“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 something up her sleeve.  “First writing, then wiring.”

“He’s a kind of second dad to me.  Expect the old rooster got anxious.”

“Looks that way.  Anyhow, he reached here last night.”

Gordon got up on an elbow in his excitement.  “Here?  Here now?  Old Steve?”

She nodded her head and looked over her shoulder toward the dining-room.  “In there eating his breakfast.  He’ll be through pretty soon.  You see, he doesn’t know you’re awake.”

Presently Davis came into the room.  He walked to the bed and took both of his friend’s hands in his.  Tears were shining in his eyes.

“You darned old son-of-a-gun, what do you mean by scaring us like this?  I’ve lost two years’ growth on account of your foolishness, boy.”

“Did Mrs. Corbett send for you?”

“No, I sent for myself soon as I found out how sick you was.  Now hustle up and get well.”

“I’m going to do just that”

Dick kept his word.  Within a few days he was promoted to a rocking-chair on the porch.  Here Juanita served his meals and waited on his demands with the shy devotion that characterized a change in her attitude to him.  She laughed less than she did.  His jokes, his claim upon her as his “little partner,” his friendly gratitude, all served to embarrass her, and at the same time to fill her with a new and wonderful delight.

A week ago, when he had been lying before her asleep one day, she had run her little finger through one of his tawny curls and admired its crisp thickness.  To her maiden fancy something of his strong virility had escaped even to this wayward little lock of hair.  She had wondered then how the Senorita Valdes could keep from loving this splendid fellow if he cared for her.  All the more she wondered now, for her truant heart was going out to him with the swift ardent passion of her race.  It was as a sort of god she looked upon him, as a hero of romance far above her humble hopes.  She found herself longing for chances to wait upon him, to do little services that would draw the approving smile to his eyes.

Gordon was still in the porch-dwelling stage of convalescence when a Mexican rider swung from his saddle one afternoon with a letter from Manuel Pesquiera.  The note was a formal one, written in the third person, and it wasted no words.

After reading it Dick tossed the sheet of engraved stationery across to his companion.