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 my arm, Pablo,” the girl cried.

“It is my heart you hurt, nina.  Is it true that this thief has stolen the love of my Juanita?”

“You are a fool, Pablo.  He has never said a hundred words to me.  All through his sickness he has talked and talked—­but it is of Senorita Valdes that he has raved.”

“So.  He will rob her of all she has and yet can talk of loving her.  Do you not see he is a villain, that he has the forked tongue, as old Bear Paw, the Navajo, says of all gringoes?  But let Senor Gordon beware.  His time is short.  He will not live to drive us from the valley.  So say I. So say all the men in the valley.”

“No—­no!  I will not have it, Pablo.  You do not know.  This Senor Gordon is good.  He would not drive us away.”  Her arms slid around the neck of her lover and she pleaded with him impetuously.  “You must not let them hurt him, for it is a kind heart he has.”