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Page 43
THE FIGHT AT LA CASA BLANCA
It was something after six o'clock when Jim Galloway rode into San
Juan. Leaving his sweat-wet horse in his own stable at the rear of the
Casa Blanca he passed through the patio and into a little room whose
door he unlocked with a key from his pocket. For ten minutes he sat
before a typewriting machine, one big forefinger slowly picking out the
letters of a brief note. The address, also typed, bore the name of a
town below the border. Without signing his communication he sealed it
into its envelope and, relocking the door as he went out, walked
thoughtfully down the street to the post-office.
As he passed Struve's hotel he lifted his hat; upon the veranda at the
cooler, shaded end, Virginia was entertaining Florence Engle. Florrie
nodded brightly to Galloway, turning quickly to Virginia as the big man
went on.
"Do you actually believe, Virginia dear," she whispered, "that that man
is as wicked as they say he is? Did you watch him going by? Did you
see the way he took off his hat? Did you ever know a man to smile
quite as he does?"
"I don't believe," returned Virginia, "that I ever had him smile at me,
Florrie."
"His eyes are not bad eyes, are they?" Florrie ran on. "Oh, I know
what papa thinks and what Rod thinks about him; but I just don't
believe it! How could a man be the sort they say he is and still be as
pleasant and agreeable and downright good-looking as Mr. Galloway?
Why," and she achieved a quick little shudder, "if I had done all the
terrible deeds they accuse him of I'd go around looking as black as a
cloud all the time, savage and glum and remembering every minute how
wicked I was."
Virginia laughed, failing to picture Florrie grown murderous. But
Florrie merely pursed her lips as her eyes followed Galloway down the
street.
"I just ask you, Virginia Page," she said at last, sinking back into
the wide arms of her chair with a sigh, "if a man with murder and all
kinds of sin on his soul could make love prettily?"
Virginia started.
"You don't mean . . ." she began quickly.
Florrie laughed, but the other girl noted wonderingly a fresher tint of
color in her cool cheeks.
"Goosey!" Florrie tossed her head, drew her skirts down modestly over
her white-stockinged ankles and laughed again. "He never held my hand
and all that. But with his eyes. Is there any law against a man
saying nice things with his eyes? And how is a girl going to stop him?"
Virginia might have replied that here was a matter which depended very
largely upon the girl herself; but instead, estimating that there was
little serious love-making on Galloway's part to be apprehended and
taking Florrie as lightly as Florrie took the rest of the world, she
was merely further amused. And already she had learned to welcome
amusement of any sort in San Juan town.
But again here was Galloway, stopping now in front of Struve's, drawing
another quick, bright smile from the banker's daughter, accepting its
invitation and coming into the little yard and down the veranda. Only
when he fairly towered over the two girls did he push back the hat
which already he had touched to them, standing with his hands on his
hips, his heavy features bespeaking a deep inward serenity and quiet
good humor.
It would have required a blinder man than Jim Galloway not to have
marked the cool dislike and distrust in Virginia's eyes. But, though
he turned from them to the pink-and-white girl at her side, he gave no
sign of sensing that he was in any way unwelcome here.
He had greeted Virginia casually; she, observing him keenly, understood
what Florrie had meant by a man's making love with his eyes. His look,
directed downward into the face smiling up at him, was alive with what
was obviously a very genuine admiration. While Florrie allowed her
flattered soul to drink deep and thirstily of the wine of adulation
Virginia, only half understanding the writing in Galloway's eyes,
shivered a little and, leaning forward suddenly, put her hand on
Florrie's arm; the gesture, quick and spontaneous, meant nothing to
Florrie, nothing to Galloway, and a very great deal to Virginia Page.
For it was essentially protective; it served to emphasize in her own
mind a fear which until now had been a mere formless mist, a fear for
her frivolous little friend. Galloway's whole being was so expressive
of conscious power, Florrie's of vacillating impulsiveness, that it
required no considerable burden laid upon the imagination to picture
the girl coming if he called . . . if he called with the look in his
eyes now, with the tone he knew to put into his voice.
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