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"Now, you long-eared walrus, you're in a position to play fair. What are you going to do about it?" He reined away, out of Dirk's reach, took his handkerchief and wrapped his own gun tightly to protect it from sand, and threw it after Dirk's gun and the knife. "Am I a snooping coyote?" he demanded watching Dirk. "You air. More 'n all that, you're a damned spy!
She told us that Blanche seemed a little better, and she went in to ask if she would see her husband. We heard voices in the room in which she lay, and presently the nurse returned to say that the patient refused to see anyone. We had told her that if she refused to see Dirk the nurse was to ask if she would see me, but this she refused also. Dirk's lips trembled.
The misery which he had seen in Dirk's wretched hut haunted him. Hagar poured out the boy's cup of tea, waited a little space, then returned it to its steaming pot again. "Come, yer supper's cold 'nough, now, honey," said she, coming up to Noll's seat. "What ye waitin' fur? Oh, chile, ye grows more'n' more like yer poor father. T'inkin' ob de mis'ry ober dar; ain't ye?"
But neither was he a fool; he caught the emphasis which Dirk had placed on the word aimless, and his thoughts paused and took another look at Dirk's whole conversation. There was something queer about it, something which made Bud sheer off from his usual unthinking assurance that things were just what they seemed. Immediately, however, he laughed at himself as well as at Dirk.
"Hush! not another word," said his uncle, sternly. "If you have no regard for your life, I must have for you. Hagar is waiting at the door with your dry clothes. Are you ready for them?" Noll answered "Yes," his heart suddenly filled with a dreary recollection of the sight which he had seen in Dirk's miserable abode.
Could she face him! Well, why not for Dirk's sake? And if she refused and Dirk was done to death, would she not reproach herself, if she lived to remember it, because she had left a stone unturned? "Give me my cloak and veil," she said to the woman, "and now go tell the man that I am coming."
How do I know what she wanted you to have it for? Maybe she thought it matched your looks." There was a bitter sneer in Dirk's voice, yet all the time he heard the sweet, low voice saying, "That girl with the beautiful golden hair." Suppose he should tell Mart that? Why not? Let me tell you that Dirk Colson would not have repeated that sentence for the world! And yet he did not know why.
Then he ran along the hard, sandy beach as fast as the wind and his burden would let him. The Culm huts came in sight at last, cheerless and desolate, and with no sign of life or occupancy about them, save the faint smoke which the wind whirled down from the chimneys. Noll began to regard Dirk's habitation with anxious eyes long before he drew near.
He has appeared as the new governor of the gaol. I saw him this afternoon, I cannot be mistaken, although he has lost an eye and is much changed." Dirk's jaw dropped and his florid face whitened. "Juan de Montalvo!" he said. "I heard that he was dead long ago." "You are mistaken, husband, a devil never dies. He is seeking Brant's treasure, and he knows that we have its secret.
So, about half-past four one misty, lowery afternoon, he found himself in a little room in Dirk's dwelling, with ten dirty-faced, frowsy-headed children huddled together in one corner, each of them regarding him with wide-open eyes, and apparently without the remotest idea what they were there for.
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