“If mi amigo Roderico die,” mumbled Ignacio, “it will be two Nortones, two sheriffs, that die because of Galloway.  If Roderico live, then the next time he will kill Galloway.  You will see, senorita.”

She made no answer as she rode slowly down the street.  She was thinking how, only a few weeks ago, she had heard the bells ring for the first time, how then Galloway and Norton had been but meaningless names to her, how she had been little moved by either the sound of pistol-shots or the Captain’s heavy tolling.  Now things were different.  Just in what were they “different” and to what degree?  She could not answer her own question before she was at the hotel.

Struve came immediately, noted her pale face, attributed it to a sleepless night, and made her take a cup of coffee.  He rounded out the information she already had from Ignacio.  Norton was still unconscious though, only a few minutes ago, Patten had reported signs of improvement.  Mrs. Engle had been with him, was still there acting nurse; he was being given every attention possible.

Patten himself entered, drawn by the aroma of coffee.  He nodded carelessly to the girl and remarked to Struve, with a flash of triumph in his eyes, that at last he had “brought him around.”  Norton was very weak, sick, dizzy, perhaps not yet out of danger.  But Patten had won in the initial skirmish with old man Death.

At least, so Struve was given to feel.  Virginia, with a quick look at Patten’s complacent face, was moved with sudden, almost insistent longing, that Rod Norton’s life might be given into her own hands rather than remain in the pudgy hands of a man she at once disliked as an individual and failed to admire as a physician.  For she had needed no long residence in San Juan to form her own estimate of the man’s ability . . . or lack of ability.  But plainly this was Patten’s case, not hers; she got up from the table and went into her own room.

Elmer she found lying fully dressed upon a couch in her office, sleeping heavily.  She stood over him a moment, her eyes tender; he was still, would always be, her baby brother.  Then she went to her own room and threw herself down upon her bed, worn out, anxious, vaguely fearful for the future.

It was a long day for San Juan.  Mrs. Engle came now and then to Virginia’s room to wipe her eyes and force a hopeful smile; Florrie ran in like a young tempest to weep copiously and hyperbolically invest poor dear Roddy with all imaginable heroic attributes; Engle and Struve and Tom Cutter were grave-eyed and distressed.  Every hour Ignacio came to the hotel to ask quietly for news.

In his own way, it appeared that Elmer Page was as deeply concerned as any one.  It was long before he told Virginia that he had been in the Casa Blanca when the shooting occurred; haltingly he gave her his version of it.

“Don’t you think, Elmer,” suggested the girl somewhat wearily, “that you have gotten hold of the wrong end of things here?  I mean in choosing your friends?  Certainly after this you will have nothing to do with men like Galloway and Rickard?”