Thrice again the exultant yells echoed across the plain, and then out leaped another excited figure. It was Nicklestick the Jew.
“Come on! Come on! Ve got to light the bonfires! Come on! I got the matches! Vait! Vait! Let's vait while we take off our hats a minute, boys,—take them off to our baby's father, Jimmy Cruise. No cheers!”
A hush fell over the crowd. Every hat came off, and every head was bent. To many of them James Cruise was no more than a name salvaged from the shocking experiences of those first dreadful days. Few of them had come in actual contact with him. The time had been too short. But Betty Cruise, his widow, was known to all of them, high and low. They had watched over her, and protected her, and slaved for her, for besides pity there was in every man's soul the fiercest desire that nothing,—absolutely nothing,—should be left undone to insure the happy delivery of the babe they were counting so keenly upon!
She was a frail, delicate English girl whom Cruise had married in Buenos Aires the year before. He was taking her up to his mother's home in Connecticut. His death,—alas, his annihilation!—almost killed her. There were those who said she would die of grief. But, broken and frail as she was, she made the fight. And now came the news that she had “pulled through.”
There were mothers on board with tiny babies,—three or four of them, in fact,—peevish, squalling infants that innocently undertook to inspire loathing in the souls of these self-same men. They had no claim upon the imagination or the sympathy of the eager crowd,—no such hold as this newcomer, the child born in their pockets, so to speak,—an expression first employed by an ardent champion of the impending infant in defending his righteous solicitude when it was attacked by a sophisticated and at the same time exasperated nurse.
Two bonfires were started in the open space known as “The Green.” The huge piles of twigs and branches had been thrown up earlier in the evening. They were in plain view of the “lookout” at the top of Split Mountain. It had been agreed that if it was a boy one fire was to be the signal; if a girl, two. The “watch” was to share in the glad tidings!
The cheering awoke Abel Landover from a sound sleep. He turned in his bunk and growled:
“The damned idiots!”
Mr. Landover did not like children. He declined to sit up half the night to find out “how things were going.” So he went to bed, knowing perfectly well that his three bunkies would come piling in at some outlandish hour and jabber about the “kid,” and he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep again for hours.
He was what is commonly known as a “grass widower.” His wife rather too promptly married inside of a month after leaving Reno, and, much to her own gratification and joy, proceeded to have three very desirable children within a period of five years, causing him a great deal of pain and annoyance for the reason that their father had once been regarded as his best friend,—and now he couldn't abide the sight of him. He hated children. Now you know the kind of a man he was.