A Daughter of the Dons by William MacLeod Raine

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"How would they move? Would it be a knife in the dark?"

His gray eyes, which had been warm as summer sunshine on a hill, were
now fixed on her with chill inscrutability.

"I don't know. It might be that. Very likely." He saw the pulse in her
throat beating fast as she hesitated before she plunged on. "A warning
is not a threat. If you know this Senor Gordon, tell him to sell
whatever claim he has. Tell him, at least, to fight from a distance; not
to come to this valley himself. Else his life would be at hazard."

"If he is a man that will not keep him away. He will fight for what is
his all the more because there is danger. What's more, he'll do his
fighting on the ground--unless he's a quitter."

She sighed.

"I was afraid so."

"But you have not told me yet the alleged defect in the Valdes claim.
There must be some point of law upon which the thing hangs."

"It is claimed that Don Bartolome did not take up his actual residence
on the grant, as the law required. Then, too, he himself was later
governor of the province, and while he was president of the Ayuntamiento
at Tome he officially indorsed some small grants of land made from this
estate. He did this because he wanted the country developed, and was
willing to give part of what he had to his neighbors; but I suppose the
contestant will claim this showed he had abandoned his grant."

"I see. Title not perfected," he summed up briefly.

"We deny it, of course--I mean, Miss Valdes does. She shows that in his
will the old _don_ mentions it, and that her father lived there without
interruption, even though Manuel Armijo later granted the best of it to
Jose Moreno."

"It would be pretty tough for her to be fired out now. I reckon she's
attached to the place, her and her folks having lived there so long,"
the young man mused aloud.

"Her whole life is wrapped up in it. It is the home of her people. She
belongs to it, and it to her," the girl answered.

"Mebbe this Gordon is a white man. I reckon he wouldn't drive her out.
Like as not he'd fix up a compromise. There's enough for both."

She shook her head decisively.

"No. It would have to be a money settlement. Miss Valdes's people are
settled all over the estate. Some of them have bought small ranches. You
see, she couldn't--throw them down--as you Americans say."

"That's right," he agreed. "Well, I shouldn't wonder but it can be fixed
up some way."

They had been driving across a flat cactus country, and for some time
had been approaching the grove of willows into which she now turned.
Some wooden barns, a corral, an adobe house, and outhouses marked the
place as one of the more ambitious ranches of the valley.

An old Mexican came forward with a face wreathed in smiles.

_"Buenos,_ Dona Maria," he cried, in greeting.

"_Buenos,_ Antonio. This gentleman is Mr. Richard Muir."

"_Buenos, senor_. A friend of Dona Maria is a friend of Antonio."

"The older people call me '_dona,_'" the girl explained. "I suppose they
think it strange a girl should have to do with affairs, and so they
think of me as '_dona,_' instead of '_senorita,_' to satisfy
themselves."

A vague suspicion, that had been born in the young man's mind
immediately after his rescue from the river now recurred.

His first thought then had been that this young woman must be Valencia
Valdes; but he had dismissed it when he had seen the initial M on her
kerchief, and when she had subsequently left him to infer that such was
not the case.

He remembered now in what respect she was held in the home _hacienda_;
how everybody they had met had greeted her with almost reverence. It was
not likely that two young heiresses, both of them beautiful orphans,
should be living within a few miles of each other.

Besides, he remembered that this very Antelope Springs was mentioned in
the deed of conveyance which he had lately examined before leaving the
mining camp. She was giving orders about irrigating ditches as if she
were owner.

It followed then that she must be Valencia Valdes. There could be no
doubt of it.

He watched her as she talked to old Antonio and gave the necessary
directions. How radiant and happy she was in this life which had fallen
to her; by inheritance! He vowed she should not be disinherited through
any action of his. He owed her his life. At least, he could spare her
this blow.

They drove home more silently than they had come. He was thinking over
the best way to do what he was going to do. The evening before they had
sat together in front of the fire in the living-room, while her old
duenna had nodded in a big arm-chair. So they would sit to-night and
to-morrow night.

He would send at once for the papers upon which his claim depended, and
he would burn them before her eyes. After that they would be
friends--and, in the end, much more than friends.

He was still dreaming his air-castle, when they drove through the gate
that led to her home. In front of the porch a saddled bronco trailed its
rein, and near by stood a young man in riding-breeches and spurs. He
turned at the sound of wheels; and the man in the buggy saw that it was
Manuel Pesquiera.

The Spaniard started when he recognized the other, and his eyes grew
bright. He moved forward to assist the young woman in alighting; but, in
spite of his bad knee, the Coloradoan was out of the rig and before him.

"_Buenos, amigo_" she nodded to Don Manuel, lightly releasing the hand
of Muir.

"_Buenos, senorita_" returned that young man. "I behold you are already
acquaint' with Mr. Richard Gordon, whose arrival is to me very
unexpect'."

She seemed to grow tall before her guest's eyes; to stand in a kind of
proud splendor that had eclipsed her girlish slimness. The dark eyes
under the thick lashes looked long and searchingly at him.

"Mr. Richard Gordon? I understand this gentleman's name to be Muir," she
made voice gently.

Dick laughed with a touch of shame. Now once in his life he wished he
could prove an alibi. For, under the calm judgment of that steady gaze,
the thing he had done seemed scarce defensible.

"Don Manuel has it right, _senorita_. Gordon is my name; Muir, too, for
that matter. Richard Muir Gordon is what I was christened."

The underlying red of her cheeks had fled and left them clear olive. One
might have thought the scornful eyes had absorbed all the fire of her
face.

"So you have lied to me, sir?"

"Let me lay the facts before you, first. That's a hard word,
_senorita_."

"You gave your name to me as Muir, You imposed yourself on my
hospitality under false pretenses. You are only a spy, come to my house
to mole for evidence against me."

"No--no!" he cried sharply. "You will remember that I did not want to
come. I foresaw that it might be awkward, but I did not foresee this."

"That you would be found out before you had won your end? I believe you,
sir," she retorted contemptuously.

"I see I'm condemned before I'm heard."

"Will any explanation alter the facts? Are you not a liar and a cheat?
You gave me a false name to spy out the land."

"Am I the only one that gave a wrong name?" he asked.

"That is different," she flamed. "You had made a mistake and, half in
sport, I encouraged you in it. But you seem to have found out my real
name since. Yet you still accepted what I had to offer, under a false
name, under false pretenses. You questioned me about the grants. You
have lived a lie from first to last."

"It ain't as bad as you say, ma'am. Don Manuel had told me it wasn't
safe to come here in my own name. I didn't care about the safety, but I
wanted to see the situation exactly as it was. I didn't know who you
were when I came here. I took you to be Miss Maria Yuste. I----"

"My name is Maria Yuste Valencia Valdes," the young woman explained
proudly. "When, may I ask, did you discover who I was?"

"I guessed it at Antelope Springs."

"Then why did you not tell me then who you are? Surely that was the time
to tell me. My deception did you no harm; yours was one no man of honor
could have endured after he knew who I was."

"I didn't aim to keep it up very long. I meant, in a day or two----"

"A day or two," she cried, in a blaze of scorn. "After you had found out
all I had to tell; after you had got evidence to back your robber-claim;
after you had made me breathe the same air so long with a spy?"

Her face was very white; but she faced him in her erect slimness, with
her dark eyes fixed steadily on him.

"You ain't quite fair to me; but let that pass for the present. When I
asked you about the grants didn't you guess who I was? Play square with
me. Didn't you have a notion?"

A flood of spreading color swept back into her face.

"No, I didn't. I thought perhaps you were an agent of the claimant; but
I didn't know you were passing under a false name, that you were aware
in whose house you were staying. I thought you an honest man, on the
wrong side--nothing so contemptible as a spy."

"That idea's fixed in your mind, is it?" he asked quietly.

"Beyond any power of yours to remove it," she flashed back.

"The facts, Senor Gordon, speak loud," put in Pesquiera derisively.

Dick Gordon paid not the least attention to him. His gaze was fastened
on the girl whose contempt was lashing him.

"Very well, Miss Valdes. Well let it go at that just now. All I've got
to say is that some day you'll hate yourself for what you have just
said."

Neither of them had raised their voices from first to last. Hers had
been low and intense, pulsing with the passion that would out. His had
held its even way.

"I hate myself now, that I have had you here so long, that I have been
the dupe of a common cheat."

"All right. 'Nough said, ma'am. More would certainly be surplusage. I'll
not trouble you any longer now. But I want you to remember that there's
a day coming when you'll travel a long way to take back all of what
you've just been saying. I want to thank you for all your kindness to
me. I'm always at your service for what you did for me. Good-bye, Miss
Valdes, for the present."

"I am of impression, sir, that you go not too soon," said Pesquiera
suavely.

Miss Valdes turned on her heel and swept up the steps of the porch; but
she stopped an instant before she entered the house to say over her
shoulder:

"A buggy will be at your disposal to take you to Corbett's. If it is
convenient, I should like to have you go to-night."

He smiled ironically.

"I'll not trouble you for the buggy, _senorita_. If I'm all you say I
am, likely I'm a horse thief, too. Anyhow, we won't risk it. Walking's
good enough for me."

"Just as you please," she choked, and forthwith disappeared into the
house.

Gordon turned from gazing after her to find the little Spaniard bowing
before him.

"Consider me at your service, Mr. Gordon----"

"Can't use you," cut in Dick curtly.

"I was remarking that, as her kinsman, I, Don Manuel Pesquiera, stand
prepared to make good her words. What the Senorita Valdes says, I say,
too."

"Then don't say it aloud, you little monkey, or I'll throw you over the
house," Dick promised immediately.

Don Manuel clicked his heels together and twirled his black mustache.

"I offer you, sir, the remedy of a gentleman. You, sir, shall choose the
weapons."

The Anglo-Saxon laughed in his face.

"Good. Let it be toasting-forks, at twenty paces."

The challenger drew himself up to his full five feet six.

"You choose to be what you call droll. Sir, I give you the word,
poltroon--_lache_--coward."

"Oh, go chase yourself."

One of Pesquiera's little gloved hands struck the other's face with a
resounding slap. Next instant he was lifted from his feet and tucked
under Dick's arm.

There he remained, kicking and struggling, in a manner most undignified
for a blue blood of Castile, while the Coloradoan stepped leisurely
forward to the irrigating ditch which supplied water for the garden and
the field of grain behind. This was now about two feet deep, and running
strong. In it was deposited, at full length, the clapper little person
of Don Manuel Pesquiera, after which Dick Gordon turned and went limping
down the road.

From the shutters of her room a girl had looked down and seen it all.
She saw Don Manuel rescue himself from the ditch, all dripping with
water. She saw him gesticulating wildly, as he cursed the retreating
foe, before betaking himself hurriedly from view to the rear of the
house, probably to dry himself and nurse his rage the while. She saw
Gordon go on his limping way without a single backward glance.

Then she flung herself on her bed and burst into tears.

CHAPTER V

"AN OPTIMISTIC GUY"

Dick Gordon hobbled up the road, quite unaware for some time that he had
a ricked knee. His thoughts were busy with the finale that had just been
enacted. He could not keep from laughing ruefully at the difference
between it and the one of his day-dreams. He was too much of a Westerner
not to see the humor of the comedy in which he had been forced to take a
leading part, but he had insight enough to divine that it was much more
likely to prove melodrama than farce.

Don Manuel was not the man to sit down under such an insult as he had
endured, even though he had brought it upon himself. It would too surely
be noised round that the _Americano_ was the claimant to the estate, in
which event he was very likely to play the part of a sheath for restless
stilettos.

This did not trouble him as much as it would have done some men. The
real sting of the episode lay in Valencia Valdes' attitude toward him.
He had been kicked out for his unworthiness. He had been cast aside as a
spy and a sneak.

The worst of it was that he felt his clumsiness deserved no less an
issue to the adventure. Confound that little Don Manuel for bobbing up
at such an inconvenient time! It was fierce luck.

He stopped his tramp up the hill, and looked back over the valley.
Legally it was all his. So his Denver lawyers had told him, after
looking the case over carefully. The courts would decide for him in all
probability; morally he had not the shadow of a claim. The valley in
justice belonged to those who had settled in it and were using it for
their needs. His claim was merely a paper one. It had not a scintilla of
natural justice back of it.

He resumed his journey. By this time his knee was sending telegrams of
pain to headquarters. He cut an aspen by the roadside and trimmed it to
a walking-stick and, as he went forward, leaned more and more heavily
upon it.

"I'm going to have a game leg for fair if I don't look out," he told
himself ruefully. "This right pin surely ain't good for a twelve-mile
tramp."

It was during one of his frequent stops to rest that a buggy appeared
round the turn from the same direction he had come. It drew to a halt in
front of him, and the lad who was driving got out.

"Senorita Maria sends a carriage for Senor Gordon to take him to
Corbett's," he said.

Dick was on hand with a sardonic smile.

"Tell the _senorita_ that Mr. Gordon regrets having put her to so much
trouble, but that he needs the exercise and prefers to walk."

"The _senorita_ said I was to insist, _senor_."

"Tell your mistress that I'm very much obliged to her, but have made
other arrangements. Explain to her I appreciate the offer just the
same."

The lad hesitated, and Dick pushed him into decision.

"That's all right, Juan--Jose--Pedro--Francisco--whatever your name is.
You've done your levelest. Now, hike back to the ranch. _Vamos! Sabe._"

"_Si, senor._"

Dick heard the wheels disappear in the distance, and laughed aloud.

"That young woman's conscience is hurting her. I reckon this tramp to
Corbett's is going to worry her tender heart about as much as it does
me, and I've got to sweat blood before I get through with it. Here goes
again, Dicky."

Every step sent a pain shooting through him, but he was the last man to
give up on that account what he had undertaken.

"She let me go without any lunch," he chuckled. "I'll bet that troubles
her some, too, when she remembers. She's got me out of the house, but
I'll bet the last strike in the Nancy K. against a dollar Mex that she
ain't got me out of her mind by a heap."

A buggy appeared in sight driven by a stout, red-faced old man.
Evidently he was on his way to the ranch.

"Who, hello, Doctor! I'm plumb glad to see you; couldn't wait till you
came, and had just to start out to meet you," cried Dick.

He stood laughing at the amazement in the face of the doctor, who was in
two minds whether to get angry or not.

"Doggone your hide, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you not to
walk more than a few steps?" that gentleman protested.

"But you didn't leave me a motor-car and, my visit being at an end, I
ce'tainly had to get back to Corbett's." As he spoke he climbed slowly
into the rig. "That leg of mine is acting like sixty, Doctor. When you
happened along I was wondering how in time I was ever going to make it."

"You may have lamed yourself for life. It's the most idiotic thing I
ever heard of. I don't see why Miss Valdes let you come. Dad blame it,
have I got to watch my patients like a hen does its chicks? Ain't any of
you got a lick of sense? Why didn't she send a rig if you had to come?"
the doctor demanded.

"Seems to me she did mention a rig, but I thought I'd rather walk,"
explained Gordon casually, much amused at Dr. Watson's chagrined wonder.

"Walk!" snorted the physician. "You'll not walk, but be carried into an
operating-room if you're not precious lucky. You deserve to lose that
leg, and I don't say you won't."

"I'm an optimistic guy, Doctor. I'll say it for you. I ain't got any
legs to spare."

"Huh! Some people haven't got the sense of a chicken with its head cut
off."

"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
practitioner, 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 Dick 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 Dick 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 passed 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, Dick 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, Dick 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 God 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 God 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 Dick, with the instinct for deference to all women of
self-respect that obtains among frontiersmen, had won the gratitude 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 grass?"

"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."

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