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The wounded sailor had fainted and slipped to the deck. Jeremy saw the saddle-colored mate step swiftly to one side, then come up from behind the mast, drawing a long dirk from his sash as he neared Job's back. He had lifted the knife and was stepping in for a blow, when Jeremy pulled the trigger of his musket.
In place of roughs and rowdies staring and blackguarding on the corners, I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island maidens sitting on the ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing indolently at whatever or whoever happened along; instead of wretched cobble-stone pavements, I walked on a firm foundation of coral, built up from the bottom of the sea by the absurd but persevering insect of that name, with a light layer of lava and cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of fathomless perdition long ago through the seared and blackened crater that stands dead and harmless in the distance now; instead of cramped and crowded street-cars, I met dusky native women sweeping by, free as the wind, on fleet horses and astride, with gaudy riding-sashes, streaming like banners behind them; instead of the combined stenches of Chinadom and Brannan street slaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy fragrance of jessamine, oleander, and the Pride of India; in place of the hurry and bustle and noisy confusion of San Francisco, I moved in the midst of a Summer calm as tranquil as dawn in the Garden of Eden; in place of the Golden City's skirting sand hills and the placid bay, I saw on the one side a frame-work of tall, precipitous mountains close at hand, clad in refreshing green, and cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like valleys and in front the grand sweep of the ocean; a brilliant, transparent green near the shore, bound and bordered by a long white line of foamy spray dashing against the reef, and further out the dead blue water of the deep sea, flecked with "white caps," and in the far horizon a single, lonely sail a mere accent-mark to emphasize a slumberous calm and a solitude that were without sound or limit.
We're plumb sixty miles from Tutt an' the boys, an' ridin' herd on this yere saddle-colored gent, a-keepin' of him from lopin' off, is mighty likely to be a heap exhaustin'. I knows men, Jack remarks at the close, lookin' wistful at Enright, 'as would beef him right yere an' leave him as a companion piece to that compadre of his you downs.
If she were anything to me, though, I should hate to trust her anywhere near that saddle-colored scoundrel. He's a thoroughly bad lot, and will bear watching." Rena, however, was serenely ignorant of any danger from the accommodating Wain. Absorbed in her own thoughts and plans, she had not sought to look beneath the surface of his somewhat overdone politeness.
She had always avowed that she had been a "likely gal," but we had to take her word for this, as she had very slender claims to "likelihood" if the word suits hers in our remembrance. She was nearly a mulatto very "light gingerbread," or "saddle-colored" and a widow of some years' standing.
Grandfather Farrel is the fellow to whom I am indebted for my saddle-colored complexion." "Siberia has bleached you considerably. I should say you're an ordinary brunet now." Farrel removed his overseas cap and ran long fingers through his hair. "If I had a strain of Indian in me, sir," he explained, "my hair would be straight, thick, coarse, and blue-black.
Through the saddle-colored hordes on the moot ground of the narrow sidewalks moves an occasional Anglo-Saxon resident, browned and sallowed, on his way to the government concession that he manages; a less occasional Anglo-Saxoness, browned and marked with the seal that the tropics put upon every woman who braves their rigors for more than a brief period; and a sprinkling of tourists in groups, flying on cheek, brow, and nose the stark red of their newness to the climate.
"'Yo tambien, yells a Mexican over near the door. "'Put that Greaser out! shouts Enright, at the same time bangin' the table. 'This ain't no international incident at all, an' nothin' but the clean-strain American wolf is eligible to howl. "The Greaser goes out on his saddle-colored head, an' Enright puts Boggs's motion.
"Oh, there'd be room for them everywhere," laughed Garnet, "for as far as our young folks are concerned, the whole thing would be a complete frazzle. Why, you take a graceless young fellow, say like John March. How are you going to get him to come up here and kneel down amongst a lot of black and saddle-colored bucks and wenches? I word it his way, you understand.
"No?" cried John Parker, feigning profound amazement. "Es verdad. Eet ees true, señor. Those boy hee's happy, no? Eh?" "Apparently." "You bet you my life. Well, las' night those boy hee's peench weeth his thumb an' theese fingair what you suppose?" "I give it up, Pablo." Pablo wiped away with a saddle-colored paw a benignant and paternal smile. He wagged his head and scuffed his heel in the dirt.
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