She appeared to be a well-matured country girl, whose frank gray eyes and large laughing mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification in her life and surroundings. She was watching the replacing of luggage in the boot. A little feminine start, as one of her own parcels was thrown somewhat roughly on the roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there," he growled to the helper, "ye ain't carting stone! Look out, will yer! Some of your things, miss?" he added, with gruff courtesy, turning to her. "These yer trunks, for instance?"She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper, seized a large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily, striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his intention of having the company "make it good" to her with a new one. Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room, entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting the nearest and most youthful passenger by the coat collar from the stool that he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced another man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himself up to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon his fair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket.
"Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?" he said.
She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a slight rise of color, returned, "Yes.""Well, Miss Mullins, I've got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it straight out afore this crowd. It's in my rights to take ye aside and ask it---but that ain't my style; I'm no detective. Ineedn't ask it at all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or Imight leave it to be asked by others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye've got a friend over ther--Judge Thompson--who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest as any other man here is--as though ye'd packed your own jury. Well, the simple question I've got to ask ye is THIS: Did you signal to anybody from the coach when we passed Galloper's an hour ago?"We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had reached its climax here. To openly and publicly accuse a "lady" before a group of chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the further attractions of youth, good looks, and innocence, was little short of desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise.
Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory smile began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on behalf of this young lady"--when the fair accused, raising her eyes to her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight but convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:--"I DID."
"Ahem!" interposed the Judge hastily, "er--that is--er--you allowed your handkerchief to flutter from the window,--I noticed it myself,--casually--one might say even playfully--but without any particular significance."The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride and impatience, returned briefly:--"I signaled."
"Who did you signal to?" asked Bill gravely.
"The young gentleman I'm going to marry."A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, was instantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill.
"What did you signal to him for?" he continued.
"To tell him I was here, and that it was all right," returned the young girl, with a steadily rising pride and color.
"Wot was all right?" demanded Bill.
"That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyond Cass's Ridge Station." She hesitated a moment, and then, with a still greater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said:
"I've run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stop me. Dad didn't like him just because he was poor, and dad's got money. Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things to bribe me.""And you're taking them in your trunk to the other feller?" said Bill grimly.
"Yes, he's poor," returned the girl defiantly.
"Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill.
"It's not Mullins. I--I--took that name," she hesitated, with her first exhibition of self-consciousness.
"Wot IS his name?"
"Eli Hemmings."
A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame of Eli or "Skinner" Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passed even beyond Galloper's Ridge.
"The step that you're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, is one of great gravity," said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternal seriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect a glaring affectation; "and I trust that you and your affianced have fully weighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural affections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know of the--er--young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and, perhaps, imperiling your whole future? For instance, have you known him long?"The slightly troubled air of trying to understand,--not unlike the vague wonderment of childhood,--with which Miss Mullins had received the beginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehension as she said quickly, "Oh yes, nearly a whole year.""And," said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation--is he in business?""Oh yes," she returned; "he's a collector.""A collector?"