The Black Pearl | Page 5

quick enough to size up a man and a situation. "I'll make a note to look out for you," he thought, "just about as cold and just about as deadly as a rattler."
"Say," he turned to Jimmy again, "I want to meet her. I'm a theatrical manager, always looking out for new turns. Heard of this Black Pearl and thought I'd run down and sign her up if I could."
"She does go traveling once in a while," returned Jimmy dubiously, "but it's all in the mood she's in whether she'll let you even talk to her. You might as well count on the desert out there as the Pearl."
"I suppose she's out for big money?" queried Hanson.
"She'll get all she can, I guess," Jimmy chuckled. "But," he added boastfully, "she can make big money by staying right here. Look at what she's pulled in to-night. And there's her father, old Gallito, he's got more than one good 'prospect,' and is foreman beside of one of the big mines in the mountains. And her mother, there, that played the violin, she's got some nice irrigated land, and even Hughie, that played, he makes money playing for dances in the different towns. Oh, they're smart folks."
"Is Hughie the brother?" asked Hanson, looking at the boy, who sat listlessly at the piano.
"No. Adopted." Jimmy spoke briefly. "Born blind, but let me tell you, he sees considerable more than those of us who have eyes."
"Well, the Pearl's a certain winner," said the manager earnestly, "a flower of the desert, a what-you-may-call-'em, a cactus bloom."
"Correct, and don't forget the spines," chuckled Jimmy. "Looks as if they were all out to-night, too. Kind of sulky, ain't she? Well, did you say you was waitin' to be introduced? I'll take you up and ask her. Like as not, she'll turn you down. She ain't looked at you once, I notice. I been watching her."
"So've I," said Hanson good humoredly, "but you're wrong, son"--there was a brief, triumphant flash of his light eyes--"she's looked at me twice, took me all in, too. Numbered the hairs of my head and the size of my shoes. Threw a search light on my heart and soul. Gee! It felt like the violet rays. Now, look here, friend, I ain't going to take chances on a turn-down, nor of your Mr. Bob Flick having fun all night shooting holes in the floor while this little Johnny Tenderfoot does his imitation Black Pearl dancing. Listen," he tapped the bar sharply, "when I meet the Black Pearl, it's because she requested an introduction. You take me up to that old lion tamer, her mother."
Jimmy threw him a glance of ungrudging admiration. "You ain't so dumb," he vouchsafed. "Say, have one on me."
"A little later," replied the other. "Never drink during business hours."
A small table had been placed before Mrs. Gallito, upon which were two glasses, one of beer for herself, and one of lemonade for her daughter.
As Jimmy performed the introduction, she put down her beer from which she had been somewhat thirstily drinking and received Hanson with a perfunctory bow and a brief mechanical smile. "Think of settling here?" she asked politely.
"No, I'm just down for a few days," replied Hanson genially. He had drawn a chair up and seated himself on the other side of the table, directly opposite Mrs. Gallito and her daughter.
The surprise of the glance she threw at him was heightened by a quick curiosity. "Just prospecting?" she asked. "I saw at once that you weren't a 'lunger.' I didn't think you were an engineer, so I made up my mind that you were looking for land."
"None of them," returned Hanson, smiling, and hastened to inform her of his real calling. Immediately she relaxed, her smile became genuine, the bored and constrained politeness vanished from her manner.
"Well, that is certainly nice," she exclaimed with real animation and cordiality. "I'm always glad to meet any of the profession. No folks like your own folks, you know." She bridled a little.
"That's so," agreed Hanson heartily. "I knew the minute that I saw you that you belonged."
She lifted her head with a gesture of pride, the glow and color came back into her face, giving it a transitory appearance of youth, and restoring, for a fugitive moment, something of its vanishing beauty.
"Born to it," she said. "My mother and her mother, and my father and his father, and, 'way back on both sides, was all circus people. Yes, I was born in the sawdust--rode--drove--tight-rope--trapeze--learned dancing on the side--ambitious, you know. Say, you must have heard of my mother--greatest bare-back rider ever in the ring. Isobel Montmorenci. English, you know. I wasn't so shy myself, Queenie Madrew."
"Gee! Well, you were some. Shake." Hanson extended his hand, which Mrs. Gallito shook warmly. "And I