enfold her more warmly. Always Juanita had been a soft,
clinging child, happy only in an atmosphere of affection. She responded
to caresses as a rose does to the sunlight. Pablo had been her first
lover, the most constant of them all. She had relied upon him as a child
does upon its mother. When he had left her in anger and not returned she
had been miserably unhappy. Now all was well again, since Pablo had come
back to her.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PRINCE CONSORT

Valencia returned to Don Manuel's room carrying a gunny sack. She found
Dick Gordon sitting beside his rival's bed amiably discussing with him
the respective values of the Silver Doctor and the Jock Scott for night
fishing. Dick rose at her entrance to offer a chair.

She was all fire and animation. Her eyes sparkled, reflecting light as
little wavelets of a sun-kissed lake.

"Supreme Court decision just come down in your favor?" asked the other
claimant to the valley with genial irony.

"No, but--guess what I've got here."

"A new hat," hazarded Gordon, furrowing his brow in deep thought.

"Treason!" protested Manuel. "Does the lady live who would put her new
hat in a gunny sack?"

"You may have three guesses, each of you," replied Miss Valdes,
dimpling.

The miner guessed two guinea pigs, a million dollars, and a pair of
tango slippers. Pesquiera went straight to the mark.

"A tin box," he said.

"Right, Manuel. Pablo brought it. He had just heard I was looking for
the box--says he found it the night of the fire and took it home with
him. His idea was that we might use the papers to help our fight."

"Good idea," agreed the Cripple Creek man, with twinkling eyes. "What
are you going to do with the papers now you have them, Miss Valdes?"

"Going to give them to their owner," she replied, and swung the sack
into his lap.

He took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, fitted one to the lock of
the box, and threw up the lid. Carefully he looked the papers over.

"They are all here--every last one. I'm still lord of the Rio Chama
Valley--unless my lawyers are fooling me mighty bad."

"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races, _Senor_," retorted
Manuel gaily from his pillows.

"I'll bet one of Mrs. Corbett's cookies there's no difference of opinion
between my lawyers and those of Miss Valdes. What do you honestly think
yourself about the legal end, ma'am?"

"I think that law and justice were divorced a good many years ago," she