The She Boss: A Western Story Read online

  CHAPTER III

  SAN FRANCISCO

  The train that carried Hiram Hooker to San Francisco was late. Thirtymiles from the bay it began making up for lost time. Through thefalling dusk it roared toward the metropolis. Slowly the landscapefaded. Vineyards and chicken ranches and orchards and rolling hillsstudded with live oaks gave place to the electric-lighted tentacles ofthe city. The lights blinked by at Hiram. They helped depress him,for they were a part of the modernity that he feared. Suburbs grew toa continuous stretch of lighted streets and houses. Always thoselights blinked on every side. There was witchery in all of it--in thesmell of the city close at hand, in the cold salt air from the bay, inthe _chunk-a-lunk_, _chunk-a-lunk_ of the speeding locomotive.

  Hiram sat forward on the seat, eager, shrinking, exultant, alwaysstraining while he shrank. He tried to plan, but could not. Nightclosed in, and all that he saw now were the blinking lights that racedastern. Off in the black sky to the southward a rosy light suffusedthe night--San Francisco.

  "Saus-a-lito! Everybody change! Don't forget yer baggage!"

  Hiram was swept out with the crowd, swept through the chute to theferryboat, swept aboard. He followed the crowd forward and stood inthe bow. Black as ink the Bay of San Francisco stretched before him.Like fireflies the lights of vessels scurried through the blackness.Beyond the black water blinked the countless eyes of San Francisco,above these the rosy glow which had beckoned since the fall of dusk.

  The boat had started before Hiram was aware. Smoothly it slipped alongtoward the beacons on the other shore. Hiram breathed the keen saltbreeze in gulps and looked steadily and curiously at the world thatwaited for him. Somewhere there, perhaps, the girl of his dreams wasbeckoning, and begging him not to be afraid. The boat nosed into herslip and the crowd swept him ashore, swept him through the FerryBuilding, and, as it went its thousand ways, left him stranded, staringunbelievingly up Market Street.

  Ten minutes he stood there. Thousands pressed by him. The laughterand grumblings of life buzzed in his uncomprehending ears. No onenoticed him. The continuous _clang-clang-clang_ of the street carsgrew to a rhythmic roar. Strange odors filled his nostrils. What heldhim most was the lights--the myriad lights that blinked away inperspective up Market Street, clusters of them, pillars of them, wheelsof them, stars and squares of them. They all blended into a shower ofdiamonds and held him spellbound. Then the clang of the street cars,the clatter of hoofs on cobbles, the crunch of wheels, the raucoustoots of automobile horns and the purring of the engines, the ceaselesslaughing and murmuring of the crowds, the unfamiliar odors all blendedwith the lights, and Hiram Hooker was breathing life, and knew that itwas warm, knew that he loved it, and was unafraid!

  At last he sighed and began warily crossing the street from the FerryBuilding to Market Street. He had read of country boys in the city.He knew enough not to stand in the street and stare. He wisely keptwith a crowd while crossing, and made their experience in braving thedangers of traffic protect him. He reached the other curb in safetyand started up the long, broad street.

  Hiram Hooker will never forget that night. Not once after leaving thewater front did he know his location, and it would have mattered littleif he had. He walked on and on untiringly through an entrancing dream.He was alone in a great museum--the other human beings were not fellowspectators, but specimens on exhibition.

  The beauty of the women fascinated him. Never in his wildestimaginings had he fancied such forms and faces. The most beautifulgirl in Bear Valley bore the face of a gargoyle compared with the soft,creamy faces he saw that night. The flashing, long-lashed eyes, thered lips, the coils on coils of fluffy hair, the swishing silk,unfamiliar furs, sparkling jewels, and the slender French heels werestupefying.

  He was growing hungry. He had not eaten a bite since early morning,and now it was eleven o'clock at night. It appalled him to think ofentering a restaurant and being confronted by one of thosewhite-skinned, slim-formed divinities he saw flitting from table totable. He did not know what to order nor how to order it. Even thesmallest places looked imposing with their myriad lights and fixturesof gilt and white and glittering glass. But he knew he must screw hiscourage to it.

  There seemed to be a restaurant nearly every other door in the localityhe was now passing through. Not only that, but many electric lettersblazing down the street notified him that he would have no trouble infinding rooms; rooms by the day or week; rooms and board; rooms 15cents and up; lodging; rooms with or without board; beds 10 cents andup. He was on Kearny Street, he knew, but he did not know where KearnyStreet was in relation to the rest of the city.

  He strolled along, staring through the windows at the appetizingdisplays and searching for a restaurant where none of thosecreamy-skinned beings that caused him so much uneasiness were employed.At last he found one where, it seemed, only smooth-faced men in shortblack coats and low-cut vests were serving. His abused stomach goadedhim to slink through the doorway and seek a table.

  Just within the door he paused. The place seemed crowded. He wasabout to slink out again when a woman's voice said in his ear: "Thisside, please--all full here."

  He turned quickly, with a gulp, to see a slim, black-clad girl, withone of those appalling piles of fluffy hair topping her head, whiskingpast behind him. Now he noticed that the restaurant was divided inhalf by a screen which ran the length of the building, and that oneside--the side he had seen through the window--was for men, and theother for women. The tables on the men's side were filled. The girlstood beckoning from a table on the women's side. Other waitresses hehad not seen before were working here. Hiram could not back out now.His legs trembled as he obeyed the girl's beckoning finger.

  He reached the table and stumbled noisily into a seat. The girl, nowholding out a menu card, was looking at him curiously, he felt. Theblood rushed to his face; he dared not look at her. Fumblingly he tookthe card and straightway dropped it on the floor.

  Together they bent over to regain it. Their bodies touched. Hiramgrew sick. She recovered the card and was standing erect when hecrawfished up from the floor. He was burning up with shame. Again hetook the card, but his glazed eyes could not read a word.

  Suddenly he knew that she was speaking.

  "I think you'd like a ribber, medium," she was saying, "with Frenchfries and a dish of peas."

  Hiram's head nodded without command. He knew she was leaving thetable, and something forced his eyes to her. She was turning, but hereyes were looking back into his. In those eyes, big and brown beneathdark, arched brows and long lashes, there was a look that thrilled himto his soul. She was more beautiful than any woman he had seen throughall the splendor of the night, and she had flashed to him a spark ofkindness in a maelstrom of misery! Was this the girl who had beenbeckoning him on?

  She was coming back. She paused beside him and placed a napkin,silver, bread and butter, and a glass of water before him. He tried tolook up, but could not. He felt her close to him as she arranged thethings before him.

  She was speaking again, low, soothingly.

  "Awful crowd to-night. We don't usually put single gentlemen on thisside, but I guess you won't mind. Your ribber'll be here in a minute."

  She was gone again. He saw her brown hair bobbing toward the kitchen.He watched the swing doors, eager for her return.

  They burst open at last and she came forward and placed a big platterbefore him, on which steamed an enormous rib steak, beside this a dishof French-fried potatoes and a dish of peas.

  She glided away once more and did not again come near his table whilehe ate. He kept his eyes on her throughout the meal, and continued tolower them when he thought her about to look toward him. His "ribber"was good, and he ate the last scrap. Then he paid his bill and hurriedout.

  Through the window he looked back for her. She was nowhere in sight.

  In a miserable hallway on the second floor of a dingy brick building,he obeyed the legend over a bu
tton in the wall, which read:"Landlord--push the button." The result was that a squint-eyed mancame from a door marked "office" and yawningly asked him his business.Hiram wished a twenty-five-cent room, he said. He was taken to one,which was not a room at all, but a stall--that is, the thin boardpartitions did not connect with the ceiling by three feet. The bed wasa single one, and the sheets had brought the proprietor many atwenty-five-cent piece since coming from the laundry. The additionalfurnishings of the "room" were six nails driven in the board wall tohold one's clothes. From all over the floor came lusty snores and themutterings of world-worn men.

  With the city smells still in his nostrils, the buzz of city life stillin his ears, and the countless lights twinkling in a frame about thewhite face of a brown-haired, red-lipped girl, he fell asleep fromsheer fatigue. But with unaccountable perversity his dreaming minddwelt not upon the beautiful vision he had come to love in fifteenseconds, but on the whispering firs and twinkling streams of Mendocino,and on a plodding ten-horse jerkline team hauling tanbark over themountains to the coast.