nd 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 somethi