The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should be moved for some days at least.
The victim was more than content, because he was very much interested in the young woman who had been his rescuer, and because it gave him a chance to observe at first hand the remains of the semifeudal system that had once obtained in New Mexico and California.
It was easy for him to see that Señorita Maria Yuste was still considered by her dependents as a superior being, one far removed from them by the divinity of caste that hedged her in. They gave her service; and she, on her part, looked out for their needs, and was the patron saint to whom they brought all their troubles.
It was an indolent, happy life the peons on the estate led, patriarchal in its nature, and far removed from the throb of the money-mad world. They had enough to eat and to wear. There was a roof over their heads. There were girls to be loved, dances to be danced, and guitars to be strummed. Wherefore, then, should the young men feel the spur of an ambition to take the world by the throat and wring success from it?
It had been more years than he could remember since this young American had taken a real holiday except for an occasional fishing trip on the Gunnison or into Wyoming. He had lived a life of activity. Now for the first time he learned how to be lazy. To dawdle indolently on one of the broad porches, while Miss Yuste sat beside him and busied herself over some needlework, was a sensuous delight that filled him with content. He felt that he would like to bask there in the warm sunshine forever. After all, why should he pursue wealth and success when love and laughter waited for him in this peaceful valley chosen of the gods?
The fourth morning of his arrival he hobbled out to the south porch after breakfast, to find his hostess in corduroy skirt, high laced boots, and pinched-in sombrero. She was drawing on a pair of driving gauntlets. One of the stable boys was standing beside a rig he had just driven to the house.
The young woman flung a flashing smile at her guest.
"Good day, Señor Muir. I hope you had a good night's rest, and that your knee did not greatly pain you?"
"I feel like a colt in the pasture—fit for anything. But the doctor won't have it that way. He says I'm an invalid," returned the young man whimsically.
"The doctor ought to know," she laughed.
"I expect it won't do me any harm to lie still for a day or two. We Americans all have the git-up-and-dust habit. We got to keep going, though Heaven knows what we're going for sometimes."
Though he did not know it, her interest in him was considerable, though certainly critical. He was a type outside of her experience, and, by the law of opposites, attracted her. Every line of him showed tremendous driving power, force, energy. He was not without some touch of Western swagger; but it went well with the air of youth to which his boyish laugh and wavy, sun-reddened hair contributed.
The men of her station that she knew were of one pattern, indolent, well-bred aristocrats, despisers of trade and of those who indulged in it more than was necessary to live. But her mother had been an American girl, and there was in her blood a strong impulse toward the great nation of which her father's people were not yet in spirit entirely a part.
"I have to drive to Antelope Springs this morning. It is not a rough trip at all. If you would care to see the country——"
She paused, a question in her face. Her guest jumped at the chance.
"There is nothing I should like better. If you are sure it will be no inconvenience."
"I am sure I should not have asked you if I had not wanted you," she said; and he took it as a reproof.
She drove a pair of grays that took the road with the spirit of racers. The young woman sat erect and handled the reins masterfully, the while Muir leaned back and admired the steadiness of the slim, strong wrists, the businesslike directness with which she gave herself to her work, the glow of life whipped into her eyes and cheeks by the exhilaration of the pace.
"I suppose you know all about these old land-grants that were made when New Mexico was a Spanish colony and later when it was a part of Mexico," he suggested.
Her dark eyes rested gravely on him an instant before she answered: "Most of us that were brought up on them know something of the facts."
"You are familiar with the Valdés grant?"
"Yes."
"And with the Moreño grant, made by Governor Armijo?"
"Yes."
"The claims conflict, do they not?"
"The Moreño grant is taken right from the heart of the Valdés grant. It includes all the springs, the valleys, the irrigable land; takes in everything but the hilly pasture land in the mountains, which, in itself, is valueless."
"The land included in this grant is of great value?"
"It pastures at the present time fifty thousand sheep and about twelve thousand head of cattle."
"Owned by Miss Valdés?"
"Owned by her and her tenants."
"She's what you call a cattle queen, then. Literally, the cattle on a thousand hills are hers."
"As they were her father's and her grandfather's before her, to be held in trust for the benefit of about eight hundred tenants," she answered quietly.
"Tell me more about it. The original grantee was Don Bartolomé de Valdés, was he not?"
"Yes. He was the great-great-grandson of Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo, who lost his head because he was a braver and a better man than the king. Don Bartolomé, too, was a great soldier and ruler. He was generous and public-spirited to a fault; and when the people of this province suffered from Indian raids he distributed thousands of sheep to relieve their distress."
"Bully for the old boy. He was a real philanthropist."
"Not at all. He had to do it. His position required it of him."
"That was it, eh?"
Her dusky eyes questioned him.
"You couldn't understand, I suppose, since you are an American, how he was the father and friend of all the people in these parts; how his troopers and vaqueros were a defense to the whole province?"
"I think I can understand that."
"So it was, even to his death, that he looked out for the poor peons dependent upon him. His herds grew mighty; and he asked of Facundo Megares, governor of the royal province, a grant of land upon which to pasture them. These herds were for his people; but they were in his name and belonged to him. Why should he not have been given land for them, since his was the sword that had won the land against the Apaches?"
"You ain't heard me say he shouldn't have had it"
"So the alcalde executed the act of possession for a tract, to be bounded on the south by Crow Spring, following its cordillera to the Ojo del Chico, east to the Pedornal range, north to the Ojo del Cibolo —Buffalo Springs—and west to the great divide. It was a princely estate, greater than the State of Delaware; and Don Bartolomé held it for the King of Spain, and ruled over it with powers of life and death, but always wisely and generously, like the great-hearted gentleman he was."
"Bully for him."
"And at his death his son ruled in his stead; and his only son died in the Spanish-American War, as a lieutenant of volunteers in the United States Army. He was shot before Santiago."
The voice died away in her tremulous throat; and he wondered if it could be possible that this girl had been betrothed to the young soldier. But presently she spoke again, cheerfully and lightly:
"Wherefore, it happens that there remains only a daughter of the house of Valdés to carry the burden that should have been her brother's, to look out for his people, and to protect them both against themselves and others. She may fail; but, if I know her, the failure will not be because she has not tried."
"Good for her. I'd like to shake her aristocratic little paw and tell her to buck in and win."
"She would no doubt be grateful for your sympathy," the young woman answered, flinging a queer little look of irony at him.
"But what's the hitch about the Valdés grant? Why is there a doubt of its legality?"
She smiled gaily at him.
"No person who desires to remain healthy has any doubts in this neighborhood. We are all partizans of Valencia Valdés; and many of her tenants are such warm followers that they would not think twice about shedding blood in defense of her title. You must remember that they hold through her right. If she were dispossessed so would they be."
"Is that a threat? I mean, would it be if I were a claimant?" he asked, meeting her smile pleasantly.
"Oh, no. Miss Valdés would regret any trouble, and so should I." A shadow crossed her face as she spoke. "But she could not prevent her friends from violence, I am afraid. You see, she is only a girl, after all. They would move without her knowledge. I know they would."
"How would they move? Would it be a knife in the dark?"
His gray eyes, which had been warm as summer sunshine on a hill, were now fixed on her with chill inscrutability.
"I don't know. It might be that. Very likely." He saw the pulse in her throat beating fast as she hesitated before she plunged on. "A warning is not a threat. If you know this Señor Gordon, tell him to sell whatever claim he has. Tell him, at least, to fight from a distance; not to come to this valley himself. Else his life would be at hazard."
"If he is a man that will not keep him away. He will fight for what is his all the more because there is danger. What's more, he'll do his fighting on the ground—unless he's a quitter."
She sighed.
"I was afraid so."
"But you have not told me yet the alleged defect in the Valdés claim. There must be some point of law upon which the thing hangs."
"It is claimed that Don Bartolomé did not take up his actual residence on the grant, as the law required. Then, too, he himself was later governor of the province, and while he was president of the Ayuntamiento at Tome he officially indorsed some small grants of land made from this estate. He did this because he wanted the country developed, and was willing to give part of what he had to his neighbors; but I suppose the contestant will claim this showed he had abandoned his grant."
"I see. Title not perfected," he summed up briefly.
"We deny it, of course—I mean, Miss Valdés does. She shows that in his will the old don mentions it, and that her father lived there without interruption, even though Manuel Armijo later granted the best of it to José Moreño."
"It would be pretty tough for her to be fired out now. I reckon she's attached to the place, her and her folks having lived there so long," the young man mused aloud.
"Her whole life is wrapped up in it. It is the home of her people. She belongs to it, and it to her," the girl answered.
"Mebbe this Gordon is a white man. I reckon he wouldn't drive her out. Like as not he'd fix up a compromise. There's enough for both."
She shook her head decisively.
"No. It would have to be a money settlement. Miss Valdés's people are settled all over the estate. Some of them have bought small ranches. You see, she couldn't—throw them down—as you Americans say."
"That's right," he agreed. "Well, I shouldn't wonder but it can be fixed up some way."
They had been driving across a flat cactus country, and for some time had been approaching the grove of willows into which she now turned. Some wooden barns, a corral, an adobe house, and outhouses marked the place as one of the more ambitious ranches of the valley.
An old Mexican came forward with a face wreathed in smiles.
"Buenos, Doña Maria," he cried, in greeting.
"Buenos, Antonio. This gentleman is Mr. Richard Muir."
"Buenos, señor. A friend of Doña Maria is a friend of Antonio."
"The older people call me 'doña,'" the girl explained. "I suppose they think it strange a girl should have to do with affairs, and so they think of me as 'doña,' instead of 'señorita,' to satisfy themselves."
A vague suspicion, that had been born in the young man's mind immediately after his rescue from the river now recurred.
His first thought then had been that this young woman must be Valencia Valdés; but he had dismissed it when he had seen the initial M on her kerchief, and when she had subsequently left him to infer that such was not the case.
He remembered now in what respect she was held in the home hacienda; how everybody they had met had greeted her with almost reverence. It was not likely that two young heiresses, both of them beautiful orphans, should be living within a few miles of each other.
Besides, he remembered that this very Antelope Springs was mentioned in the deed of conveyance which he had lately examined before leaving the mining camp. She was giving orders about irrigating ditches as if she were owner.
It followed then that she must be Valencia Valdés. There could be no doubt of it.
He watched her as she talked to old Antonio and gave the necessary directions. How radiant and happy she was in this life which had fallen to her; by inheritance! He vowed she should not be disinherited through any action of his. He owed her his life. At least, he could spare her this blow.
They drove home more silently than they had come. He was thinking over the best way to do what he was going to do. The evening before they had sat together in front of the fire in the living-room, while her old duenna had nodded in a big arm-chair. So they would sit to-night and to-morrow night.
He would send at once for the papers upon which his claim depended, and he would burn them before her eyes. After that they would be friends—and, in the end, much more than friends.
He was still dreaming his air-castle, when they drove through the gate that led to her home. In front of the porch a saddled bronco trailed its rein, and near by stood a young man in riding-breeches and spurs. He turned at the sound of wheels; and the man in the buggy saw that it was Manuel Pesquiera.
The Spaniard started when he recognized the other, and his eyes grew bright. He moved forward to assist the young woman in alighting; but, in spite of his bad knee, the Coloradoan was out of the rig and before him.
"Buenos, amigo" she nodded to Don Manuel, lightly releasing the hand of Muir.
"Buenos, señorita" returned that young man. "I behold you are already acquaint' with Mr. Richard Gordon, whose arrival is to me very unexpect'."
She seemed to grow tall before her guest's eyes; to stand in a kind of proud splendor that had eclipsed her girlish slimness. The dark eyes under the thick lashes looked long and searchingly at him.
"Mr. Richard Gordon? I understand this gentleman's name to be Muir," she made voice gently.
Dick laughed with a touch of shame. Now once in his life he wished he could prove an alibi. For, under the calm judgment of that steady gaze, the thing he had done seemed scarce defensible.
"Don Manuel has it right, señorita. Gordon is my name; Muir, too, for that matter. Richard Muir Gordon is what I was christened."
The underlying red of her cheeks had fled and left them clear olive. One might have thought the scornful eyes had absorbed all the fire of her face.
"So you have lied to me, sir?"
"Let me lay the facts before you, first. That's a hard word, señorita."
"You gave your name to me as Muir, You imposed yourself on my hospitality under false pretenses. You are only a spy, come to my house to mole for evidence against me."
"No—no!" he cried sharply. "You will remember that I did not want to come. I foresaw that it might be awkward, but I did not foresee this."
"That you would be found out before you had won your end? I believe you, sir," she retorted contemptuously.
"I see I'm condemned before I'm heard."
"Will any explanation alter the facts? Are you not a liar and a cheat? You gave me a false name to spy out the land."
"Am I the only one that gave a wrong name?" he asked.
"That is different," she flamed. "You had made a mistake and, half in sport, I encouraged you in it. But you seem to have found out my real name since. Yet you still accepted what I had to offer, under a false name, under false pretenses. You questioned me about the grants. You have lived a lie from first to last."
"It ain't as bad as you say, ma'am. Don Manuel had told me it wasn't safe to come here in my own name. I didn't care about the safety, but I wanted to see the situation exactly as it was. I didn't know who you were when I came here. I took you to be Miss Maria Yuste. I——"
"My name is Maria Yuste Valencia Valdés," the young woman explained proudly. "When, may I ask, did you discover who I was?"
"I guessed it at Antelope Springs."
"Then why did you not tell me then who you are? Surely that was the time to tell me. My deception did you no harm; yours was one no man of honor could have endured after he knew who I was."
"I didn't aim to keep it up very long. I meant, in a day or two——"
"A day or two," she cried, in a blaze of scorn. "After you had found out all I had to tell; after you had got evidence to back your robber-claim; after you had made me breathe the same air so long with a spy?"
Her face was very white; but she faced him in her erect slimness, with her dark eyes fixed steadily on him.
"You ain't quite fair to me; but let that pass for the present. When I asked you about the grants didn't you guess who I was? Play square with me. Didn't you have a notion?"
A flood of spreading color swept back into her face.
"No, I didn't. I thought perhaps you were an agent of the claimant; but I didn't know you were passing under a false name, that you were aware in whose house you were staying. I thought you an honest man, on the wrong side—nothing so contemptible as a spy."
"That idea's fixed in your mind, is it?" he asked quietly.
"Beyond any power of yours to remove it," she flashed back.
"The facts, Señor Gordon, speak loud," put in Pesquiera derisively.
Dick Gordon paid not the least attention to him. His gaze was fastened on the girl whose contempt was lashing him.
"Very well, Miss Valdés. Well let it go at that just now. All I've got to say is that some day you'll hate yourself for what you have just said."
Neither of them had raised their voices from first to last. Hers had been low and intense, pulsing with the passion that would out. His had held its even way.
"I hate myself now, that I have had you here so long, that I have been the dupe of a common cheat."
"All right. 'Nough said, ma'am. More would certainly be surplusage. I'll not trouble you any longer now. But I want you to remember that there's a day coming when you'll travel a long way to take back all of what you've just been saying. I want to thank you for all your kindness to me. I'm always at your service for what you did for me. Good-bye, Miss Valdés, for the present."
"I am of impression, sir, that you go not too soon," said Pesquiera suavely.
Miss Valdés turned on her heel and swept up the steps of the porch; but she stopped an instant before she entered the house to say over her shoulder:
"A buggy will be at your disposal to take you to Corbett's. If it is convenient, I should like to have you go to-night."
He smiled ironically.
"I'll not trouble you for the buggy, señorita. If I'm all you say I am, likely I'm a horse thief, too. Anyhow, we won't risk it. Walking's good enough for me."
"Just as you please," she choked, and forthwith disappeared into the house.
Gordon turned from gazing after her to find the little Spaniard bowing before him.
"Consider me at your service, Mr. Gordon——"
"Can't use you," cut in Dick curtly.
"I was remarking that, as her kinsman, I, Don Manuel Pesquiera, stand prepared to make good her words. What the Señorita Valdés says, I say, too."
"Then don't say it aloud, you little monkey, or I'll throw you over the house," Dick promised immediately.
Don Manuel clicked his heels together and twirled his black mustache.
"I offer you, sir, the remedy of a gentleman. You, sir, shall choose the weapons."
The Anglo-Saxon laughed in his face.
"Good. Let it be toasting-forks, at twenty paces."
The challenger drew himself up to his full five feet six.
"You choose to be what you call droll. Sir, I give you the word, poltroon—lâche—coward."
"Oh, go chase yourself."
One of Pesquiera's little gloved hands struck the other's face with a resounding slap. Next instant he was lifted from his feet and tucked under Dick's arm.
There he remained, kicking and struggling, in a manner most undignified for a blue blood of Castile, while the Coloradoan stepped leisurely forward to the irrigating ditch which supplied water for the garden and the field of grain behind. This was now about two feet deep, and running strong. In it was deposited, at full length, the clapper little person of Don Manuel Pesquiera, after which Dick Gordon turned and went limping down the road.
From the shutters of her room a girl had looked down and seen it all. She saw Don Manuel rescue himself from the ditch, all dripping with water. She saw him gesticulating wildly, as he cursed the retreating foe, before betaking himself hurriedly from view to the rear of the house, probably to dry himself and nurse his rage the while. She saw Gordon go on his limping way without a single backward glance.
Then she flung herself on her bed and burst into tears.
CHAPTER V
Dick Gordon hobbled up the road, quite unaware for some time that he had a ricked knee. His thoughts were busy with the finale that had just been enacted. He could not keep from laughing ruefully at the difference between it and the one of his day-dreams. He was too much of a Westerner not to see the humor of the comedy in which he had been forced to take a leading part, but he had insight enough to divine that it was much more likely to prove melodrama than farce.
Don Manuel was not the man to sit down under such an insult as he had endured, even though he had brought it upon himself. It would too surely be noised round that the Americano was the claimant to the estate, in which event he was very likely to play the part of a sheath for restless stilettos.
This did not trouble him as much as it would have done some men. The real sting of the episode lay in Valencia Valdés' attitude toward him. He had been kicked out for his unworthiness. He had been cast aside as a spy and a sneak.
The worst of it was that he felt his clumsiness deserved no less an issue to the adventure. Confound that little Don Manuel for bobbing up at such an inconvenient time! It was fierce luck.
He stopped his tramp up the hill, and looked back over the valley. Legally it was all his. So his Denver lawyers had told him, after looking the case over carefully. The courts would decide for him in all probability; morally he had not the shadow of a claim. The valley in justice belonged to those who had settled in it and were using it for their needs. His claim was merely a paper one. It had not a scintilla of natural justice back of it.
He resumed his journey. By this time his knee was sending telegrams of pain to headquarters. He cut an aspen by the roadside and trimmed it to a walking-stick and, as he went forward, leaned more and more heavily upon it.
"I'm going to have a game leg for fair if I don't look out," he told himself ruefully. "This right pin surely ain't good for a twelve-mile tramp."
It was during one of his frequent stops to rest that a buggy appeared round the turn from the same direction he had come. It drew to a halt in front of him, and the lad who was driving got out.
"Señorita Maria sends a carriage for Señor Gordon to take him to Corbett's," he said.
Dick was on hand with a sardonic smile.
"Tell the señorita that Mr. Gordon regrets having put her to so much trouble, but that he needs the exercise and prefers to walk."
"The señorita said I was to insist, señor."
"Tell your mistress that I'm very much obliged to her, but have made other arrangements. Explain to her I appreciate the offer just the same."
The lad hesitated, and Dick pushed him into decision.
"That's all right, Juan—José—Pedro—Francisco—whatever your name is. You've done your levelest. Now, hike back to the ranch. Vamos! Sabe."
"Si, señor."
Dick heard the wheels disappear in the distance, and laughed aloud.
"That young woman's conscience is hurting her. I reckon this tramp to Corbett's is going to worry her tender heart about as much as it does me, and I've got to sweat blood before I get through with it. Here goes again, Dicky."
Every step sent a pain shooting through him, but he was the last man to give up on that account what he had undertaken.
"She let me go without any lunch," he chuckled. "I'll bet that troubles her some, too, when she remembers. She's got me out of the house, but I'll bet the last strike in the Nancy K. against a dollar Mex that she ain't got me out of her mind by a heap."
A buggy appeared in sight driven by a stout, red-faced old man. Evidently he was on his way to the ranch.
"Who, hello, Doctor! I'm plumb glad to see you; couldn't wait till you came, and had just to start out to meet you," cried Dick.
He stood laughing at the amazement in the face of the doctor, who was in two minds whether to get angry or not.
"Doggone your hide, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you not to walk more than a few steps?" that gentleman protested.
"But you didn't leave me a motor-car and, my visit being at an end, I ce'tainly had to get back to Corbett's." As he spoke he climbed slowly into the rig. "That leg of mine is acting like sixty, Doctor. When you happened along I was wondering how in time I was ever going to make it."
"You may have lamed yourself for life. It's the most idiotic thing I ever heard of. I don't see why Miss Valdés let you come. Dad blame it, have I got to watch my patients like a hen does its chicks? Ain't any of you got a lick of sense? Why didn't she send a rig if you had to come?" the doctor demanded.
"Seems to me she did mention a rig, but I thought I'd rather walk," explained Gordon casually, much amused at Dr. Watson's chagrined wonder.
"Walk!" snorted the physician. "You'll not walk, but be carried into an operating-room if you're not precious lucky. You deserve to lose that leg, and I don't say you won't."
"I'm an optimistic guy, Doctor. I'll say it for you. I ain't got any legs to spare."
"Huh! Some people haven't got the sense of a chicken with its head cut off."
"Now you're shouting. Go for me, Doc. Then, mebbe, I'll do better next time."
The doctor gave up this incorrigible patient and relapsed into silence, from which he came occasionally with an explosive "Huh!" Once he broke out with: "Didn't she feed you well enough, or was it just that you didn't know when you were well off?"
For he was aware that his patient's fever was rising and, like a good practitioner, he fumed at such useless relapse.
The knee had been doing fine. Now there would be the devil to pay with it. The utter senselessness of the proceeding irritated Watson. What in Mexico had got into the young idiot to make him do such a fool thing? The doctor guessed at a quarrel between him and Miss Valdés. But the close-mouthed American gave him no grounds upon which to base his suspicion.
The first thing that Dick did after reaching Corbett's was to send two telegrams. One was addressed to Messrs. Hughes & Willets, 411-417 Equitable Building, Denver, Colorado; the other went to Stephen Davis, Cripple Creek, of the same state.
Doctor Watson hustled his patient to bed and did his best to relieve the increasing pain in the swollen knee. He swore gently and sputtered and fumed as he worked, restraining himself only when Mrs. Corbett came into the room with hot water, towels, compresses, and other supplies.
"What about a nurse?" Watson wanted to know of Mrs. Corbett, a large motherly woman whose kind heart always found room in it for the weak and helpless.
"I got no room for one. Juanita and I will take care of him. The work's slack now. We'll have time."
"He's going to take a heap of nursing," the doctor answered, rubbing his unshaven chin dubiously with the palm of his hand. "See how the fever's climbed up even in the last half hour. That boy's going to be a mighty sick hombre."
"I'm used to nursing, and Juanita is the best help I ever had, if she is a Mexican. You may trust him to us."
"Hmp! I wasn't thinking of him, but of you. Couldn't be in better hands, but it's an imposition for him to go racing all over these hills with a game leg and expect you to pull him through."
Before midnight Dick was in a raging fever. In delirium he tossed from side to side, sometimes silent for long stretches, then babbling fragments of forgotten scenes rescued by his memory automatically from the wild and picturesque past of the man. Now he fancied himself again a schoolboy, now a ranger in Arizona, now mushing on the snow trails of Alaska. At times he would imagine that he was defending his mine against attacking strikers, or that he was combing the Rincons for horse thieves. Out of his turbid past flared for an instant dramatic moments of comedy or tragedy. These passed like the scenes of a motion-picture story, giving place to something else.
In the end he came back always to the adventure he was still living.
"You're a spy.... You're a liar and a cheat.... You imposed yourself upon my hospitality under false pretenses.... I hate myself for breathing the same air as you." He would break off to laugh foolishly, in a high-pitched note of derision at himself. "Stand up, Dick Gordon, and hear the lady tell you what a coyote you are. Stan' up and face the music, you quitter. Liar ... spy ... cheat! That's you, Dick Gordon, un'erstand?"
Or the sick mind of the man would forget for the moment that they had quarreled. His tongue would run over conversations that they had had, cherishing and repeating over and over again her gay little quips and sallies or her light phrases.
"Valencia Valdés is as God made her. Now you're throwing sixes, ma'am.
Sure she's like that. The devil helped a heap to make most of us what we
are, but I reckon God made that little lady early in the mo'ning when He
was feeling fine.... Say, I wish you'd look at me like that again and
light up with another of them dimply smiles. I got a surprise for you,
Princess of the Rio Chama. Honest, I have. Sure as you're a foot
high.... Never you mind what it is. Just you wait a while and I'll
spring it when the time's good and ready. I got to wait till the papers
come. See? ... Oh, shucks, you're sore at me again! Liar ... cheat ...
spy! Say, I know when I've had a-plenty. She don't like me. I'm goin' to
pull my freight for the Kotzebue country up in Alaska.
'On the road to Kotzebue, optimistic through and through,
We'll hit the trail together, boy, once more, jest me an' you.'
Funny how women act, ain't it? Stand up and take your medicine—liar ...
cheat ... spy! She said it, didn't she? Well, then, it must be so. What
you kickin' about?"
So he would run on until the fever had for the hour exhausted itself and he lay still among the pillows. Sometimes he talked the strong language of the man in battle with other men, but even in his oaths there was nothing of vulgarity.
Mrs. Corbett took the bulk of the nursing on her own broad fat shoulders, but during the day she was often relieved by her maid while she got a few hours of sleep.
Juanita was a slim, straight girl not yet nineteen. Even before his sickness Dick, with the instinct for deference to all women of self-respect that obtains among frontiersmen, had won the gratitude of the shy creature. There was something wild and sylvan about her sweet grace. The deep, soft eyes in the brown oval face were as appealing as those of a doe wounded by the hunter.
She developed into a famous nurse. Low-voiced and soft-footed, she would coax the delirious man to lie down when he grew excited or to take his medicine according to the orders of the doctor.
It was on the third day after Gordon's return to Corbett's that Juanita heard a whistle while she was washing dishes after supper in the kitchen. Presently she slipped out of the back door and took the trail to the corral. A man moved forward out of the gloom to meet her.
"Is it you, Pablo?"
A slender youth, lean-flanked and broad-shouldered, her visitor turned out to be. His outstretched hands went forward swiftly to meet hers.
"Juanita, light of my life?" he cried softly. "Corazon mia!"
She submitted with a little reluctant protest to his caress. "I have but a minute, Pablo. The señora wants to walk over to Dolan's place. I am to stay with the sick American."
He exploded with low, fierce energy. "A thousand curses take the gringo! Why should you nurse him? Is he not an enemy to the señorita—to all in the valley who have bought from her or her father or her grandfather? Is he not here to throw us out—a thief, a spy, a snake in the grass?"
"No, he is not. Señor Gordon is good ... and kind."
"Bah! You are but a girl. He gives you soft words—and so——" The jealousy in him flared suddenly out. He caught his sweetheart tightly by the arm. "Has he made love to you, this gringo? Has he whispered soft, false lies in your ear, Juanita? If he has——"
She tried to twist free from him. "You are hurting my arm, Pablo," the girl cried.
"It is my heart you hurt, niña. Is it true that this thief has stolen the love of my Juanita?"
"You are a fool, Pablo. He has never said a hundred words to me. All through his sickness he has talked and talked—but it is of Señorita Valdés that he has raved."
"So. He will rob her of all she has and yet can talk of loving her. Do you not see he is a villain, that he has the forked tongue, as old Bear Paw, the Navajo, says of all gringoes? But let Señor Gordon beware. His time is short. He will not live to drive us from the valley. So say I. So say all the men in the valley."
"No—no! I will not have it, Pablo. You do not know. This Señor Gordon is good. He would not drive us away." Her arms slid around the neck of her lover and she pleaded with him impetuously. "You must not let them hurt him, for it is a kind heart he has."
"Why should I interfere? He is only a gringo. Let him die. I tell you he means harm to all of us."
"I do not know my Pablo when he talks like this. My Pablo was always kind and good and of a soft heart. I do not love him when he is cruel."
"It is then that you love the American," he cried. "Did I not know it? Did I not say so?"
"You say much that is foolish, muchacho. The American is a stranger to me ... and you are Pablo. But how can I love you when your heart is full of cruelty and jealousy and revenge? Go to the Blessed Virgin and confess before the good priest your sins, amigo."
"Amigo! Since when have I been friend to you and not lover, Juanita? I know well for how long—since this gringo with the white face crossed your trail."
Suddenly she flung away from him. "Muy bien! You shall think as you please. Adios, my friend with the head of a donkey! Adios, icabron!"
She was gone, light as the wind, flying with swift feet down the trail to the house. Sulkily he waited for her to come out again, but the girl did not appear. He gave her a full half hour before he swung to the saddle and turned the head of his pony toward the Valdés' hacienda. A new and poignant bitterness surged in his heart. Had this stranger, who was bringing trouble to the whole valley, come between him and little Juanita, whom he had loved since they had been children? Had he stolen her heart with his devilish wiles? The hard glitter in the black eyes of the Mexican told that he would punish him if this were true.
His younger brother Pedro took the horse from him as he rode into the ranch plaza an hour later.
"You are to go to the señorita at once and tell her how the gringo is, Pablo." After a moment he added sullenly: "Maldito, how is the son of a thief?"
"Sick, Pedro, sick unto death. The devil, as you say, may take him yet without any aid from us," answered Pablo Menendez brusquely.
"Why does the señorita send you every day to find out how he is? Can she not telephone? And why should she care what becomes of the traitor?" demanded Pedro angrily.
His brother shrugged. "How should I know?" He had troubles enough with the fancies of another woman without bothering about those of the señorita.
Valencia Valdés was on the porch waiting for her messenger.
"How is he, Pablo? Did you see the doctor and talk with him? What does he say?"
"Si, señorita. I saw Doctor Watson and he send you this letter. They say the American is a sick man—oh, very, very sick!"
The young woman dismissed him with a nod and hurried to her room. She read the letter from the doctor and looked out of one of the deep adobe windows into the starry night. It happened to be the same window from which she had last seen him go hobbling down the road. She rose and put out the light so that she could weep the more freely. It was hard for her to say why her heart was so heavy. To herself she denied that she cared for this jaunty debonair scoundrel. He was no doubt all she had told him on that day when she had driven him away.
Yes, but she had sent him to pain and illness ... perhaps to death. The tears fell fast upon the white cheeks. Surely it was not her fault that he had been so obstinate. Yet—down in the depth of her heart she knew she loved the courage that had carried him with such sardonic derision out upon the road for the long tramp that had so injured him. And there was an inner citadel within her that refused to believe him the sneaking pup she had accused him of being. No man with such honest eyes, who stood so erect and graceful in the image of God, could be so contemptible a cur. There was something fine about the spirit of the man. She had sensed the kinship of it without being able to put a finger exactly upon the quality she meant. He might be a sinner, but it was hard to believe him a small and mean one. The dynamic spark of self-respect burned too brightly in his soul for that.
CHAPTER VI
The fifth day marked the crisis of Gordon's illness. After that he began slowly to mend.
One morning he awoke to a realization that he had been very ill. His body was still weak, but his mind was coherent again. A slender young woman moved about the room setting things in order.
"Aren't you Juanita?" he asked.
Her heart gave a leap. This was the first time he had recognized her. Sometimes in his delirium he had caught at her hand ind tried to kiss it, but always under the impression that she was Miss Valdés.
"Si, señor," she answered quietly.
"I thought so." He added after a moment, with the childlike innocence a sick person has upon first coming back to sanity: "There couldn't be two girls as pretty as you in this end of the valley, could there?"
Under her soft brown skin the color flooded Juanita's face. "I—I don't know." She spoke in a flame of embarrassment, so abrupt had been his compliment and so sincere.
"I've been very sick, haven't I?"
She nodded. "Oh, señor, we have been—what you call—worried."
"Good of you, Juanita. Who has been taking care of me?"
"Mrs. Corbett."
"And Juanita?"
"Sometimes."
"Ah! That's good of you, too, amiga."
She recalled a phrase she had often heard an American rancher's daughter say. "I loved to do it, señor."
"But why? I'm your enemy, you know. You ought to hate me. Do you?"
Once again the swift color poured into the dark cheeks, even to the round birdlike throat.
"No, señor."
He considered this an instant before he accused her whimsically. "Then you're not a good girl. You should hate the devil, and I'm his agent. Any of your friends will tell you that."
"Señor Gordon is a joke."
He laughed weakly. "Am I? I'll bet I am, the fool way I acted."
"I mean a—what you call—a joker," she corrected.
"But ain't I your enemy, my little good Samaritan? Isn't that what all your people are saying?"
"I not care what they say."
"If I'm not your enemy, what am I?"
She made a great pretense of filling the ewer with water and gathering up the soiled towels.
"How about that, niña?" he persisted, turning toward her on the pillow with his unshaven face in his hand, a gentle quizzical smile in his eyes.
"I'm your ... servant, señor," she flamed, after the embarrassment of silence had grown too great.
"No, no! Nothing like that. What do you say? Will you take me for a friend, even though I'm an enemy to the whole valley?"
Her soft, dark eyes flashed to meet his, timidly and yet with an effect of fine spirit.
"Si, señor."
"Good. Shake hands on it, little partner."
She came forward reluctantly, as if she were pushed toward him by some inner compulsion. Her shy embarrassment, together with the sweetness of the glad emotion that trembled in her filmy eyes, lent her a rare charm.
For just an instant her brown fingers touched his, then she turned and fled from the room.
Mrs. Corbett presently bustled in, fat, fifty, and friendly.
"I can't hardly look you in the face," he apologized, with his most winning smile. "I reckon I've been a nuisance a-plenty, getting sick on your hands like a kid."
Mrs. Corbett answered his smile as she arranged the coverlets.
"You'll just have to be good for a spell to make up for it. No more ten-mile walks, Mr. Muir, till the knee is all right."
"I reckon you better call me Gordon, ma'am." His mind passed to what she had said about his walk. "Ce'tainly that was a fool pasear for a man to take. Comes of being pig-headed, Mrs. Corbett. And Doc Watson had told me not to use that game leg much. But, of course, I knew best," he sighed ruefully.
"Well, you've had your lesson. And you've worried all of us. Miss Valdés has called up two or three times a day on the phone and sent a messenger over every evening to find out how you were."
Dick felt the blood flush his face. "She has?" Then, after a little: "That's very kind of Miss Valdés."
"Yes. Everybody has been kind. Mr. Pesquiera has called up every day to inquire about you. He has been very anxious for you to recover."
A faint sardonic smile touched the white lips. "A fellow never knows how many friends he has till he needs them. So Don Manuel is in a hurry to have me get on my feet. That's surely right kind of him."
He thought he could guess why that proud and passionate son of Spain fretted to see him ill. The humiliation to which he had been subjected was rankling in his heart and would oppress him till he could wipe it out in action.
"You've got other friends, too, that have worried a lot," said Mrs. Corbett, as she took up some knitting.
"More friends yet? Say, ain't I rich? I didn't know how blamed popular I was till now," returned the invalid, with derisive irony. "Who is it this time I've got to be grateful for?"
"Mr. Davis."
"Steve Davis—from Cripple Creek, Colorado, God's Country?"
"Yes."
"Been writing about me, has he?"
Mrs. Corbett smiled. She had something up her sleeve. "First writing, then wiring."
"He's a kind of second dad to me. Expect the old rooster got anxious."
"Looks that way. Anyhow, he reached here last night."
Gordon got up on an elbow in his excitement. "Here? Here now? Old Steve?"
She nodded her head and looked over her shoulder toward the dining-room. "In there eating his breakfast. He'll be through pretty soon. You see, he doesn't know you're awake."
Presently Davis came into the room. He walked to the bed and took both of his friend's hands in his. Tears were shining in his eyes.
"You darned old son-of-a-gun, what do you mean by scaring us like this? I've lost two years' growth on account of your foolishness, boy."
"Did Mrs. Corbett send for you?"
"No, I sent for myself soon as I found out how sick you was. Now hustle up and get well."
"I'm going to do just that"
Dick kept his word. Within a few days he was promoted to a rocking-chair on the porch. Here Juanita served his meals and waited on his demands with the shy devotion that characterized a change in her attitude to him. She laughed less than she did. His jokes, his claim upon her as his "little partner," his friendly gratitude, all served to embarrass her, and at the same time to fill her with a new and wonderful delight.
A week ago, when he had been lying before her asleep one day, she had run her little finger through one of his tawny curls and admired its crisp thickness. To her maiden fancy something of his strong virility had escaped even to this wayward little lock of hair. She had wondered then how the Señorita Valdés could keep from loving this splendid fellow if he cared for her. All the more she wondered now, for her truant heart was going out to him with the swift ardent passion of her race. It was as a sort of god she looked upon him, as a hero of romance far above her humble hopes. She found herself longing for chances to wait upon him, to do little services that would draw the approving smile to his eyes.
Gordon was still in the porch-dwelling stage of convalescence when a Mexican rider swung from his saddle one afternoon with a letter from Manuel Pesquiera. The note was a formal one, written in the third person, and it wasted no words.
After reading it Dick tossed the sheet of engraved stationery across to his companion.
"Nothing like having good, anxious friends in a hurry to have you well, Steve," he said, with a smile.
The old miner read the communication. "Well, what's the matter with his hoping you'll be all right soon?"
"No reason why he shouldn't. It only shows what a Christian, forgiving disposition he's got. You see, that day I most walked my leg off I soused Mr. Pesquiera in a ditch."
"You—what?"
"Just what I say. I picked him up and dropped the gentleman in the nearest ditch. That's why he's so anxious to get me well."
"But—why for, boy?"
Dick laughed. "Can't you see, you old moss-back? He wants me well enough to call out for a duel."
"A duel." Davis stared at him dubiously. He did not know whether or not his friend was making game of him.
"Yes, sir. Pistols and coffee for two, waiter. That sort of thing."
"But folks don't fight duels nowadays," remonstrated the puzzled miner. "Anyhow, what's he want to fight about? I reckon you didn't duck him for nothing, did you? What was it all about?"
Dick told his tale of adventures, omitting only certain emotions that were his private property. He concluded with an account of the irrigating-ditch episode. "It ain't the custom in this part of the country to duck the blue bloods. Shouldn't wonder but what he's some hot under the collar. Writes like he sees red, don't you think, but aims to be polite and keep his shirt on."
Davis refused to treat the matter as a joke.
"I told you to let your lawyers 'tend to this, Dick, and for you not to poke your nose into this neck of the woods. But you had to come, and right hot off the reel you hand one to this Pesky fellow, or whatever you call him. Didn't I tell you that you can't bat these greasers over the head the way you can the Poles in the mines?"
"Sure you told me. You're always loaded with good advice, Steve. But what do you expect me to do when a fellow slaps my face?"
"They won't stand fooling with, these greasers. This Pesky fellow is playing squarer than most would if he gives you warning to be ready with your six-gun. You take my advice, and you'll burn the wind out of this country. If you git this fellow, the whole pack of them will be on top of you, and don't you forget it, son."
"So you advise me to cut and run, do you?" said Dick.
"You bet."
"That's what you'd do, is it?"
"Sure thing. You can't clean out the whole of New Mexico."
"Quit your lying, Steve, you old war-horse. You'd see it out, just like I'm going to."
Davis scratched his grizzled poll and grinned, but continued to dispense good advice.
"You ain't aiming to mix with this whole blamed country, are you?"
The man in the chair sat up, his lean jaw set and his eyes gleaming.
"I've been called the scum o' the earth. I've been kicked out of her house as a fellow not decent enough to mix with honest folks. Only yesterday I got a letter from some of her people warning me to leave the country while I was still alive. This Pesquiera is camping on my trail."
"Maybe he ain't. You've only guessed that."
"Guess nothing. It's a cinch."
"What you going to do about it?"
"Nothing."
"But if he lays for you."
"Good enough. Let him go to it. I'm going through with this thing. I'm going to show them who's the best man. And when I've beat them to a standstill I've got a revenge ready that will make Miss Valdés eat humble pie proper. Yes, sir. I'm tied to this country till this thing's settled."
"Then there ain't any use saying any more about it. You always was a willful son-of-a-gun," testified his partner, with a grin. "And I reckon I'll have to stay with you to pack you home after the greasers have shot you up."
"Don't you ever think it, Steve," came back the cheerful retort. "I've got a hunch this is my lucky game. I'm sitting in to win, old hoss."
"What's your first play, Dick?"
"I made it last week, within twenty minutes of the time I got back here. Wired my lawyers to bring suit at once, and to push it for all it was worth."
"You can't settle it by the courts inside of a year, or mebbe two."
"I ain't aiming to settle it by the courts. All I want is they should know I've got them beat to a fare-ye-well in the courts. Their lawyers will let them know that mighty early, just as soon as they look the facts up. There ain't any manner of doubt about my legal claim. I guess Miss Valdés knows that already, but I want her to know it good and sure. Then I'll paddle my own canoe. The law's only a bluff to make my hand better. I'm calling for that extra card for the looks of it, but my hand is full up without it"
"What's in your hand, anyhow, outside of your legal right? Looks to me they hold them all from ace down."
Dick laughed.
"You wait and see," he said.