“I hope you’ve taken a good look at Jerry’s face,” she said, “and seen that he ain’t half as bad as he tries to make out.  Jerry’ll make a fine neighbor for any man if he’s let be; and we do want a home of our own, awful bad!  We was ten years paying for a little farm back in Illinois, and then we lost it at the last minute because there was something wrong with the deed, and we didn’t have any money to go to law about it.  Jerry didn’t tell you that; but it’s that makes him talk kinda bitter, sometimes.  He was terrible disappointed about losing the farm.  And when we took what we had left and struck out, he said he was going as far as he could get and be away from lawyers and law, and make us a home on land that nobody but the Lord laid any claim to.  So he picked out this place; and then along come that Spaniard and a lot of fellows with him and said we hadn’t no right here.  So I hope you won’t blame Jerry for being a little mite uppish.  That Spaniard got him kinda wrought up.”

Her voice was as soft as her eyes, and winsome as her wistful little smile.  She had those four smiling with her in sheer sympathy before she had spoken three sentences; and the two who did not understand her words smiled just as sympathetically as the two who knew what she was talking about.

“Tell the senora I am sorry, and she shall stay; and my mother will give her hens and a bottle of her very good medicine, which Manuel drinks so greedily,” Teresita cried, when Dade told her what the woman said, and leaned impulsively and held out her hand.  “I would do as the Americanos do, and shake the hands for a new friendship,” she explained, blushing a little.  “We shall be friends.  Senor Hunter, tell the pretty senora that I say we shall be friends.  Amiga mia, I shall call her, and I shall learn the Americano language, that we may talk together.”

She meant every word of it, Dade knew; and with a troublesome, squeezed feeling in his throat he interpreted her speech with painstaking exactness.

Mrs. Jerry took the senorita’s hand and smiled up at her with the brightness of tears in her eyes.  “You’ve got lots of friends, honey,” she said simply, “and I’ve left all of mine so far behind me they might as well be dead, as far as ever seeing ’em again is concerned; so it’s like finding gold to find a woman friend away out here.  I ain’t casting no reflections on Jerry, mind,” she hastened to warn them, blinking the tears away and leaving the twinkle in full possession; “but good as he is, and satisfying as his company is, he ain’t a woman.  And, my dear, a woman does get awful hungry sometimes for woman-talk!”

[Illustration:  Mrs. Jerry took the senorita’s hand and smiled up at her.]

“Santa Maria! that must be true.  She shall come and let my mother be her friend also.  I will send a carriage, or if she can ride—­ask the big senor if he has no horses!”

Jack it was who took up right willingly the burden of translation, for the pure pleasure of repeating the senorita’s words and doing her a service; and Dade dropped back beside the don, where he thought he belonged, and stayed there.