A Daughter of the Dons Part 10

"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 pract.i.tioner, 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 Valdes. But the close-mouthed American gave him no grounds upon which to base his suspicion.

The first thing that d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sed 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, d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k 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 Valdes is as G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 d.i.c.k, with the instinct for deference to all women of self-respect that obtains among frontiersmen, had won the grat.i.tude 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 _senora_ 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 _senorita_--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 gra.s.s?"

"No, he is not. _Senor_ 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, _nina_. 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 _Senorita_ Valdes 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 Senor 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 _Senor_ 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 Valdes' 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 _senorita_ 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 _senorita_ 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.