LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"'I'm feelin' particularly good right now'"--(Frontispiece)

"I'll show you what I'll do'" 102

"There stood the Black Pearl alone" 244

"Holding cautiously to a little branch, she bent over him" 302




THE BLACK PEARL

CHAPTER I


It was just at sunset that the train which had crawled across the desert
drew up, puffing and panting, before the village of Paloma, not many
miles from the Salton Sea. After a moment's delay, one lone passenger
descended. Paloma was not an important station.

Rudolf Hanson, the one passenger, whom either curiosity or business had
brought thither, stood on the platform of the little station looking