A Daughter of the Dons Part 43

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

As he came into the moonlight, d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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 s.p.a.ce 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-cla.s.s for the circulation of the blood, I expect.

Most of us got quite a bit of exercise, first and last."

d.i.c.k spoke with light irony; but one distraught half of his attention was upon the burning house.

"Nevertheless, you will permeet me to regret, _senor_," 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 d.i.c.k 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 b.u.t.ted 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, Senor 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, _senor_, 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.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE TIN BOX

d.i.c.k 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 Valdes 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," d.i.c.k 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.