Part 14 (2/2)

A peal of laughter burst from the Indian princess. But it ceased suddenly. For the door was thrown open with such violence that it made Jane Cody's wax flowers shake apprehensively under their gla.s.s bell, and a figure stalked out such as might haunt a dream--long, gaunt, awkward, inescapably boyish, yet absurdly feminine, now that the dark calico wrapper flapped at its big, awkward heels and bound and hindered its long legs.

Split looked from the heavily shod feet to the round, short-shaven black head, and a premonitory giggle shook her.

”Don't you laugh--don't you dare laugh at me! Don't you, Split--will you?” The phrases burst from him, a threat at the beginning, an appeal at the end.

”No,” said Split, choking a bit; ”no, I won't. You don't look very--”

she gulped--”very funny, Jack. And it's getting so dark that n.o.body'd know--really they wouldn't.”

”Sure?”

Split nodded.

”Get your sled quick, the big, long one, the leg-breaker, and take me down--I'll tell you where. Get it, won't you?”

”In this, this--like this?” Jack faltered.

”It's so important, Jack. Please! It's always you that asks me, remember.”

The boy threw his hands out with a gesture that strained the narrow garment he wore almost to bursting. He began to talk, to argue, to plead; then suddenly he yielded, and turned and ran, a grotesque, long-legged shape, toward the back of the house.

When he whistled, Split joined him, and together they plowed their way through the high snow to the beaten-down street beyond. At the top of the hill, Split sat down well to the front of the low, rakish-looking leg-breaker. Behind her the boy, hitching up his skirts, threw himself with one knee bent beneath him, and, with a skilful ruddering of the other long, untrousered leg, started the sled.

They had coasted only half a block--Virginia City runs downhill--when they heard the shrill yelp of the Comstock boy on the trail of his prey.

As Jack stopped the sled a swift volley of s...o...b..a.l.l.s from a cross-street struck the figure of a tall, timid, stooping man in an old-fas.h.i.+oned cape, such as no Comstock boy had ever seen on anything masculine.

”It's Professor Trask,” breathed Irene, keen delight in persecution lending to her aggressive, bright face that savage sharpness of feature which Sissy Madigan called Indian. ”Don't you wish you hadn't got that dress on, Jack?” she asked, as the tall, black mark for a good shot still stood hesitating to cross the polished, steep street, down which many sleds had slipped for days past. ”You could get him every time, couldn't you?”

Despite the ign.o.ble garment that cramped it, the boy's breast swelled with pride in his lady's approval.

”You could just fire one at him from here, anyway,” suggested Irene, adaptable as her s.e.x is to contemporary standards and customs.

”Ye-es,” said the boy, hesitating; ”but he's such a poor old luny.”

Split turned her imperial little hooded head questioningly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”They had coasted only half a block”]

”He is--really luny,” said the boy, apologetically. ”Since his little girl wandered away one day from home and never came back, he gets spells, you know. He was telling ma one day when she went over to do his was.h.i.+ng. But--but I will land one on him if you want, Split.”

But Split had suddenly pivoted clear around and sat now facing him, an eager, mittened hand staying his hard, skilful, obedient fingers, already making the s...o...b..ll.

”How--how old would that little girl be, Jack?” she gasped.

”Why, 'bout twelve--thirteen. Why?”

”And what would be the color of her hair?”

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