Kindred of the Dust. Peter B. Kyne

you to call, Mr. Donald," the old man piped. "But isn't that just like him, Nan?" he demanded. "Many's the day—aye, and the night, too, for of late the nights have been bad here—we've thought of you, sir, and wished you were back in Port Agnew. We knew what would happen to those scoundrels when Mr. Donald got around to it." And he laughed the asthmatic, contented chuckle of the aged as Nan related briefly the story of Donald's recent activities.

      Their conversation which followed was mostly of a reminiscent character—recollections of boat-races in the bight, fishing excursions off the coast, clambakes, hew boats, a dog which Donald had given Nan when he left for prep school and which had since died of old age. And all the while Nan Brent's child stood by Donald's knee, gazing up at him adoringly.

      During a lull in the conversation, he created some slight embarrassment by reiterating his belief that this strange man must be his father, and appealed to his mother for verification of his suspicions.

      Poor child! His baby mind had but lately grasped the fact that for him there was something missing in the scheme of life, and, to silence his persistent questioning, Nan had told him that some day his father would come to see them; whereupon, with the calm faith of innocence, he had posted himself at the front gate, to be in position to receive this beloved missing one when the latter should appear. Donald skilfully diverted the child's mind from this all-consuming topic by sliding the boy down to his foot and permitting him to swing gently there.

      Presently Nan excused herself, for the purpose of looking after the embers of Donald's recent raid. The instant the door closed behind her, old Caleb Brent looked across at his visitor.

      "You've heard—of course, Mr. Donald?" he queried, with a slight inclination of his head toward the door through which his daughter had disappeared.

      "Yes, Caleb. Misfortune comes in various guises."

      "I would I could die," the pitiful old fellow whispered. "I will, soon, but, oh, what will my poor darling do then, Mr. Donald? After we first came here, I was that prosperous, sir, you wouldn't believe it. I gave Nan a good schooling, piano lessons, and fine dresses. We lived well, and yet we put by a thousand dollars in six years. But that's gone now, what with the expenses when the baby came, and my sickness that's prevented me from working. Thank God, sir, I have my three-quarter pay. It isn't much, but we're rent-free, and fuel costs us nothing, what with driftwood and the waste from Darrow that comes down the river. Nan has a bit of a kitchen-garden and a few chickens—so we make out. But when I die, my navy-pay stops."

      He paused, too profoundly moved by consideration of the destitution that would face Nan and her nameless boy to voice the situation in words. But he looked up at Donald McKaye, and the latter saw again that wistful look in his sea-blue eyes—the dumb pleading of a kind old lost dog. He thought of the thirty-eight-foot sloop old Caleb had built him—a thing of beauty and wondrously seaworthy; or the sense of obligation which had caused old Brent to make of the task a labor of love; of the long, lazy, happy days when, with Caleb and Nan for his crew, he had raced out of the bight twenty miles to sea and back again, for the sheer delight of driving his lee rail under until Nan cried out in apprehension.

      Poor, sweet, sad Nan Brent! Donald had known her through so many years of gentleness and innocence—and she had come to this! He was consumed with pity for her. She had fallen, but—there were depths to which destitution and desperation might still drive her, just as there were heights to which she might climb again if some half-man would but give her a helping hand.

      "Do you know the man, Caleb?" he demanded suddenly.

      "No, I do not. I have never seen him. Nan wrote me when they were married, and told me his name, of course."

      "Then there was a marriage, Caleb?"

      "So Nan wrote me."

      "Ah! Has Nan a marriage certificate?"

      "I have never seen it. Seems their marriage wasn't legal. The name he gave wasn't his own; he was a bigamist."

      "Then Nan knows his real name."

      "Yes; when she learned that, she came home."

      "But why didn't she prosecute him, Caleb? She owed that to herself and the child— to her good name and"

      "She had her reasons, lad."

      "But you should have prosecuted the scoundrel, Caleb."

      "I had no money for lawyers. I knew I was going to need it all for Nan and her child. And I thought her reasons sufficient, Donald. She said it would all come out right in the end. Maybe it will."

      "Do you mean she knowingly accepted the inevitable disgrace when she might have—have—" He wanted to add, "proved herself virtuous," but, somehow, the words would not come. They didn't appear to him to be quite fair to Nan.

      The old man nodded.

      "Of course we haven't told this to anybody else," he hastened to add. "'Twould have been useless. They'd have thought it a lie."

      "Yes, Caleb—a particularly clumsy and stupid lie."

      Caleb Brent looked up suddenly and searched, with an alert and wistful glance, the face of the young laird of Tyee.

      "But you do not think so, do you?" he pleaded.

      "Certainly not, Caleb, If Nan told you that, then she told you the truth."

      "Thank you, lad."

      "Poor old Caleb," Donald soliloquized, "you find it hard to believe it yourself, don't you? And it does sound fishy!"

      "I don't believe it's Nan's fault," Donald found himself saying next. "She was always a good girl, and I can't look at her now and conceive her as anything but virtuous and womanly. I'll always be a good friend of hers, Caleb. I'll stand back of her and see that she gets a square deal—she and her son. When you're gone, she can leave Port Agnew for some city where she isn't known, and as 'Mrs. Brent' she can engage in some self-supporting business. It always struck me that Nan had a voice."

      "She has, Mr. Donald. They had grand opera in Seattle, and I sent her up there to hear it and having a singing teacher hear her sing 'Alice, Where Art Thou.' He said she'd be earning a thousand dollars a night in five years, Mr. Donald, if somebody in New York could train her. That was the time," he concluded, "that she met him! He was rich and, I suppose, full of fine graces; he promised her a career if she'd marry him, and so he dazzled the child—she was only eighteen—and she went to San Francisco with him. She says there was some sort of marriage, but he gave her no such gift as I gave her mother—a marriage certificate. She wrote me she was happy, and asked me to forgive her the lack of confidence in not advising with me—and of course I forgave her, Mr. Donald. But in three months he left her, and one night the door yonder opened and Nan come in and put her arms round my neck and held me tight, with never a tear—so I knew she'd cried her fill long since and was in trouble." He paused several seconds, then added, "Her mother was an admiral's daughter—and she married me!" He appeared to suggest this latter as a complete explanation of woman's frailty.

      "The world is small, but it is sufficiently large to hide a girl from the Sawdust Pile of Port Agnew. Of course, Nan cannot leave you now, but when you leave her, Caleb, I'll finance her for her career. Please do not worry about it."

      "I'm like Nan, sir," he murmured. "I'm beyond tears, or I'd weep, Mr. Donald. God will reward you, sir. I can't begin to thank you."

      "I'm glad of that. By the way, who is towing the garbage-barge to sea nowadays?"

      "I don't know, sir. Mr. Daney hired somebody else and his boat when I had to quit because of my sciatica."

      "Hereafter, we'll use your boat, Caleb, and engage a man to operate it. The rental will be ten dollars per trip, two trips a week, eighty dollars a month. Cheap enough; so don't think it's charity. Here's the first month's rental in advance. I'm going to run along now, Caleb, but I'll look in from time to time, and if you should need me in the interim, send for me."

      He kissed little Don Brent, who set up a prodigious shriek at the prospect