Chapter 6. Juanita

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_ CHAPTER VI. JUANITA

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 Valdes.

"_Si, senor_," 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, _senor_, 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, _senor_."

"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, _senor_."

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."

"_Senor_ 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, _nina_?" 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, _senor_," 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, senor_."

"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 Valdes 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 Valdes."

"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 _Senorita_ Valdes 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 Valdes 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 Valdes 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. _

Read next: Chapter 7. Two Messages

Read previous: Chapter 5. "An Optimistic Guy"

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