The Black Pearl

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

She almost flew down the hill after that, and Seagreave, his face suddenly set in lines of determination, kept pace with her. He had noticed, even if she had not, that those two motionless figures at the bridge had not advanced one step to meet her, but were maintaining an attitude portentously watchful, it seemed to him, and boding ill for the warmth and spontaneity of the welcome she so evidently expected.

But Pearl appeared to see nothing of this, and as she drew near the two who awaited her, she would have flown like a bird into her father's arms. But before she could throw her arms about him he caught her wrists and pushed her back a step or two anything but gently.

"Why weren't you down at the bridge last night?" he asked sternly. The old man had changed since the avalanche. There were anxious deep hollows about his eyes which were at once brighter and more sunken than ever. His parchment skin looked livid and lifeless and his mouth had tightened until it was drawn in and pinched.

"Why weren't you down at the gully waiting for us?" he asked again. "The bridge was across at midnight. The boys have been working night and day to get you out, and this is the way you act, hiding up there in that cabin like you'd as lief stay there as not."

"Yes, Pearl, why weren't you down to meet us?" Bob Flick spoke for the first time, his slow, soft voice was placating and yet it was evident that his sympathies were with Gallito. "The boys had the place all lit up with torches while they worked, and your Pop and I waited half the night for you down here. Why didn't you come?" Neither of the men had so far even glanced at Seagreave, but ignored him as thoroughly as if he were not there.

Pearl looked at Flick a moment in frowning incomprehension. Petted, spoiled child that she was, she could not bear to be scolded where she had expected a rapturous welcome. From Flick to her father she glanced, and then back again. "What's the matter with you two?" she cried. "Are you mad just because I didn't come chasing down the hill in the dead of night? How did I know that the boys were going to get the bridge across at midnight?"

"Because, if you'd been the sort of girl you ought to be, you wouldn't have stayed a minute longer in that cabin than you could have helped. You'd have stood down by the gully all night long just to show the folks in the camp that you wouldn't stay in that cabin after there was any chance at all for you to get away," Gallito answered her before Bob Flick got a chance. "What made you stay up there? You and him, too," he pointed one, long, gnarled forefinger at Seagreave, "have got to answer me that question. And there's another one, too, and you'll answer it."

Again Pearl stared at him, and again she turned her puzzled eyes on Bob Flick. Then, as the meaning of their attitude flashed over her, she fell back a pace or two, her face grown white. "Dios!" she murmured, with stiff lips, a sob rising in her throat.

Then she tossed high her head in hot resentment. Her mouth was set in a thin scarlet line of obstinacy, her eyes burned, but their expression was unreadable. With a slow movement of her body, expressing infinite scorn, she swung away from her father and her lover and, with her eyes upon the far, blue ranges, superbly ignored them.

Bob Flick shot a warning glance at Gallito, who was about to speak, and took a hasty step forward. "Look here, Pearl," he said conciliatingly, "don't mind your Pop. The strain on him's been awful. It's been hard on all of us. You sure gave us some terrible days, not knowing whether you were alive or dead, but we all kind of figured from the direction that the snow-slide took that it missed the cabin, and we wouldn't believe anything else but that you were as much alive as ever and as anxious to see us as we were to see you. And, Pearl, listen," striving to divert her gaze from those dim, blue ranges, "we ain't been idle. There's some great news for you. You tell her, Gallito."