A Daughter of the Dons by William MacLeod Raine

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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, _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 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, 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

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 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," 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 Valdes, 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 Valdes. 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 Valdes.
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 Valdes? 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
Valdes," 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.

CHAPTER XXIV

DICK GORDON APOLOGIZES

Don Manuel was at first too spent a man even to wish to get well. As his
cousin's nursing dragged him farther and farther back into this world
from which he had so nearly slipped, he was content to lie still and
take the goods the gods provided.

She was with him for the present. That sufficed. Whether he lived or
died he did not care a hand's turn; but the while Fate flipped a coin to
determine whether it should be life or death for him, he had Valencia's
love as he feared he would never have it in case he recovered.

For these days she lived for him alone. Her every thought and desire had
been for him. On this his soul fed, since he felt that, as they slipped
back into the ordinary tide of life, she would withdraw herself gently
but surely from him.

He had fought against the conviction that she loved his rival, the
Colorado claimant to the valley. He had tried to persuade himself that
her interest in the miner was natural under the circumstances and
entirely independent of sentiment. But in the bottom of his heart such
assurances did not convince.

"You will be able to sit up in a few days. It's wonderful how you have
improved," she told him one day as she finished changing his pillow.

"Yes, I shall be well soon. You will be relieved of me," he said with a
kind of gentle sadness.

"As if I wanted to be," she reproved softly, her hand smoothing down his
hair.

"No. You're very good to me. You don't want to be rid of me. But it's
best you should be. I have had all of you that's good for me, my cousin,
unless I could have more than I dare hope."

She looked through the window at the sunlit warmth of the land, and,
after a long time, said:

"Must we talk of that, Manuel?"

"No, _nina_--not if I am once sure. I have guessed; but I must be
certain beyond the possibility of mistake. Is my guess right? That it
can never be."

She turned dim eyes on him and nodded. A lump had risen to her throat
that forbade speech.

"I can still say, dearest, that I am glad to have loved you," he
answered cheerfully, after an instant's silence. "And I can promise that
I shall trouble you no more. Shall we talk of something else?"

"There is one thing I should like to tell you first," she said with
pretty timidity. "How proud I am that such a man could have loved me.
You are the finest man I know. I must be a foolish girl not to--care for
you--that way."

"No. A woman's heart goes where it must. If a man loses, he loses."

She choked over her words. "It doesn't seem fair. I promised. I wore
your ring. I said that if you saved ... him ... I would marry you.
Manuel, I ... I'll keep faith if you'll take me and be content to wait
for ... that kind of love to grow."

"No, my cousin. I have wooed and lost. Why should you be bound by a
pledge made at such a time? As your heart tells you to do, so you must
do." He added after a pause: "It is this American, is it not?"

Again she nodded twice, not looking at him lest she see the pain in his
eyes.

"I wish you joy, Valencia--a world full of it, so long as life lasts."

He took her fingers in his, and kissed them before he passed lightly to
another subject:

"Have you heard anything yet of the tin box of Mr. Gordon's?"

She accepted the transition gratefully, for she was so moved she was
afraid lest she break down.

"Not yet. It is strange, too, where it has gone. I have had inquiries
made every where."

"For me, I hope it is never found. Why should you feel responsibility to
search for these papers that will ruin you and your tenants?"

"If my men had not attacked and tried to murder him he would still have
his evidence. I seek only to put him in the position he was in before we
injured him."

"You must judge for yourself, Valencia. But, if you don't mind, I shall
continue to wish you failure in your search," he replied.

It was now that Jimmie Corbett came into the room to say that Mr. Gordon
would like to call on Don Manuel, if the latter felt able to receive
him.

Pesquiera did not glance at his cousin. He answered the boy at once.

"Tell Mr. Gordon I shall be very glad to see him," he said quietly.

Nor did he look at her after the boy had left the room, lest his gaze
embarrass her, but gave his attention wholly to propping himself up on
his elbow.

Dick stood a moment filling the doorway before he came limping into the
room. From that point he bowed to Miss Valdes, then moved forward to the
bed.

He did not offer to shake hands, but stood looking down at his rival,
with an odd look of envy on his face. But it was the envy of a brave and
generous man, who acknowledged victory to his foe.

"I give you best, Don Manuel," he finally said. "You've got me beat at
every turn of the road. You saved my life again, and mighty near paid
with your own. There ain't anything to say that will cover that, I
reckon."

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