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 señora 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 señorita--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. Señor 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, niña. Is it true that this thief has stolen the love of my Juanita?"