"He has been." Jake clinched the victory. "A copa's the finest thing in
the world for chills. He's had a couple an' was sleeping like a babe
when we came in."
She gave in with a sigh. "Then we won't wake him. But you must take him
a tray when you go out."
But if her dominant instinct was thus, for the time, frustrated, it
broke out more violently the following morning. When Sliver would fain
have carried his aching head and sick stomach out to some secluded
portion of the range, to be wretched at his ease, Lee "shooed" him like
a sick chicken into a corner of the _patio_, there to be coddled and
doctored with slops and brews compounded by her brown maids, every
mother's daughter of whom had her own infallible "_remedio_." His real
contrition was made none the lighter by the veiled jestings of his
companions at meals.
"Invalid looks a bit better," Jake would opine.
"A week's careful nursing orter bring him around," Bull would add. Then
while prodding him with secret gibes, they ate with a zest that turned
his poor, burned-out stomach.
That night, moreover, he furnished the text for a rude sermon after they
got him alone in the adobe. "I s'pose neither of you saints would ha'
stopped even to smell of it," he sarcastically inquired, after
confessing how and where he obtained the liquor.
"'Tain't that," Bull admonished him. "I'm pretty near due for a bust
myself. But when it hits, you bet I'll go somewheres so's the sight of
my hoggishness ain't a-going to offend our girl. No, 'tain't that you
acquired a bun we're kicking at, but that you toted it back here."
"You bet y'u," Jake added. "Next time you're took that-a-way, have 'em
hide your horse, then lie down with your nose in it an' don't budge till
you're through. Have you done, now, or is there anything out there you
forgot to drink?"
"Through? Oh, Lordy! Lordy!" Sliver groaned. "My liver's burned right
out!"
"Bueno!" Jake nodded his satisfaction. "Then if you've finished I'm free
to begin. My fingers has been itching to get into a game for a week.
That's where you fellows have me at a disadvantage. All you've gotter do
is to find a bottle, but mine's simply gotter have cards in it. I don't
get off short of El Paso. I reckon some of that important mining
business of our'n calls for my presence there day after to-morrow."
"All right, get it over," Bull agreed, after a moment's rumination.
"Tell her at breakfast. She'll fix you up with the fare."
"'Tell her at breakfast'?" Jake looked his scorn. "An' have her running
an' fixing me out with socks an' shirts an' things like I was going off
on honest business. Not on your life! When she looks at me, so amiable
and trustful, like she felt I was straight grain through an' through, I
simply kain't fix up my mouth for a good lie. No, you fellows can jest
give me all you've got. With any kind of luck it'll turn you big
interest. You can tell her that I left in the night so's to catch an
early train."
So real was his feeling, he did rise and leave before daylight. But
thereby his moment of shame was merely postponed.
When Jake arrived in El Paso--But the less said about his sojourn there
the better. His operations, which included the fleecing of some
cattlemen, would not make edifying reading. He may be picked up again at
the moment he was, as aforesaid, overtaken by shame, when Lee spied him,
a week later, coming through the _patio_ gateway.
"Oh, you poor man!" she exclaimed at the sight of his haggard face.
"They must have worked you all night."
"Which they did work me overtime," he confessed to Bull, in the adobe
that evening. "Five days an' most of the nights I sat inter one game.
Look at this!"
The roll he held up contained two thousand and some odd hundreds of
American dollars. "When I seen how the luck was heading my way I pulled
a side partner into the game, for I saw what a chance it was to fatten
Miss Lee's hand. He was a--
"What are you crinkling your nose at?" he hotly demanded of Bull. "This
ain't no tainted money. I took it from some sports that had been buying
horses from Mexican raiders. Mebbe some of 'em came from this very
ranch. Anyway, in default of finding the real owners, who has a better
right to their money than the little girl?"
"'Tain't that." Bull shook his head. "I was on'y thinking that I'd
liefer you tried to give it her than me. She don't look like she'd take
easily to charity."
"_That so?_" Jake regarded him cynically. "Now kain't you jest hear me
a-saying, 'Please, Miss, will you please take this, you need it so bad?'
But is there any reason why she should object to us investing a couple
of thousand in horses?"
"No; but she will."
And Bull was right. When, next morning, Jake, speaking for the Three,
made his proposition, Lee shook her head. "It's only a question of time
before the revolutionists run off all the stock. Then where would be
your two thousand dollars?"
"In the same box with yours--stowed safely away where we can't spend or
lose it, till Uncle Sam makes Mexico pay our claims," Jake argued. "The
risk we're willing to take, because we expect to buy cheap on that
account."
At that she wavered; with a little more pressing, acceded. And thus by
devious ways did the blind god of chance atone for many a former error,
turning evil to good, if only for once.