when she was sure.

Suddenly, far off, there was a rustling in the bamboo forest. A figure
like a shadow, but darker than other shadows, moved in the distance.
Carmen's heart jumped. She took a step forward, then stopped. It was not
Nick Hilliard after all, but old Simeon Harp, the squirrel poisoner,
coming from the direction of Nick's ranch, bringing her a message, maybe.
She felt she could not possibly bear it if Nick were not coming, and she
hated him at the bare thought that he might send an excuse at the last
moment.

"What is it, Sim?" she called out sharply, as the queer, gnarled figure of
the old man hobbled nearer.

"Nothing, my lady," Simeon Harp answered in the husky voice of one who is
or has been a drunkard. "Nothing, only I was over at Nick's finishin' up a
bit of my work, and he said, would I tell you he was sorry to be late.
He's had somebody with him all afternoon, and no time to pack till just
now. But he'll be along presently."

Harp was an Englishman, with some fading signs about him of decent birth,
decent education and upbringing, but such signs were blurred and almost
obliterated by the habits which had degraded him. He would have been dead
or in prison or the poorhouse years ago if Carmen had not chosen to rescue
him, more through a whim than from genuine charity. Her mother's people
had been English, and somehow she had not cared to see an Englishman
thrown to the dogs in this country which was not hers nor his. In days
when her word was law for the infatuated and brutal man whose death
anniversary it now was, this bit of human driftwood--failure, drunkard,
rascal--had been found trespassing on the ranch. If Carmen had not chosen