said quietly, “and fifty if you get me over in time to catch the down stage.”
The man glanced at Clarence’s eyes. “Run up and rouse out Jake and Sam,” he said to the other boatman; then more leisurely, gazing at his customer’s travel-stained equipment, he said, “There must have been a heap o’ passengers got left by last night’s boat. You’re the second man that took this route in a hurry.”
At any other time the coincidence might have struck Clarence. But he only answered curtly, “Unless we are under way in ten minutes you will find I am NOT the second man, and that our bargain’s off.”
But here two men emerged from the shanty beside the ferryhouse, and tumbled sleepily into the boat. Clarence seized an extra pair of sculls that were standing against the shed, and threw them into the stern. “I don’t mind taking a hand myself for exercise,” he said quietly.
The ferryman glanced again at Clarence’s travel-worn figure and determined eyes with mingled approval and surprise. He lingered a moment with his oars lifted, looking at his passenger. “It ain’t no business o’ mine, young man,” he said deliberately, “but I reckon you understand me when I say that I’ve just taken another man over there.”
“I do,” said Clarence impatiently.
“And you still want to go?”
“Certainly,” replied Clarence, with a cold stare, taking up his oars.
The man shrugged his shoulders, bent himself for the stroke, and the boat sprung forward. The others rowed strongly and rapidly, the tough ashen blades springing like steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming to leap in successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of the bay. Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly over his oar; the ferryman and his crew rowed in equal panting silence; a few startled ducks whirred before them, but dropped again to rest. In half an hour they were at the Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. Clarence’s eyes were eagerly bent for the first appearance of the stage-coach around the little promontory; the ferryman was as eagerly scanning the bare, empty street of the still sleeping settlement.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” said the ferryman with a glance, half of astonishment and half of curiosity, at his solitary passenger.
“See whom?” asked Clarence carelessly, as he handed the man his promised fee.
“The other man I ferried over to catch the stage. He must have gone on without waiting. You’re in luck, young fellow!”
“I don’t understand you,” said Clarence impatiently. “What has your previous passenger to do with me?”
“Well, I reckon you know best. He’s the kind of man, gin’rally speaking, that other men, in a pow’ful hurry, don’t care to meet—and, az a rule, don’t FOLLER arter. It’s gin’rally the other way.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Clarence sternly. “Of whom are you speaking?”
“The Chief of Police of San Francisco!”
CHAPTER II
The laugh that instinctively broke from Clarence’s lips was so sincere and unaffected that the man was disconcerted, and at last joined in it, a little shamefacedly. The grotesque blunder of being taken as a fugitive from justice relieved Clarence’s mind from its acute tension,—he was momentarily diverted,—and it was not until the boatman had departed, and he was again alone, that it seemed to have any collateral significance. Then an uneasy recollection of Susy’s threat that she had the power to put his wife in Fort Alcatraz came across him. Could she have already warned the municipal authorities and this man? But he quickly remembered that any action from such a warning could only have been taken by the United States Marshal, and not by a civic official, and dismissed the idea.
Nevertheless, when the stage with its half-spent lamps still burning dimly against the morning light swept round the curve and rolled heavily up to the rude shanty which served as coach-office, he became watchful. A single yawning individual in its doorway received a few letters and parcels, but Clarence was evidently the ONLY waiting passenger. Any hope that he might have entertained that his mysterious predecessor would emerge from some seclusion at that moment was disappointed. As he entered the coach he made a rapid survey of his fellow-travelers, but satisfied himself that the stranger was not among them. They were mainly small traders or farmers, a miner or two, and apparently a Spanish-American of better degree and personality. Possibly the circumstance that men of this class usually preferred to travel on horseback and were rarely seen in public conveyances attracted his attention, and their eyes met more than once in mutual curiosity. Presently Clarence addressed a remark to the stranger in Spanish; he replied fluently and courteously, but at the next stopping-place he asked a question of the expressman in an unmistakable Missouri accent. Clarence’s curiosity was satisfied; he was evidently one of those early American settlers who had been so long domiciled in Southern California as to adopt the speech as well as the habiliments of the Spaniard.
The conversation fell upon the political news of the previous night, or rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, more excited discussion, in which one of the contestants—a red-bearded miner—had subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with a certain courtesy and said,—
“And what, sir, is the political feeling in YOUR district?”
But Clarence was in no mood to be drawn out, and replied, almost curtly, that as he had come only from San Francisco, they were probably as well informed on that subject as himself. A quick and searching glance from the stranger’s eye made him regret his answer, but in the silence that ensued the red-bearded miner, evidently still rankling at heart, saw his opportunity. Slapping his huge hands on his knees, and leaning far forward until he seemed to plunge his flaming beard, like a firebrand, into the controversy, he said grimly,—
“Well, I kin tell you, gen’l’men, THIS. It ain’t goin’ to be no matter wot’s the POLITICAL FEELING here or thar—it ain’t goin’ to be no matter wot’s the State’s rights and wot’s Fed’ral rights—it ain’t goin’ to be no question whether the gov’ment’s got the right to relieve its own soldiers that those Secesh is besieging in Fort Sumter or whether they haven’t—but the first gun that’s fired at the flag blows the chains off every d—n nigger south of Mason and Dixon’s line! You hear me! I’m shoutin’! And whether you call yourselves ‘Secesh’ or ‘Union’ or ‘Copperhead’ or ‘Peace men,’ you’ve got to face it!”
There was an angry start in one or two of the seats; one man caught at the swinging side-strap and half rose, a husky voice began, “It’s a d–d”—and then all as suddenly subsided. Every eye was turned to an insignificant figure in the back seat. It was a woman, holding a child on her lap, and gazing out of the window with her sex’s profound unconcern in politics. Clarence understood the rude chivalry of the road well enough to comprehend that this unconscious but omnipotent figure had more than once that day controlled the passions of the disputants. They dropped back weakly to their seats, and their mutterings rolled off in the rattle of the wheels. Clarence glanced at the Missourian; he was regarding the red-bearded miner with a singular curiosity.
The rain had ceased, but the afternoon shadows were deepening when they at last reached Fair Plains, where Clarence expected to take horse to the Rancho. He was astonished, however, to learn that all the horses in the stable were engaged, but remembering that some of his own stock were in pasturage with a tenant at Fair Plains, and that he should
