A Protégée of Jack Hamlins | Page 4

he had seen Stratton quickly slip off the
boat at the last landing stage. Ah! that was it; he had cast away and

deserted her. It was an old story. Jack smiled. But he was not greatly
amused with Stratton.
She was very pale, and seemed to be clinging to the network railing, as
if to support herself, although she was gazing fixedly at the yellow
glancing current below, which seemed to be sucked down and
swallowed in the paddle-box as the boat swept on. It certainly was a
fascinating sight--this sloping rapid, hurrying on to bury itself under the
crushing wheels. For a brief moment Jack saw how they would seize
anything floating on that ghastly incline, whirl it round in one awful
revolution of the beating paddles, and then bury it, broken and
shattered out of all recognition, deep in the muddy undercurrent of the
stream behind them.
She moved away presently with an odd, stiff step, chafing her gloved
hands together as if they had become stiffened too in her rigid grasp of
the railing. Jack leisurely watched her as she moved along the narrow
strip of deck. She was not at all to his taste,--a rather plump girl with a
rustic manner and a great deal of brown hair under her straw hat. She
might have looked better had she not been so haggard. When she
reached the door of the saloon she paused, and then, turning suddenly,
began to walk quickly back again. As she neared the spot where she
had been standing her pace slackened, and when she reached the railing
she seemed to relapse against it in her former helpless fashion. Jack
became lazily interested. Suddenly she lifted her head and cast a quick
glance around and above her. In that momentary lifting of her face Jack
saw her expression. Whatever it was, his own changed instantly; the
next moment there was a crash on the lower deck. It was Jack who had
swung himself over the rail and dropped ten feet, to her side. But not
before she had placed one foot in the meshes of the netting and had
gripped the railing for a spring.
The noise of Jack's fall might have seemed to her bewildered fancy as a
part of her frantic act, for she fell forward vacantly on the railing. But
by this time Jack had grasped her arm as if to help himself to his feet.
"I might have killed myself by that foolin', mightn't I?" he said
cheerfully.

The sound of a voice so near her seemed to recall to her dazed sense the
uncompleted action his fall had arrested. She made a convulsive bound
towards the railing, but Jack held her fast.
"Don't," he said in a low voice, "don't, it won't pay. It's the sickest game
that ever was played by man or woman. Come here!"
He drew her towards an empty stateroom whose door was swinging on
its hinges a few feet from them. She was trembling violently; he half
led, half pushed her into the room, closed the door and stood with his
back against it as she dropped into a chair. She looked at him vacantly;
the agitation she was undergoing inwardly had left her no sense of
outward perception.
"You know Stratton would be awfully riled," continued Jack easily.
"He's just stepped out to see a friend and got left by the fool boat. He'll
be along by the next steamer, and you're bound to meet him in
Sacramento."
Her staring eyes seemed suddenly to grasp his meaning. But to his
surprise she burst out with a certain hysterical desperation, "No! no!
Never! NEVER again! Let me pass! I must go," and struggled to regain
the door. Jack, albeit singularly relieved to know that she shared his
private sentiments regarding Stratton, nevertheless resisted her.
Whereat she suddenly turned white, reeled back, and sank in a dead
faint in the chair.
The gambler turned, drew the key from the inside of the door, passed
out, locking it behind him, and walked leisurely into the main saloon.
"Mrs. Johnson," he said gravely, addressing the stewardess, a tall
mulatto, with his usual winsome supremacy over dependents and
children, "you'll oblige me if you'll corral a few smelling salts,
vinaigrettes, hairpins, and violet powder, and unload them in deck
stateroom No. 257. There's a lady"--
"A lady, Marse Hamlin?" interrupted the mulatto, with an archly
significant flash of her white teeth.

"A lady," continued Jack with unabashed gravity, "in a sort of
conniption fit. A relative of mine; in fact a niece, my only sister's child.
Hadn't seen each other for ten years, and it was too much for her."
The woman glanced at him with a mingling of incredulous belief, but
delighted obedience, hurriedly gathered a few