"Mrs. Saltillo"! It was SHE, then, who was in the room! I drew nearer my door, which was still fixed ajar. Presently a voice,--Mrs. Saltillo's voice,--with a constrained laugh in it, came from behind the door: "Not a bit. I'll come down in a minute.""Do," persisted the would-be intruder. "It's all over now, but we're all going out into the garden; it's safer.""All right," answered Mrs. Saltillo. "Don't wait, dear. I'll follow. Run away, now."The visitor, who was evidently still nervous, was glad to hurry away, and I heard her retreating step on the staircase. The rattling of the door began again, and at last it seemed to yield to a stronger pull, and opened sufficiently to allow Mrs. Saltillo to squeeze through. I withdrew behind my door. I fancied that it creaked as she passed, as if, noticing it ajar, she had laid an inquiring hand upon it. I waited, but she was not followed by any one. I wondered if I had been mistaken. I was going to the bell-rope to summon assistance to move my own door when a sudden instinct withheld me. If there was any one still in that room, he might come from it just as the servant answered my call, and a public discovery would be unavoidable. I was right. In another instant the figure of a man, whose face I could not discern, slipped out of the room, passed my door, and went stealthily down the staircase.
Convinced of this, I resolved not to call public attention to my being in my own room at the time of the incident; so I did not summon any one, but, redoubling my efforts, I at last opened the door sufficiently to pass out, and at once joined the other guests in the garden. Already, with characteristic recklessness and audacity, the earthquake was made light of; the only dictate of prudence had resolved itself into a hilarious proposal to "camp out" in the woods all night, and have a "torch-light picnic." Even then preparations were being made for carrying tents, blankets, and pillows to the adjacent redwoods; dinner and supper, cooked at campfires, were to be served there on stumps of trees and fallen logs. The convulsion of nature had been used as an excuse for one of the wildest freaks of extravagance that Carquinez Springs had ever known. Perhaps that quick sense of humor which dominates the American male in exigencies of this kind kept the extravagances from being merely bizarre and grotesque, and it was presently known that the hotel and its menage were to be appropriately burlesqued by some of the guests, who, attired as Indians, would personate the staff, from the oracular hotel proprietor himself down to the smart hotel clerk.
During these arrangements I had a chance of drawing near Mrs.
Saltillo. I fancied she gave a slight start as she recognized me;but her greetings were given with her usual precision. "Have you been here long?" she asked.
"I have only just come," I replied laughingly; "in time for the shock.""Ah, you felt it, then? I was telling these ladies that our eminent geologist, Professor Dobbs, assured me that these seismic disturbances in California have a very remote centre, and are seldom serious.""It must be very satisfactory to have the support of geology at such a moment," I could not help saying, though I had not the slightest idea whose the figure was that I had seen, nor, indeed, had I recognized it among the guests. She did not seem to detect any significance in my speech, and I added: "And where is Enriquez?
He would enjoy this proposed picnic to-night.""Enriquez is at Salvatierra Rancho, which he lately bought from his cousin.""And the baby? Surely, here is a chance for you to hang him up on a redwood tonight, in his cradle.""The boy," said Mrs. Saltillo quickly, "is no longer in his cradle;he has passed the pupa state, and is now free to develop his own perfected limbs. He is with his father. I do not approve of children being submitted to the indiscriminate attentions of a hotel. I am here myself only for that supply of ozone indicated for brain exhaustion."She looked so pretty and prim in her gray dress, so like her old correct self, that I could not think of anything but her mental attitude, which did not, by the way, seem much like mental depression. Yet I was aware that I was getting no information of Enriquez's condition or affairs, unless the whole story told by the broker was an exaggeration. I did not, however, dare to ask more particularly.
"You remember Professor Dobbs?" she asked abruptly.
This recalled a suspicion awakened by my vision, so suddenly that Ifelt myself blushing. She did not seem to notice it, and was perfectly composed.
"I do remember him. Is he here?"
"He is; that is what makes it so particularly unfortunate for me.
You see, after that affair of the board, and Enriquez's withdrawal, although Enriquez may have been a little precipitate in his energetic way, I naturally took my husband's part in public; for although we preserve our own independence inviolable, we believe in absolute confederation as against society.""But what has Professor Dobbs to do with the board?" I interrupted.
