“Look a-here, Hadley,” he said, “I’ve been some tough, but I’d never ’a’ done a thing like that if I’d ’a’ known it, and since then I’ve been straight. I told you the truth when I said my name was Franks; that is my name; I used Pearson at the Port for other reasons, but when I got back to God’s country I went back to my own name. I was married under it about a year later. My wife is a fine woman, and we’ve got two fine children. I’ve been as straight as a string and we’ve got some ahead. O Hadley, don’t put me through for this!—it will come harder on my wife and the kids than it will on me if you do,—and I’ll go down with you and help you hunt, show you the way and all; and you can use my money to the last cent; it ain’t much, but it’s all yourn to carry on the search; and I’ll stand by you and help you as long as there’s life in me, for, as God is my witness, Hadley, I never meant no harm to Miss Marian and your kids. I wouldn’t ask it if’t wasn’t for my own kids.”
Mr. Hadley was thinking. He believed the man was telling the truth, and no punishment meted out to him would bring back the dead. As far as that went, what punishment would be fitter than to take him back with him and let him see, if, indeed, there was anything left to see, the terrible suffering his act had caused? And there would be something left; not six years nor seven would destroy what five deaths had left on that grim island in San Moros.
Before they sailed, Mr. Hadley had time to write to his wife and tell her of his finding Pearson and of what he had learned from him and of the latter’s agony of remorse. After receiving the letter, Mrs. Hadley sat down and wrote most of its contents to Mrs. Harris, for she knew their old friends would be anxious to hear any news. After hearing that letter read, Clarence declared that he could have lived seven years, or twice seven years on Smugglers’, and he dared bet Marian could. But his father and mother were quite sure there was no hope of that.
“Why,” said Mrs. Harris, “Jennie would not have lived three days after exposure to that storm. I never knew such a delicate child.”
“And,” Mr. Harris declared, “if they had lived any length of time at all, some one would have seen some sign of them in all this time. Probably they took refuge in that cave and were washed out and drowned the first night.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’d forgotten about Jennie being so sickly, and Delbert himself was not what you would call rugged, but if they lived through the storm there’s a chance, I tell you. Their not being seen since doesn’t cut any figure. There was a reason for that. I never told Delbert, for I didn’t want to frighten him, and he was a nervous little chap, but no Indian ever went to Smugglers’. You couldn’t have hired one to, and I tell you, if they lived through the first night, there’s a chance! and oh, glory! wouldn’t I have liked to go along?”
The steamer that Mr. Hadley and Pearson had taken passage on was pretty well filled up with passengers. Among others there was a group of mining men going to the Port, whence they would make their way inland, and there was a wealthy Mexican family also bound for the Port, with a half-dozen fine-looking daughters who reminded you of all the Spanish romance you had ever read every time you looked at them.
There were various others, and among them all Mr. Hadley and Pearson attracted no particular attention until the morning they were nearing the Port, when it was learned that Mr. Franks and the white-haired gentleman with him had a launch aboard and were going to be set down in it out in the Gulf and were not going into the Port at all. It seemed that the captain had known about it all the time, but to the passengers it seemed like a very queer thing to do.
However, some one made the announcement that the two were going to examine some guano caves for a rich company, and that seemed to explain everything, and the passengers watched with interest while the launch was being made ready and lowered, and the mining men all hung over the rail and cheered as she shot off across the water, and the pretty señoritas waved their handkerchiefs, and then everybody turned his attention to watching the channel, for if the passengers did not keep a sharp lookout, what was to hinder the captain from forgetting himself and coming up sharp on the rocks?
