The Captain of the Kansas | Page 8

is still visible. It is already assuming the semblance of a dream."
"You are not saying a last farewell to Valparaiso, I hope?" said her
elderly companion, as they quitted the salon.
"I think so. I have no ties there, save those of sentiment. I shall not
return, unless, if a doubtful fortune permits, I am able some day to
revisit two graves which are dear to me."
There was a little catch in her voice, and the doctor was far too
sympathetic to endeavor forthwith to divert her sad thoughts.
"I knew your father," he said gently. "He was a most admirable man,
but quite unsuited to the environment of a new country, where the
dollar is god, and an unstable deity at that. He was swindled
outrageously by men who stand high in the community to-day. But you,
Miss Maxwell, with your knowledge of Spanish and your other
acquirements, should do better here than in Europe, provided, that is,
you mean to earn your own living."
"I am proud to hear you speak well of my father," she said. "And I am
well aware that he was badly treated in business. I fear, too, that his
advocacy of the rights of the Indians brought him into disfavor. Of all
his possessions the only remnant left to me is a barren mountain, with a
slice of fertile valley, in the Quillota district. It yields me the
magnificent revenue of two hundred dollars per annum."

"How in the world did he come to own land there?"
"It was a gift from the Naquilla tribe. He defeated an attempt made to
oust them by a big land company. The company has since asked me to
sell the property, and offered me a fair price, too, as the cultivable land
is a very small strip, but it would be almost like betraying the cause for
which he fought, would it not?"
"Yes, indeed," agreed the doctor, though his heart and not his head
dictated the reply. "May I ask you to tell me your plans for the future?"
he went on.
"Well, when Mr. Baring heard I was going to England, he was good
enough to promise me employment in his London agency as Spanish
correspondent. That will fill in two days a week. The rest I can devote
to art. I paint a little, and draw with sufficient promise to warrant study,
I am told. Anyhow, I am weary of teaching; I prefer to be a pupil."
"I cannot imagine what the young men of Valparaiso were thinking of
to allow a girl like you to slip off in this fashion," said Christobal with a
smile.
"Most of them hold firmly to the belief that a wife's wedding-dress
should be made of gilt-edged scrip."
"Poor material--very poor material out of which to construct wedded
happiness. And as to my young friend, Isobel? She joins her aunt in
London, I hear?"
"That is the present arrangement. She means to have a good time,
especially in Paris. I should like to live in Paris myself. Dear old
smoke-laden London does not appeal so thoroughly to the artist. Yet, I
am content--yes, quite content."
"Then you have gained the best thing in the world," cried the doctor,
throwing out his arms expansively.
The two became good friends as the voyage progressed. Christobal was

exceedingly well informed, and delighted in a thoughtful listener like
Elsie. Isobel, tiring at times of the Count, would join in their
conversation, and display a spasmodic interest in the topics they
discussed. There were only six other passengers, a Baptist missionary
and his wife, three mining engineers, and an English globe-trotter, a
singular being who appeared to have roamed the entire earth, but whose
experiences were summed up in two words--every place he had seen
was either "Fair" or "Rotten."
Even Isobel failed to draw him further, and she said one day, in a
temper, after a spirited attempt to extract some of his stored
impressions: "The man reminds me of one of those dummy books you
see occasionally, bound in calf and labeled 'Gazetteer of the World.'
When you try to open a volume you find that it is made of wood."
So they nicknamed him "Mr. Wood," and Elsie once inadvertently
addressed him by the name.
"What do you think of the weather, Mr. Wood?" she asked him at
breakfast.
He chanced to notice that she was speaking to him.
"Rotten," he said.
Perhaps he wondered why Miss Maxwell flushed and the others
laughed. But, in actual fact, he was not far wrong in his curious choice
of an adjective that morning. Dr. Christobal's dismal foreboding had
been justified on the second day out. Leaden clouds, a sullen sea, and
occasional puffs of a stinging breeze from the southwest, offered