A Daughter of the Dons: A Story of New Mexico Today

Don Manuel rode into the moonlit plaza of the Valdés ranch, dismounted, and flung the reins to the boy that came running. Pesquiera nodded a careless greeting and passed into the house. He did not ask of anyone where Valencia was, nor did he send in a card of announcement. A lover's instinct told him that he would find her in the room that served both as an office and a library for her, seated perhaps before the leaping fireglow she loved or playing softly on the piano in the darkness.

The door was open, and he stood a moment on the threshold to get accustomed to the dim light.

A rich, low-pitched voice came across the room to him.

"It is you, Manuel?"

He stepped swiftly forward to the lounge upon which she was lying and knelt on one knee beside her, lifting her hand to his lips. "It is I, corazon mia, even Manuel the lucky."

She both smiled and sighed at that. A chord in her responded to the extravagance of his speech, even though vaguely it did not quite satisfy. A woman of the warm-blooded south and no plaster saint, she answered presently with shy, reluctant lips the kisses of her lover. Why should she not? Had he not won her by meeting the test she had given him? Was he not a gallant gentleman, of her own race and caste, bound to her by ties of many sorts, in every way worthy to be the father of her children? If she had to stifle some faint, indefinable regret, was it not right that she should? Her bridges were burned behind her. He was the man of her choice. She listened, eyes a little wistful, while he poured out ardently the tale of his devotion.

"You do love me, don't you, Manuel?" she demanded, a little fiercely. It was as if she wanted to drown any doubts she might have of her own feeling in the certainty of his.

"More than life itself, I do believe," he cried in a low voice.

Her lithe body turned, so that her shining eyes were close to his.

"Dear Manuel, I am glad. You don't know how worried I've been ... still am. Perhaps if I were a man it would be different, but I don't want my people to take the life of this stranger. But they mean him harm—especially since he has come back and intends to punish Pablo and Sebastian. I want them to let the law take its course. Something tells me that we shall win in the end. I've talked to them—and talked—but they say nothing except 'Si, doña.' But with you to help me——"

"They'd better not touch him again," broke in her lover swiftly.

"It's a great comfort to me, Manuel, that you have blotted out your own quarrel with him. It was magnanimous, what I should expect of you."

He said nothing, but the hand that lay on hers seemed suddenly to stiffen. A kind of fear ran shivering through her. Quickly she rose from the couch.

"Manuel, tell me that I am right, that you don't mean to ... hurt him?" Her dark eyes searched his unflinchingly. "You don't mean ... you can't mean ... that——?"

"Let us forget the American and remember only that we love, my beloved," he pleaded.

"No ... No!" The voice of the girl was sharp and imperative. "I want the truth. Is it that you are still thinking of murdering him, Manuel?"

The sting of her words brought a flush to his cheeks. "I fight fair, Valencia. I set against his life my own, with all the happiness that has come flooding it. Nor is it that I seek the man's life. For me he might live a thousand years—and welcome. But my honor——"

"No, Manuel. No—no—no! I will not have it. If you are betrothed to me your life is mine. You shall not risk it in a barbarous duel."

"Let us change the subject, dear heart."

"Not till I hear you say that you have given up this wicked intention of yours."

He gave up the attempt to evade her and met her fairly as one man does another.

"I can't say that, Valencia, not even for you. This quarrel lies between him and me. I have suffered humiliation and disgrace. Until those are wiped out there must be war between me and the American."

"Since the day I first wore your ring, Manuel, I have asked nothing of you. I ask now that you will forget the slight this man has put upon you ... because I ask it of you with all my heart."

A slight tremor ran through his blood. He felt himself slipping from his place with her.

"I can't, Valencia. You don't know what you ask, how impossible it is for me—a Pesquiera, son of my honored fathers—to grant such a request." He stretched his hands toward her imploringly.

"Yet you say you love me?"

"Heaven knows whether it is not true, my cousin."

"You want me to believe that, even though you refuse the first real request I ever made of you?"

"Anything else in the world that is in my power."

"It is easy to say that, Manuel, when it isn't something else I want. Give me this American's life. I shall know, then, that you love me."

"You know now," he answered quietly.

"Is love all sighs and vows?" she cried impatiently. "Will it not sacrifice pride and vanity for the object of its devotion?"

"Everything but honor," answered the man steadfastly.

She made a gesture of despair.

"What is this honor you talk so much about? It is neither Christian nor lawful nor right."

"It is a part of me, Valencia."

"Then your ideas are archaic. The duel was for a time when every man had to seek his personal redress. There is law in this twentieth century."

"Not as between man and man in the case of a personal indignity—at least, not for Manuel Pesquiera."

"But it is so needless. We know you are brave; he knows it, too. Surely your vanity——"

He smiled a little sadly.

"I think it is not vanity, but something deeper. None of my ancestors could have tolerated this stigma, nor can their son. My will has nothing to do with it, and my desire still less. It is kismet."

"Then you must know the truth—that if you kill this man I can never——"

"Never what?"

"Never marry you."

"Why?"

"His blood would stand between us."

"Do you mean that you—love him?"

Her dark eyes met his steadily.

"I don't think I mean that, Manuel. How could I mean that, since I love you and am betrothed to you? Sometimes I hate him. He is so insolent in his daring. Then, too, he is my enemy, and he has come here to set this happy valley to hate and evil. Yet, if I should hurt him, it would stand between us forever."

"I am sorry."

"Only sorry, Manuel?"

He clamped his teeth on the torrent of protest that rose within him when she handed him back his ring. It would do no good to speak more. The immutable fact stood between them.

"I did not know life could be so hard—and cruel," she cried out in a burst of passion.

She went to the open window and looked out upon the placid, peaceful valley. She had a swift, supple way of moving, as if her muscles responded with effortless ease to her volition; but the young man noticed that to-night there was a drag to her motions.

His heart yearned toward her. He longed mightily to take her in his arms and tell her that he would do as she wished. But, as he had said, something in him more potent than vanity, than pride, than his will, held him to the course he had set for himself. His views of honor might be archaic and ridiculous, but he lived by his code as tenaciously as had his fathers. Gordon had insulted and humiliated him publicly. He must apologize or give him satisfaction. Until he had done one or the other Manuel could not live at peace with himself. He had put a powerful curb upon his desire to wait as long as he had. Circumstances had for a time taken the matter out of his hands, but the time had come when he meant to press his claims. The American might refuse the duel; he could not refrain from defending himself when Pesquiera attacked.

A step sounded in the doorway, and almost simultaneously a voice.

"Doña, are you here?"

The room was lighted only by the flickering fire; but Valencia, her eyes accustomed to the darkness, recognized the boy as Juan Gardiez.

"Yes, I am here, Juan. What have you to tell me?" she said quickly.

"I do not know, señorita. But the men—Pablo, Sebastian; all of them—are gone."

"Gone where?" she breathed.

"I do not know. To-day I drove a cow and calf to Willow Springs. I am but returned. The houses are empty. Señor Barela's wife says she saw men riding up the hill toward Corbett's—eight, nine, ten of them."

"To Corbett's?" She stared whitely at him without moving. "How long ago?"

"An hour ago—or more."

"Saddle Billy at once and bring him round," the girl ordered crisply.

She turned as she spoke and went lightly to the telephone. With the need of action, of decision, her hopelessness was gone. There was a hard, bright light in her eyes that told of a resolution inflexible as tempered steel when once aroused.

"Give me Corbett's—at once, please. Hallo, Central—Corbett's——"

No answer came, though she called again and again.

"There must be something wrong with the telephone," suggested Don Manuel.

She dropped the receiver and turned quietly to him.

"The wires have been cut."

"But, why? What is it all about?"

"Merely that my men are anticipating you. They have gone to murder the American. Deputy sheriffs from Santa Fé to-day came here to arrest Pablo and Sebastian. The men suspected and were hidden. Now they have gone to punish Mr. Gordon for sending the officers."

She could not have touched him more nearly. He came to her with burning eyes.

"How do you know? What makes you think so?"

She told him, briefly and simply, giving more detailed reasons.

Without a word, he turned and left her. She could hear him rushing through the hall, traced his progress by the slamming of the door, and presently caught sight of him running toward the corral. He did not hear, or heed, her call for him to wait.

The girl hurried out of the house after him, in time to see him slap a saddle on his bronco, swing to his seat lightly, and gallop in a cloud of dust to the road.

Valencia waited for no more. Quickly running to her room, she slipped on a khaki riding-skirt. Her deft, tapering fingers moved swiftly, so that she was ready, crop in hand, booted and spurred, by the time Juan brought round her horse.

It took but an instant to lift herself to the saddle and send Billy galloping forward.

Already her cousin had disappeared in great clouds of dust over the brow of the hill.

Dick Gordon and Davis were sitting on the porch of their cabin, which was about an eighth of a mile from the main buildings of the Corbett place. They had returned the day before from Santa Fé, along with two deputy sheriffs who had come to arrest Pablo and Sebastian. The officers had scoured the valley for two days, and as yet had not caught a glimpse of the men they had come to get. Their inquiries were all met by a dogged ignorance on the part of the Mexicans, who had of a sudden turned surprisingly stupid. No, they had seen nothing of Pablo or of Sebastian. They knew nobody of that name—unless it was old Pablo Gardiez the señors wished to see. Many strangers desired to see him, for he was more than a hundred years old and still remembered clearly the old days.

Gordon laughed at the discomfiture of his sleuths. "I dare say they may have been talking to the very men they wanted. But everybody hangs together in this valley. I'm going out with them myself to-morrow after the gentlemen the law requires."

"No, I wouldn't do that, Dick. With every greaser in the valley simmering against you, it won't do for you to go trapsing right down among them," Davis explained.

"That's where I'm going, anyhow—to-morrow morning. The deputies are staying up at Morrow's. I'm going to phone 'em to-night that I'll ride with them to-morrow. Bet you a new hat we flush our birds."

"What's the sense of you going into the police business, Dick? I'll tell you what's ailing you. You're just honing to see Miss Valdés again. You want to go grand-standing around making her mad at you some more."

"You're a wiz, Steve," admitted his friend dryly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do want to see her again. Why shouldn't I?"

"What good does it do you when you quarrel all the time you're together? She's declared herself already on this proposition—told the deputies flat-footed that she wouldn't tell them anything and would help her boys to escape in any way she could. You're just like a kid showing off his muscle before a little girl in the first grade."

"All right, Steve. You don't hear me denying it."

"Denying it," snapped the old miner. "Hmp! Lot of good that would do. You're fair itching to get a chance to go down to the ranch and swagger around in plain sight of her lads. You'd be tickled to death if you could cut out the two you want and land them here in spite of her and Don Manuel and the whole pack of them. Don't I know you? Nothing but vanity—that's all there's to it."

"He's off," murmured Dick with a grin to the scenery.

"You make me tired. Why don't you try a little horse sense for a change? Honest, if you was a few years younger I'd put you acrost my knee and spank you."

Gordon lit a cigarette, but did not otherwise contribute to the conversation.

"Ain't she wearing another man's ring?" continued Davis severely. "What's bitin' you, anyhow? How many happy families you want to break up? First off, there's Pablo and Juanita. You fill up her little noodle with the notion that——"

Dick interrupted amiably. "Go to grass, you old granny. I've been putting in my spare time since I came back letting Juanita understand the facts. If she had any wrong notions she ain't got them any longer. She's all ready to kiss and make up with Pablo first chance she gets."

"Then there's Miss Valdés and this Pesky fellow, who's the whitest brown man I ever did see. Didn't he run his fool laigs off getting you free so you could go back and make love to his girl?"

"He's the salt of the earth. I'm for Don Manuel strong. But I don't reckon Miss Valdés would work well in harness with him," explained Dick.

Steve Davis snorted. "No, you reckon Dick Gordon would, though. Don't you see she's of his people—same customs, same ways, same——"

"She's no more of his people than she is of mine. Her mother was an American girl. She was educated in Washington. New Mexico is in America, not in Spain. Don't forget that, you old croaker."

"Well, she's engaged, ain't she? And to a good man. It ain't your put in."

"A good one, but the wrong one. It's a woman's privilege to change her mind. I'm here to help her change it," announced the young man calmly. "Say, look at Jimmie Corbett hitting the high spots this way."

Jimmie, not yet recovered from a severe fright, stopped to explain the adventure that had befallen him while he had been night fishing.

"I seen spooks, Mr. Gordon—hundreds of 'em—coming down the river bank on horseback—honest to goodness, I did."

"Jimmie, if I had your imagination——"

But Davis cut into Dick's smiling incredulity:

"Did you say on horseback, Jimmie?"

"Yes, sir, on horseback. Hope to die if they weren't—'bout fifty of them."

"You better run along home before they catch you, Jimmie," advised the old miner gravely.

The boy went like a streak of light. Davis turned quietly to his partner.

"I reckon it's come, Dick."

"You believe the boy did see some men on horseback? It might have been only shadows."

"No, sir. His imagination wouldn't have put spooks on horseback. We got no time to argue. You going to hold the fort here or take to the hills?"

"You think they mean to attack us in the open?"

"They're hoping to surprise us, I reckon. That's why they're coming along the creek instead of the road. Hadn't 'a' been for Jimmie, they would have picked us off from the porch before we could say 'Jack Robinson.'"

Both men had at once stepped within the log cabin, and, as they talked, were strapping on ammunition belts and looking to their rifles and revolvers.

"There are too many doors and windows to this cabin. We can't hold it against them. We'll take the trail from the back door that leads up to the old spring. From up there we'll keep an eye on them," said Dick.

"I see 'em coming," cried the older man softly from the front window. "They ain't on the trail, but slipping up through the rocks. One—two—three—four—Lord, there's no end to the beggars! They're on foot now. Left their hawsses, I expect, down by the river."

Quietly the two men stepped from the back door of the cabin and swiftly ascended the little trail that rose at a sharp acclivity to the spring. At some height above the cabin, they crouched behind boulders and watched the cautious approach of the enemy.

"Not taking any chances, are they?" murmured Gordon.

Steve laughed softly.

"Heard about that chicken-killing affair, mebbe, and none of them anxious to add a goose to the exhibit."

"It would be right easy to give that surprise party a first-class surprise," chuckled Dick. "Shall I drop a pill or two down among them, just to let them know we're on the premises?"

"Now, don't you, Dick. We'll have to put half of 'em out of biz, and get shot up by the rest, if you do."

"All right. I'll be good, Steve. I was only joking, anyhow. But it ce'tainly is right funny to sit up here and watch them snake up to the empty cabin. See that fellow with the Mexican hat? I believe it's my jealous friend Pablo. He's ce'tainly anxious to get one Gringo's scalp. I could drop a stone down on him so he'd jump about 'steen feet."

"There's one reached the window. He's looking in mighty careful, you bet. Now he's beckoning the other fellows. I got a notion he's made a discovery."

"Got on to the fact that the nest's empty. They're pouring in like bees. Can you make out how many there are? I count nine," said Dick.

"They're having a powwow now. All talking with their hands, the way greasers do. Go to it, boys. A regular debating society, ain't you?"

"Hello! What's that mean?" broke in Gordon.

One of the Mexicans had left the rest, and was running toward the Corbett house.

"Gone to find whether we're on the porch with the family, up there," continued the young man, answering his own question.

"What's the matter with beating it while we've got a chanct?"

"I'm going to stay right here. You can go if you like, Steve?"

"Oh, well. I just suggested it." Davis helped himself to a chew of tobacco placidly.

"Fellow coming back from the house already," he presently added.

"Got the wrong address again. They'll be happening on the right one pretty soon."

"Soon as they're amply satisfied we ain't under the beds, or hid between the covers of some of them magazines. Blamed if they ain't lit a lamp."

Gordon gave a sudden exclamation of dismay. A Mexican had appeared at the back door of the cottage with a tin box in his hand.

"I'm the blamedest idiot out of an asylum," he cried bitterly. "All the proofs of my claim are in that box. You know I brought it back from Santa Fé with me."

"Ain't that too bad?"

Gordon rose, the lines of his mouth set fast and hard.

"I'm going down after it. If I lose those papers, the whole game's spoilt for me. I've got to have them, and I'm going to."

"Don't be a goat. How can you take it from a whole company of them?"

"I'll watch my chance. It may be the fellow will hide it somewhere till he wants it again."

"I'm going, too, then."

"See here, Steve. Be sensible. If we both go down, it's a sure thing they will stumble on us."

"Too late, anyhow. They're coming up after us."

"So much the better. We'll cut across to the left, slip down, and take them in the rear. Likely as not we'll find it there."

"All right. Whatever you say, Dick."

They slipped away into the semi-darkness, taking advantage of every bit of cover they could find. Not until they were a long stone's throw from the trail did the young miner begin the descent.

Occasionally they could hear voices over to the right as they silently slipped down. It was no easy thing to negotiate that stiff mountainside in the darkness, where a slip would have sent one of them rolling down into the sharp rock-slide beneath. Presently they came to a rockrim, a sheer descent of twenty-five feet down the perpendicular face of a cliff.

They followed the ledge to the left, hoping to find a trough through which they might discover a way down. But in this they were disappointed.

"We'll have to go back. There's a place we passed where perhaps it may be done. We've got to try it, anyhow," said Gordon, in desperation.

Retracing their steps, they came to the point Dick had meant. It looked bad enough, in all conscience, but from the rocks there jutted halfway down a dwarf oak that had found rooting in a narrow cleft.

The young man worked his body over the edge, secured a foothold in some tiny scarp that broke the smoothness of the face, and groped, with one hand and then the other, for some hold that would do to brace his weight. He found one, lowered himself gingerly, and tested another foothold in a little bunch of dry moss.

"All right. My rifle, Steve."

It was handed down. At that precise moment there came to them the sound of approaching voices.

"Your gun, Steve! Quick. Now, then, over you come. That's right—no, the other hand—your foot goes there—easy, now."

They stood together on a three-inch ledge, their heels projecting over space. Nor had they reached this precarious safety any too soon, for already their pursuers were passing along the rim above.

One of them stopped on the edge, scarce eight feet above them.

"They must have come this way," he said to a companion. "But I expect they're hitting the trail about a mile from here."

"Si, Pablo. Can you feed me a cigareet?" the other asked.

The men below, scarce daring to breathe, waited, while the matches glimmered and the cigarettes puffed to a glow. Every instant they anticipated discovery; and they were in such a position that, if it came, neither of them could use his weapons. For they were cramped against the wall with their rifles by their sides, so bound by the situation that to have lifted them to aim would have been impossible.

"The American—he has escaped us this time," one of them said as they moved off.

"Maldito, the devil has given him wings to fly away," replied Pablo.

After the sound of their footsteps had died, Gordon resumed his descent. He reached the stunted oak in safety, and was again joined by his friend.

"Looks like we're caught here, Steve. There ain't a sign of a foothold below," the younger man whispered.

"Mebbe the branches of that tree will bend over."

"We'll have to try it, anyhow. If it breaks with me, I'll get to the bottom, just the same. Here goes."

Catching hold of the branches, he swung down and groped with his feet for a resting-place.

"Nothing doing, Steve."

"What blamed luck!"

"Hold on! Here's a cleft, away over to the right. Let me get a hold on that gun to steady me. That's all right. The rest's easy. I'll give you a hand across—that's right. Now we're there."

At the very foot of the cliff an unexplainable accident occurred. Dick's rifle went off with noise enough to wake the seven sleepers.

"Come on, Steve. We got to get out of here," he called to his partner, and began to run down the hill toward their cabin.

He covered ground so fast that the other could not keep up with him. From above there came the crack of a rifle, then another and another, as the men on the ridge sighted their prey. A spatter of bullets threw up the dirt around them. Dick felt a red-hot flame sting his leg, but, though he had been hit, to his surprise he was not checked.

Topping the brow of a little rise, he caught sight of the cabin, and, to his consternation, saw that smoke was pouring from the door and that within it was alight with flames.

"The beggars have set fire to it," he cried aloud.

So far as he could see, four men had been left below. They did not at first catch sight of him as he dodged forward in the shadows of the alders at the foot of the hill. Nor did they see him even when he stopped among the rocks at the rear, for their eyes were on Davis and their attention focused upon him.

He had come puffing to the brow of the hillock Gordon had already passed, when a shout from the ridge apprised those below of his presence. Cut off above and below, there was nothing left for Steve but a retreat down the road. He could not possibly advance in the face of four rifles, and he knew, too, that the best aid he could offer his friend was to deflect the attention of the watchers from him.

He fell back promptly, running from boulder to boulder in his retreat, pursued cautiously by the enemy. His ruse would have succeeded admirably, so far as Dick was concerned, except for that young man himself. He could not sit quiet and see his friend the focus of the fire.

Wherefore, it happened that the attackers of Davis were halted momentarily by a disconcerting fusillade from the rear. The "American devil" had come out into the open, and was dropping lead among them.

At this juncture a rider galloped into view from the river gorge along which wound the road. He pulled his jaded horse to a halt beside the old miner and leaped to the ground.

Without waiting an instant for their fire to cease, he ran straight forward toward the pursuing Mexicans.

As he came into the moonlight, Dick saw with surprise that the newcomer was Don Manuel Pesquiera. He was hatless, apparently too unarmed. But not for a second did this stop him as he sprinted forward.

Straight for the spitting rifles Don Manuel ran, face ablaze with anger. He had covered half the distance before the weapons wavered groundward.

"Don Manuel!" cried Sebastian, perturbed by this apparition flying through the night toward them.

Dick waited only long enough to make sure that hostilities had for the moment ceased against his friend before beginning his search for the tin box.

He quartered back and forth over the ground behind the burning house without result, circled it rapidly, his eyes alert to catch the shine of the box in the moonbeams, and examined the space among the rocks at the base of the hill. Nowhere did he see what he wanted.

"I'll have to take a whirl at the house. Some of them may have carried it back inside," he told himself.

As he stepped toward the door, Don Manuel came round the corner. At his heels were Steve and the four Mexicans who had but a few minutes before been trying industriously to exterminate the miner.

Don Manuel bowed punctiliously to Gordon.

"I beg to express my very great regrettance at this untimely attack," he said.

"Don't mention it, don. This business of chasing over the hills in the moonlight is first-class for the circulation of the blood, I expect. Most of us got quite a bit of exercise, first and last."

Dick spoke with light irony; but one distraught half of his attention was upon the burning house.

"Nevertheless, you will permeet me to regret, señor," returned the young Spaniard stiffly.

"Ce'tainly. You're naturally sore that you didn't get first crack at me. Don't blame you a bit," agreed Dick cheerfully but absently. "Funny thing is that one of your friends happened to send his message to my address, all right. Got me in the left laig, just before you butted in and spoiled their picnic so inconsiderate."

"You are then wounded, sir?"

"Not worth mentioning, don. Just a little accident. Wouldn't happen again in a thousand years. Never did see such poor shots as your valley lads. Say, will you excuse me just a minute? I got some awful important business to attend to."

"Most entirely, Señor Gordon."

"Thanks. Won't be a minute."

To Pesquiera's amazement, he dived through the door, from which smoke poured in clouds, and was at once lost to sight within.

"He is a madman," the Spaniard murmured.

"Or devil," added Sebastian significantly. "You will see, señor, he will come out safe and unharmed."

But he did not come out at all, though the minutes dragged themselves away one after another.

"I'm going after him," cried Davis, starting forward.

But Don Manuel flung strong arms about him, and threw the miner back into the hands of the Mexicans.

"Hold him," he cried in Spanish.

"Let me go. Let me go, I say!" cried the miner, struggling with those who detained him.

But Pesquiera had already gone to the rescue. He, too, plunged through the smoke. Blinded unable to breathe, he groped his way across the door lintel into the blazing hut.

The heat was intense. Red tongues of flame licked out from all sides toward him. But he would not give up, though he was gasping for breath and could not see through the dense smoke.

A sweep of wind brushed the smoke aside for an instant, and he saw the body of his enemy lying on the floor before him. He stooped, tried to pick it up, but was already too far gone himself.

Almost overcome, he sank to his knees beside Gordon. Close to the floor the air was still breathable. He filled his lungs, staggered to his feet, and tried to drag the unconscious man across the threshold with him.

A hundred fiery dragons sprang unleashed at him. The heat, the stifling smoke were more than flesh and blood could endure. He stumbled over a fallen chair, got up and plowed forward again, still with that dead weight in his arms; collapsed again, and yet once more pulled himself to his feet by the sheer strength of the dogged will in him.

So, at last, like a drunken man, he reeled into safety, the very hair and clothes of the man on fire from the inferno he had just left.

A score of eager hands were ready to relieve him of his burden, to support his lurching footsteps. Two of them were the strong brown hands of the woman he loved more than any other on earth, the woman who had galloped into sight just in time to see him come staggering from that furnace with the body of the man who was his hated rival. It was her soft hands that smothered the fire in his hair, that dragged the burning coat from his back.

He smiled wanly, murmured "Valencia," and fainted in her arms.

Gordon clutched in his stiffened fingers a tin box blistered by the heat.

Dick Gordon lay on a bed in a sunny south room at the Corbett place.

He was swathed in bandages, and had something the appearance of a relic of the Fourth of July, as our comic weeklies depict Young America the day after that glorious occasion. But, except for one thing which he had on his mind, the Coloradoan was as imperturbably gay as ever.

He had really been a good deal less injured than his rescuer; for, though a falling rafter had struck him down as he turned to leave the hut, this very accident had given him the benefit of such air as there had been in the cabin. Here and there he had been slightly burned, but he had not been forced to inhale smoke.

Wound in leg and all, the doctor had considered him out of danger long before he felt sure of Don Manuel.

The young Spaniard lay several days with his life despaired of. The most unremitting nursing on the part of his cousin alone pulled him through.

She would not give up; would not let his life slip away. And, in the end, she had won her hard fight. Don Manuel, too, was on the road to recovery.

While her cousin had been at the worst, Valencia Valdés saw the wounded Coloradoan only for a minute of two each day; but, with Pesquiera's recovery, she began to divide her time more equitably.

"I've been wishing I was the bad case," Dick told her whimsically when she came in to see him. "I'll bet I have a relapse so the head nurse won't always be in the other sick room."

"Manuel is my cousin, and he has been very, very ill," she answered in her low, sweet voice, the color in her olive cheeks renewed at his words.

The eyes of the Anglo-Saxon grew grave.

"How is Don Manuel to-night?"

"Better. Thank Heaven."

"That's what the doctor told me."

Dick propped himself on an elbow and looked directly at her, that affectionate smile of his on his face.

"Miss Valdés, do you know, ever since I've been well enough, I've been hoping that if one of us had to cross the Great Divide it would be me?"

Her troubled eyes studied him.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it would seem more right that way. I came here and made all this trouble in the valley. I insulted him. I had in mind another hurt to him that we won't discuss just now. Then, when it comes to a showdown, he just naturally waltzes into Hades and saves my life for me at the risk of his own. No, ma'am, I sure couldn't have stood it if he had died."

"I'm glad you feel that way," she answered softly, her eyes dim.

"How else could I feel, and be a white man? I tell you, it makes me feel mean to think about that day I threw him in the water. Just because I'm a great big husky, about the size of two of him, I abused my strength and——"

"Just a moment," the girl smiled. "You are forgetting he struck you first."

"Oh, well! I reckon I could have stood that."

"Will you be willing to tell him how you feel about it?"

"Will I? Well, I guess yes."

The young woman's eyes were of starry radiance. "I'm so glad—so happy. I'm sure everything will come right, now."

He nodded, smiling.

"That's just the way I feel, Miss Valencia. They couldn't go wrong, after this—that is, they couldn't go clear wrong."

"I'm quite certain of that."

"I want to go on record as saying that Manuel Pesquiera is the gamest man I know. That isn't all. He's a thoroughbred on top of it. If I live to be a hundred I'll never be as fine a fellow. My hat's off to him."

There was a mist in her soft eyes as she poured a glass of ice water for him. "I'm so glad to hear you say that. He is such a splendid fellow."

He observed she was no longer wearing the solitaire and thought it might be to spare his feelings. So he took the subject as a hunter does a fence.

"I wish you all the joy in the world, Miss Valdés. I know you're going to be very happy. I've got my wedding present all picked out for you," he said audaciously.

She was busy tidying up his dresser, but he could see the color flame into her cheeks.

"You have a very vivid imagination, Mr. Gordon."

"Not necessary in this case," he assured her.

"You're quite sure of that, I suppose," she suggested with a touch of ironic mockery.

"I haven't read any announcement in the paper," he admitted.

"It is always safe to wait for that."

"Which is another way of saying that it is none of my business. But then you see it is." He offered no explanation of this statement, nor did he give her time to protest. "Now about that wedding present, Miss Valdés. It's in a tin box I had in the cabin before the fire. Can you tell me whether it was saved? My recollection is that I had it at the time the rafter put me to sleep. But of course I don't remember anything more till I found myself in bed here."

"A tin box? Yes; you had it in your hands when Manuel brought you out. They could hardly pry your fingers from it."

"Would you mind having that box brought to me, Miss Valdés? I want to be sure the present hasn't been injured by fire."

"Of course not. I don't just know where it is, but it must be somewhere about the place."

She was stepping toward the door, with that fine reaching grace of a fawn that distinguished her, when his voice stopped her. She stopped, delicate head poised and half turned, apparently waiting for further directions.

"Not just this minute, please. I've been lying here all day, with nobody but Steve. Finally he got so restless I had to turn him out to pasture. It wouldn't be right hospitable to send you away so soon. That box can wait till you have had all of me you can stand. What I need is good nursing, and I need it awful bad," he explained plaintively.

"Has Mrs. Corbett been neglecting you?"

"Mrs. Corbett—no!" he shouted with a spirit indomitable, but a voice still weak. "She's on earth merely to cook me chicken broth and custard. It's you that's been neglecting me."

The gleam of a strange fire was in her dark, bright eyes; in her cheeks the soft glow of beating color.

"And my business on earth is to fight you, is it not? But I can't do that till you are on your feet again, sir."

He gave her back her debonair smile.

"I'm not so sure of that. Women fight with the weapons of their sex—and often win, I'm told."

"You mean, perhaps, tears and appeals for pity. They are weapons I cannot use, sir. I had liefer lose."

"I dare say there are other weapons in your arsenal. I know you're too game to use those you've named."

"What others?" she asked quietly.

He let his eyes rest on her, sweep over her, and come back to the meeting with hers. But he did not name them. Instead, he came to another angle of the subject.

"You never know when you are licked, do you? Why don't you ask me to compromise this land grant business?"

"What sort of a compromise have you to offer, sir?" she said after a pause.

"Have your lawyers told you yet that you have no chance?"

"Would it be wise for me to admit I have none, before I go to discuss the terms of the treaty?" she asked, and put it so innocently that he acknowledged the hit with a grin.

"I thought that, if you knew you were going to lose, you might be easier to deal with. I'm such a fellow to want the whole thing in my bargains."

"If that's how you feel, I don't think I'll compromise."

"Well, I didn't really expect you would. I just mentioned it."

"It was very good of you. Now I think I'll go back to my cousin."

"If you must I'm coming over to his room as soon as the doc will let me, and as soon as he'll see me."

She gave him a sudden flash of happy eyes. "I hope you will. There must be no more trouble between him and you. There couldn't be after this, could there?"

He shook his head.

"Not if it takes two to make a quarrel. He can say what he wants to, make a door-mat out of me, go gunning after me till the cows come home, and I won't do a thing but be a delegate to a peace conference. No, ma'am. I'm through."

"You don't know how glad I am to hear it."

"Are you as anxious I should make up my quarrel with you as the ones with your friends?" he asked boldly.

The effrontery of this lean, stalwart young American—if effrontery it was, and no other name seemed to define it—surprised another dash of roses into the olive.

"The way to make up your quarrel with me is to make up those with my friends," she answered.

"All right. Suits me. I'll call those deputies off and send them home. Pablo and Sebastian will never go to the pen on my evidence. They're in the clear so far as I'm concerned."

She gave him both her hands. "Thank you. Thank you. I'm so glad."

The tears rose to her eyes. She bit her lip, turned and left the room.

He called after her:

"Please don't forget my tin box."

"I'll remember your precious box," she called back with a pretense of scorn.

He laughed to himself softly. There was sunshine in his eyes.

She had resolved to leave him to Mrs. Corbett in future, but within the hour she was back.

"I came about your tin box. Nobody seems to know where it is. Everybody remembers having seen it in your hands. I suppose we left it on the ground when we brought you to the house, but I can't find anybody that removed it. Perhaps some of my people have seen it. I'll send and ask them."

He smiled disconsolately.

"I may as well say good-bye to it."

"If you mean that my boys are thieves," she retorted hotly.

"I didn't say that, ma'am; but mebbe I did imply they wouldn't return that particular box, when they found what was in it. I shouldn't blame them if they didn't."

"I should. Very much. This merely shows you don't understand us at all, Mr. Gordon."

"I wish I had that box. It ce'tainly disarranges my plans to have it gone," he said irritably.

"I assure you I didn't take it."

"I don't lay it to you, though it would ce'tainly be to your advantage to take it," he laughed, already mollified.

"Will you please explain that?"

"All my claims of title to this land grant are in that box, Miss Valdés," he remarked placidly, as if it were a matter of no consequence.

She went white at his words.

"And it is lost—probably in the hands of my people. We must get it back."

"But you're on the other side of the fence," he reminded her gaily.

With dignity she turned on him.

"Do you think I want to beat you that way? Do you think I am a highwayman, or that I shall let my people be?"

"You make them draw the line between murder and robbery," he suggested pleasantly.

"I couldn't stop them from attacking you, but I can see they don't keep your papers—all the more, that it is to their interest and mine to keep them."

She said it with such fine girlish pride, her head thrown a little back, her eyes gleaming, scorn of his implied distrust in her very carriage. For long he joyfully carried the memory of it.

Surely, she was the rarest creature it had ever been his fortune to meet. Small wonder the gallant Spaniard Don Manuel loved her. Small wonder her people fed on her laughter, and were despondent at her frowns.

Dick Gordon was awake a good deal that night, for the pain and the fever were still with him; but the hours were short to him, full of joy and also of gloom. Shifting pictures of her filled the darkness. His imagination saw her in many moods, in many manners. And when from time to time he dropped into light sleep, it was to carry her into his dreams.