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 m