In The Carquinez Woods | Page 5

he carried and some modern peculiarities of dress, he
was of a grace so unusual and unconventional that he might have
passed for a faun who was quitting his ancestral home. He stepped to
the side of the bear with a light elastic movement that was as unlike
customary progression as his face and figure were unlike the ordinary
types of humanity. Even as he leaned upon his rifle, looking down at
the prostrate animal, he unconsciously fell into an attitude that in any
other mortal would have been a pose, but with him was the picturesque
and unstudied relaxation of perfect symmetry.
"Hallo, Mister!"
He raised his head so carelessly and listlessly that he did not otherwise
change his attitude. Stepping from behind the tree, the woman of the
preceding night stood before him. Her hands were free except for a
thong of the riata, which was still knotted around one wrist, the end of
the thong having been torn or burnt away. Her eyes were bloodshot,
and her hair hung over her shoulders in one long black braid.
"I reckoned all along it was YOU who shot the bear," she said; "at least
some one hiding yer," and she indicated the hollow tree with her hand.
"It wasn't no chance shot." Observing that the young man, either from
misconception or indifference, did not seem to comprehend her, she
added, "We came by here, last night, a minute after you fired."
"Oh, that was YOU kicked up such a row, was it?" said the young man,
with a shade of interest.
"I reckon," said the woman, nodding her head, "and them that was with
me."
"And who are they?"
"Sheriff Dunn, of Yolo, and his deputy."
"And where are they now?"

"The deputy--in h-ll, I reckon; I don't know about the sheriff."
"I see," said the young man quietly; "and you?"
"I--got away," she said savagely. But she was taken with a sudden
nervous shiver, which she at once repressed by tightly dragging her
shawl over her shoulders and elbows, and folding her arms defiantly.
"And you're going?"
"To follow the deputy, may be," she said gloomily. "But come, I say,
ain't you going to treat? It's cursed cold here."
"Wait a moment." The young man was looking at her, with his arched
brows slightly knit and a half smile of curiosity. "Ain't you Teresa?"
She was prepared for the question, but evidently was not certain
whether she would reply defiantly or confidently. After an exhaustive
scrutiny of his face she chose the latter, and said, "You can bet your life
on it, Johnny."
"I don't bet, and my name isn't Johnny. Then you're the woman who
stabbed Dick Curson over at Lagrange's?"
She became defiant again.
"That's me, all the time. What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing. And you used to dance at the Alhambra?" She whisked the
shawl from her shoulders, held it up like a scarf, and made one or two
steps of the sembicuacua. There was not the least gayety, recklessness,
or spontaneity in the action; it was simply mechanical bravado. It was
so ineffective, even upon her own feelings, that her arms presently
dropped to her side, and she coughed embarrassedly. "Where's that
whiskey, pardner?" she asked.
The young man turned toward the tree he had just quitted, and without
further words assisted her to mount to the cavity. It was an
irregular-shaped vaulted chamber, pierced fifty feet above by a shaft or

cylindrical opening in the decayed trunk, which was blackened by
smoke, as if it had served the purpose of a chimney. In one corner lay a
bearskin and blanket; at the side were two alcoves or indentations, one
of which was evidently used as a table, and the other as a cupboard. In
another hollow, near the entrance, lay a few small sacks of flour, coffee,
and sugar, the sticky contents of the latter still strewing the floor. From
this storehouse the young man drew a wicker flask of whiskey, and
handed it, with a tin cup of water, to the woman. She waved the cup
aside, placed the flask to her lips, and drank the undiluted spirit. Yet
even this was evidently bravado, for the water started to her eyes, and
she could not restrain the paroxysm of coughing that followed.
"I reckon that's the kind that kills at forty rods," she said, with a
hysterical laugh. "But I say, pardner, you look as if you were fixed here
to stay," and she stared ostentatiously around the chamber. But she had
already taken in its minutest details, even to observing that the hanging
strips of bark could be disposed so as to completely hide the entrance.
"Well, yes," he replied; "it wouldn't be very easy to pull up the