"Oh! did he refuse that valuable information in regard to the resources of California?" asked Mrs. Clayton, with mingled indignation and concern.
Mrs. Bradshaw was bubbling over with laughter, while the rest of the ladies shared her mirth more or less openly, according to the degree of friendship entertained for Miss Kingsley.
When the party rounded the last bend near the spring, a tall, spare man, conspicuous in a generous expanse of white shirt-bosom, and low, stiff-brimmed hat, hastily laid down the drinking-cup, and moved out of sight, making the circuit of the bath-houses in his anxiety to avoid the advancing column of fair ones. Uncle George was on hand, as usual, smilingly filling glasses and dippers with the boiling waters, trying between whiles to answer the numerous questions propounded, mostly in regard to the retreating form disappearing among the manzanite on the hillside.
"It's the gentleman from Siskiyou." The words were addressed to Mrs. Clayton, who was blowing little puffs of wind into the glass in her hand, and seemed to have no interest in common with the eager, laughing crowd about. "He and his pardner are both here; they own placer-mines on Yreka Flats, and came here because the gentleman's liver is affected. They're a funny couple—never speak to no ladies, and ain't sociable like, only among themselves. His pardner—there he is now, going up after him," pointing to a low-built, square-shouldered man, with black, bushy eyebrows—"waits on him like a woman, and no two brothers couldn't be more affectionate. His pardner told me his own self that when they first came together, eighteen years ago, he got into a row at Placerville—used to be Hangtown, then—and they were firing into him thick and fast after he was down, when Mr. Brodie stepped in, picked him up and carried him to their cabin, and nussed him till he was well again. You see he limps a little yet; but then Mr. Brodie was the only doctor he had, and he says it's a wonder to him he has any legs left at all, he was so riddled with shot."
Sufficient water having been drank, the ladies wended their way back, scattering as they approached the hotel building—generally spoken of as "the house"—which contained parlor, dining and assembly rooms. Some sought their cottages, others climbed the hill-sides, while still others visited the little stream rushing along through the green depths that the stage-road overhung. Some had escorts, others went alone, or formed groups of three or four; and all gave themselves up to the enjoyment of that perfect freedom which makes the stay at these California watering-places a recreation and a holiday.
As the heat of the sun became more oppressive, the stragglers returned; and the closed window-blinds of the cottages spoke of an unusually warm day for the season. This, however, did not forbid the ushering in of the next day with an extra heavy fog, which dripped from the eaves like rain, and made more penetrating the wind that came in surly gusts and rudely swept back the end of the shawl thrown Spanish-fashion over Mrs. Clayton's shoulder. Her right hand grasped a bottle filled with water from the Springs; and the left, hidden until now under the shawl, was bound up in a white cloth. The wind had carried her hat away, too; and after looking helplessly around, she deposited the bottle on the bench nearest her, and gave chase to the runaway. But the hat was suddenly held up before her, and the bottle taken from the bench. It was the gentleman from Siskiyou, who stammered something she did not understand, and to which she replied sweetly and plaintively, "Thank you, ever so much. I am so helpless with that hand. I sprained it some weeks ago, falling from a carriage, and did not know how bad it was till the doctors sent me here. I must have hurt it again yesterday; and now I've got to go about like a cripple." The voice was like a child's; and a half sob seemed to rise in her throat as she spoke the last words, and a tell-tale moisture shone in her eyes.
He had awkwardly set the bottle back on the bench; and when she prepared to move on, he bent over to seize the bottle and carry it for her. In his nervousness he did not heed that she, too, was stooping forward; and only when their heads came in contact did he realize how near he had stood to her. A deep scarlet overspread his sallow face, while Mrs. Clayton said, "Oh, will you carry the bottle for me? Thanks. I wanted to bathe my hand, and was afraid to go more than once through the fog and wind."
They reached the cottage, where he deposited the bottle on the door-steps, and withdrew with a somewhat awkward, but perfectly chivalrous bow.
After breakfast, when the ground was still too wet to walk out, Jenny, sitting in the low rocking-chair by the open door, was startled by footsteps crunching under the window; and a moment later Mr. Brodie placed a bottle at her feet.
"I thought it might be better for your wrist to have the water hot to bathe it in; that's just from the spring, and I walked fast." In spite of the unvarnished speech, there was something about the man that made it plain to her why people involuntarily spoke of him as "the gentleman," when his partner was always spoken of merely as his partner.