you got clean away. Went off in a ship--"
"Went off in a boat to a ship," interrupted Tucker savagely; "went off
to a ship that had all my things on board--everything. The cursed boat
capsized in a squall just off the Heads. The ship, d--n her, sailed
away, the men thinking I was drowned, likely, and that they'd make a
good thing off my goods, I reckon."
"But the girl, Inez, who was with you, didn't she make a row?"
"Quien sabe?" returned Tucker, with a reckless laugh. "Well, I hung
on like grim death to that boat's keel until one of those Chinese
fishermen, in a 'dug-out,' hauled me in opposite Saucelito. I chartered
him and his dug-out to bring me down here."
"Why here?" asked Patterson, with a certain ostentatious caution that
ill-concealed his pensive satisfaction.
"You may well ask," returned Tucker, with an equal ostentation of
bitterness, as he slightly waved his companion away. "But I reckoned I
could trust a white man that I'd been kind to, and who wouldn't go back
on me. No, no, let me go! Hand me over to the sheriff!"
Patterson had suddenly grasped both the hands of the picturesque scamp
before him, with an affection that for an instant almost shamed the man
who had ruined him. But Tucker's egotism whispered that this affection
was only a recognition of his own superiority, and felt flattered. He
was beginning to believe that he was really the injured party.
"What I HAVE and what I have HAD is yours, Spence," returned Patterson,
with a sad and simple directness that made any further discussion a
gratuitous insult. "I only wanted to know what you reckoned to do here."
"I want to get over across the Coast Range to Monterey," said Tucker.
"Once there, one of those coasting schooners will bring me down to
Acapulco, where the ship will put in."
Patterson remained silent for a moment. "There's a mustang in the corral
you can take--leastways, I shan't know that it's gone--until to-morrow
afternoon. In an hour from now," he added, looking from the window,
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