A Touch of Sun and Other Stories | Page 6

animals.
"But as the train moved out it appeared he had appropriated something of greater value--a young girl, also a thoroughbred.
"It did not need the gossip of the train-hands to suggest that this was an elopement of a highly sensational kind. Father was indignant at the jokes. You know it is a saying with the common sort of people that in California elopements become epidemic at certain seasons of the year--like earthquake shocks or malaria. The man was handsome in a primitive way--worlds beneath the girl, who was simply and tragically a lady. Father sat in the same car with them, opposite their section. It grew upon him by degrees that she was slowly awakening, as one who has been drugged, to a stupefied consciousness of her situation. He thought there might still be room for help at the crisis of her return to reason (I mean all this in a spiritual sense), and so he kept near them. They talked but little together. The girl seemed stunned, as I say, by physical exhaustion or that dawning comprehension in which your father fancied he recognized the tragic element of the situation.
"The young man was outwardly self-possessed, as horsemen are, but he seemed constrained with the girl. They had no conversation, no topics in common. He kept his place beside her, often watching her in silence, but he did not obtrude himself. She appeared to have a certain power over him, even in her helplessness, but it was slipping from her. In her eyes, as they rested upon him in the hot daylight, your father believed that he saw a wild and gathering repulsion. So he kept near them.
"The train was late, having waited at Colfax two hours for the Eastern Overland, else they would have been left, those two, and your father--but such is fate!
"It was ten o'clock when they reached Oakland. He lost the pair for a moment in the crowd going aboard the boat, but saw the girl again far forward, standing alone by the rail. He strolled across the deck, not appearing to have seen her. She moved a trifle nearer; with her eyes on the water, speaking low as if to herself, she said:--
"'I am in great danger. Will you help me? If you will, listen, but do not speak or come any nearer. Be first, if you can, to go ashore; have a carriage ready, and wait until you see me. There will be a moment, perhaps--only a moment. Do not lose it. You understand? He, too, will have to get a carriage. When he comes for me I shall be gone. Tell the driver to take me to--' she gave the number of a well-known residence on Van Ness Avenue.
"He looked at her then, and said quietly, 'The Benedet house is closed for the summer.'
"She hung her head at the name. 'Promise me your silence!' she implored in the same low, careful voice.
"'I will protect you in every way consistent with common sense,' your father answered, 'but I make no promises.'
"'I am at your mercy,' she said, and added, 'but not more than at his.'
"'Is this a case of conspiracy or violence?' your father asked.
"She shook her head. 'I cannot accuse him. I came of my own free will. That is why I am helpless now.'
"'I do not see how I can help you,' said father.
"'You can help me to gain time. One hour is all I ask. Will you or not?' she said. 'Be quick! He is coming.'
"'I must go with you, then,' your father answered, 'I will take you to this address, but I need not tell you the house is empty.'
"'There are people in the coachman's lodge,' she answered. Then her companion approached, and no more was said.
"But the counter-elopement was accomplished as only your father could manage such a matter on the spur of the moment--consequences accepted with his usual philosophy and bonhomie. If he could have foreseen all the consequences, he would not, I think, have refused to give her his name.
"He left her at the side entrance, where she rang and was admitted by an oldish, respectable looking man, who recognized her evidently with the greatest surprise. Then your father carried out her final order to wire Norwood Benedet, Jr., at Burlingame, to come home that night to the house address and save--she did not say whom or what; there she broke off, demanding that your father compose a message that should bring him as sure as life and death, but tell no tales. I do not know how she may have put it--these are my own words.
"There was a paragraph in one newspaper, next morning, which gave the girl's full name, and a fancy sketch of her elopement with the famous range-rider Dick Malaby. This was just after