“Listen to me, Condy,” answered Blix; and for quite five minutes, while he interrupted and protested and pshawed and argued, she talked to him calmly and quietly.
“I don’t ask you to stop playing, Condy,” she said, as she finished; “I just ask you that when you feel you must play — or — I mean, when you want to very bad, you will come and play with me, instead of playing at your club.”
“But it’s absurd, it’s preposterous. I hate to see a girl gambling — and you of all girls!”
“It’s no worse for me than it is for you and — well, do you suppose I would play with any one else? Maybe you think I can’t play well enough to make it interesting for you,” she said gayly. “Is that it? I can soon show you, Condy Rivers — never mind when I learned how.”
“But, Blix, you don’t know how often we play, those men and I. Why, it is almost every — you don’t know how often we play.”
“Condy, whenever you want to play, and will play with ME, no matter what I’ve got in hand, I’ll stop everything and play with you.”
“But why?”
“Because I think, Condy, that THIS way perhaps you won’t play quite so often at first; and then little by little perhaps — perhaps — well, never mind that now. I want to play; put it that way. But I want you to promise me never to play with any one else — say for six months.”
And in the end, whipped by a sense of shame, Condy made her the promise. They became very gay upon the instant.
“Hoh!” exclaimed Condy; “what do YOU know of poker? I think we had best play old sledge or cassino.”
Blix had dealt a hand and partitioned the chips.
“Straights and flushes BEFORE the draw,” she announced calmly.
Condy started and stared; then, looking at her askance, picked up his hand.
“It’s
up to you.”
“I’ll make it five to play.”
“Five? Very well. How many cards?”
“Three.”
“I’ll take two.”
“Bet you five more.”
Blix looked at her hand. Then, without trace of expression in her voice or face, said:
“There’s your five, and I’ll raise you five.”
“Five better.”
“And five better than that.”
“Call you.”
“Full house. Aces on tens,” said Blix, throwing down her cards.
“Heavens! they’re good as gold,” muttered Condy as Blix gathered in the chips.
An hour later she had won all the chips but five.
“Now we’ll stop and get to fishing again; don’t you want to?”
He agreed, and she counted the chips.
“Condy, you owe me seven dollars and a half,” she announced.
Condy began to smile. “Well,” he said jocosely, “I’ll send you around a check to-morrow.”
But at this Blix was cross upon the instant. “You wouldn’t do that — wouldn’t talk that way with one of your friends at the club!” she exclaimed; “and it’s not right to do it with me. Condy, give me seven dollars and a half. When you play cards with me it’s just as though it were with another man. I would have paid you if you had won.”
“But I haven’t got more than nine dollars. Who’ll pay for the supper to-night at Luna’s, and our railroad fare going home?”
“I’ll pay.”
“But I — I can’t afford to lose money this way.”
“Shouldn’t have played, then. I took the same chances as you. Condy, I want my money.”
“You — you — why you’ve regularly flimflammed me.”
“Will you give me my money?”
“Oh, take your money then!”
Blix shut the money in her purse, and rose, dusting her dress.
“Now,” she said— “now that the pastime of card-playing is over, we will return to the serious business of life, which is the catching — no, ‘KILLING’ of lake trout.”
At five o’clock in the afternoon, Condy pulled up the anchor of railroad iron and rowed back to Richardson’s. Blix had six trout to her credit, but Condy’s ill-luck had been actually ludicrous.
“I can hold a string in the water as long as anybody,” he complained, “but I’d like to have the satisfaction of merely changing the bait OCCASIONALLY. I’ve not had a single bite — not a nibble, y’ know, all day. Never mind, you got the big trout, Blix; that first one. That five minutes was worth the whole day. It’s been glorious, the whole thing. We’ll come down here once a week right along now.”
But the one incident that completed the happiness of that wonderful day occurred just as they were getting out of the boat on the shore by Richardson’s. In a mud-hole between two rocks they discovered a tiny striped snake, hardly bigger than a lead pencil, in the act of swallowing a little green frog, and they passed a rapt ten minutes in witnessing the progress of this miniature drama, which culminated happily in the victim’s escape, and triumph of virtue.
“That,” declared Blix as they climbed into the old buggy which was to take them to the train, “was the one thing necessary. That made the day perfect.”
They reached the city at dusk, and sent their fish, lunch-basket, and rods up to the Bessemers’ flat by a messenger boy with an explanatory note for Blix’s father.
“Now,” said Condy, “for Luna’s and the matrimonial objects.”
Chapter VII
Luna’s Mexican restaurant has no address. It is on no particular street, at no particular corner; even its habitues, its most enthusiastic devotees, are unable to locate it upon demand. It is “over there in the quarter,” “not far from the cathedral there.” One could find it if one started out with that intent; but to direct another there — no, that is out of the question. It CAN be reached by following the alleys of Chinatown. You will come out of the last alley — the one where the slave girls are — upon the edge of the Mexican quarter, and by going straight forward a block or two and by keeping a sharp lookout to right and left you will hit upon it. It is always to be searched for. Always to be discovered.
On that particular Monday evening Blix and Condy arrived at Luna’s some fifteen minutes before seven. Condy had lost himself and all sense of direction in the strange streets of the quarter, and they were on the very brink of despair when Blix discovered the sign upon an opposite corner.
As Condy had foretold, they had the place to themselves. They went into the back room with its one mirror, six tables, and astonishing curtains of Nottingham lace; and the waiter, whose name was Richard or Riccardo, according to taste, began to officiate at the solemn rites of the “supper Mexican.” Condy and Blix ate with their eyes continually wandering to the door; and as the FRIJOLES were being served, started simultaneously and exchanged glances.
A man wearing two marguerites in the lapel of his coat had entered abruptly, and sat down to a table close at hand.
Condy drew a breath of suppressed excitement.
“There he is,” he whispered— “Captain Jack!”
They looked at the newcomer with furtive anxiety, and told themselves that they were disappointed. For a retired sea captain he was desperately commonplace. His hair was red, he was younger than they had expected, and, worst of all, he did look tough.
“Oh, poor K. D. B.!” sighed Blix, shaking her head. “He’ll never do, I’m afraid. Perhaps he has a good heart, though; red-headed people are SOMETIMES affectionate.”
“They are impulsive,” hazarded Condy.
As he spoke the words, a second man entered the little room. He, too, sat down at a nearby table. He, too, ordered the “supper Mexican.” He, too, wore marguerites in his buttonhole.
“Death and destruction!” gasped Condy, turning pale.
Blix collapsed helplessly in her chair, her hands dropping in her lap. They stared at each other in utter confusion.
“Here’s a how-do-you-do,” murmured Condy, pretending to strip a TAMALE that Richard had just set before him. But Blix had pushed hers aside.
“What does it mean?” whispered Condy across the table. “In Heaven’s name, what does it mean?”
“It can only mean one thing,” Blix declared; “one of them is the captain, and one is a coincidence. Anybody might wear a marguerite; we ought to have thought of that.”
“But which is which?”
“If K. D. B. should come now!”
“But the last man looks more like the captain.”
The last man was a sturdy, broad-shouldered fellow, who might have been forty. His heavy mustache was just touched with gray, and he did have a certain vaguely “sober and industrious” appearance. But the difference between the two men was slight, after all; the red-headed man could easily have been a sea captain, and he certainly was over thirty-five.
“Which? which? which? — how can we tell? We might think of some way to get rid of the coincidence, if we could only tell which the coincidence was. We owe it to K. D. B. In a way, Condy, it’s our duty. We brought her here, or we are going to, and we ought to help her all we can; and she may be here at any moment. What time is it now?”
“Five minutes after seven. But, Blix, I should think the right one — the captain — would be all put out himself by seeing another chap here wearing marguerites. Does either one of ’em seem put out to you? Look. I should think the captain, whichever one he is, would kind of GLARE at the coincidence.”
Stealthily they studied the two men for a moment.
“No, no,” murmured Blix, “you can’t tell. Neither of them seems to glare much. Oh, Condy” — her voice dropped to a faint whisper. “The red-headed one has put his hat on a chair, just behind him, notice? Do you suppose if you stood up you could see inside?”
“What good would that do?”
“He might have his initials inside the crown, or his whole name even; and you
could see if he had a ‘captain’ before it.”
Condy made a pretence of rising to get a match in a ribbed, truncated cone of china that stood upon an adjacent table, and Blix held her breath as he glanced down into the depths of the hat. He resumed his seat.
“Only initials,” he breathed— “W. J. A. It might be Jack, that J., and it might be Joe, or Jeremiah, or Joshua; and even if he was a captain he might not use the title. We’re no better off than we were before.”
“And K. D. B. may come at any moment. Maybe she has come already and looked through the windows, and saw TWO men with marguerites and went away. She’d be just that timid. What can we do?”
“Wait a minute, look here,” murmured Condy. “I’ve an idea. I’LL find out which the captain is. You see that picture, that chromo, on the wall opposite?”
Blix looked as he indicated. The picture was a gorgeously colored lithograph of a pilot-boat, schooner-rigged, all sails set, dashing bravely through seas of emerald green color.
“You mean that schooner?” asked Blix.
“That schooner, exactly. Now, listen. You ask me in a loud voice what kind of a boat that is; and when I answer, you keep your eye on the two men.”
“Why, what are you going to do?”
“You’ll see. Try it now; we’ve no time to lose.”
Blix shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. Then:
“What a pretty boat that is up there, that picture on the wall. See over there, on the wall opposite? Do you notice it? Isn’t she pretty? Condy, tell me what kind of a boat is that?”
Condy turned about in his place with great deliberation, fixed the picture with a judicial eye, and announced decisively:
“That? — why, that’s a BARKENTINE.”
Condy had no need to wait for Blix’s report. The demonstration came far too quickly for that. The red-headed man at his loud declaration merely glanced in the direction of the chromo and returned to his enchellados. But he of the black mustache followed Condy’s glance, noted the picture of which he spoke, and snorted contemptuously. They even heard him mutter beneath his mustache: