THE TIN BOX
Dick Gordon lay on a bed in a sunny south room at the Corbett place.
He was swathed in bandages, and had something the appearance of a relic
of the Fourth of July, as our comic weeklies depict Young America the
day after that glorious occasion. But, except for one thing which he had
on his mind, the Coloradoan was as imperturbably gay as ever.
He had really been a good deal less injured than his rescuer; for,
though a falling rafter had struck him down as he turned to leave the
hut, this very accident had given him the benefit of such air as there
had been in the cabin. Here and there he had been slightly burned, but
he had not been forced to inhale smoke.
Wound in leg and all, the doctor had considered him out of danger long
before he felt sure of Don Manuel.
The young Spaniard lay several days with his life despaired of. The most
unremitting nursing on the part of his cousin alone pulled him through.
She would not give up; would not let his life slip away. And, in the
end, she had won her hard fight. Don Manuel, too, was on the road to
recovery.
While her cousin had been at the worst, Valencia Valdés saw the wounded
Coloradoan only for a minute of two each day; but, with Pesquiera's
recovery, she began to divide her time more equitably.
"I've been wishing I was the bad case," Dick told her whimsically when
she came in to see him. "I'll bet I have a relapse so the head nurse
won't always be in the other sick room."
"Manuel is my cousin, and he has been very, very ill," she answered in
her low, sweet voice, the color in her olive cheeks renewed at his
words.
The eyes of the Anglo-Saxon grew grave.
"How is Don Manuel to-night?"
"Better. Thank Heaven."
"That's what the doctor told me."
Dick propped himself on an elbow and looked directly at her, that
affectionate smile of his on his face.
"Miss Valdés, do you know, ever since I've been well enough, I've been
hoping that if one of us had to cross the Great Divide it would be me?"
Her troubled eyes studied him.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it would seem more right that way. I came here and made all
this trouble in the valley. I insulted him. I had in mind another hurt
to him that we won't discuss just now. Then, when it comes to a
showdown, he just naturally waltzes into Hades and saves my life for me
at the risk of his own. No, ma'am, I sure couldn't have stood it if he
had died."
"I'm glad you feel that way," she answered softly, her eyes dim.
"How else could I feel, and be a white man? I tell you, it makes me feel
mean to think about that day I threw him in the water. Just because I'm
a great big husky, about the size of two of him, I abused my strength
and----"
"Just a moment," the girl smiled. "You are forgetting he struck you
first."
"Oh, well! I reckon I could have stood that."
"Will you be willing to tell him how you feel about it?"
"Will I? Well, I guess yes."
The young woman's eyes were of starry radiance. "I'm so glad--so happy.
I'm sure everything will come right, now."
He nodded, smiling.
"That's just the way I feel, Miss Valencia. They couldn't go wrong,
after this--that is, they couldn't go clear wrong."
"I'm quite certain of that."
"I want to go on record as saying that Manuel Pesquiera is the gamest
man I know. That isn't all. He's a thoroughbred on top of it. If I live
to be a hundred I'll never be as fine a fellow. My hat's off to him."
There was a mist in her soft eyes as she poured a glass of ice water for
him. "I'm so glad to hear you say that. He _is_ such a splendid fellow."
He observed she was no longer wearing the solitaire and thought it might
be to spare his feelings. So he took the subject as a hunter does a
fence.
"I wish you all the joy in the world, Miss Valdés. I know you're going
to be very happy. I've got my wedding present all picked out for you,"
he said audaciously.
She was busy tidying up his dresser, but he could see the color flame
into her cheeks.
"You have a very vivid imagination, Mr. Gordon."
"Not necessary in this case," he assured her.
"You're quite sure of that, I suppose," she suggested with a touch of
ironic mockery.
"I haven't read any announcement in the paper," he admitted.
"It is always safe to wait for that."
"Which is another way of saying that it is none of my business. But then
you see it is." He offered no explanation of this statement, nor did he
give her time to protest. "Now about that wedding present, Miss Valdés.
It's in a tin box I had in the cabin before the fire. Can you tell me
whether it was saved? My recollection is that I had it at the time the
rafter put me to sleep. But of course I don't remember anything more
till I found myself in bed here."
"A tin box? Yes; you had it in your hands when Manuel brought you out.
They could hardly pry your fingers from it."
"Would you mind having that box brought to me, Miss Valdés? I want to be
sure the present hasn't been injured by fire."
"Of course not. I don't just know where it is, but it must be somewhere
about the place."
She was stepping toward the door, with that fine reaching grace of a
fawn that distinguished her, when his voice stopped her. She stopped,
delicate head poised and half turned, apparently waiting for further
directions.
"Not just this minute, please. I've been lying here all day, with nobody
but Steve. Finally he got so restless I had to turn him out to pasture.
It wouldn't be right hospitable to send you away so soon. That box can
wait till you have had all of me you can stand. What I need is good
nursing, and I need it awful bad," he explained plaintively.
"Has Mrs. Corbett been neglecting you?"
"Mrs. Corbett--no!" he shouted with a spirit indomitable, but a voice
still weak. "She's on earth merely to cook me chicken broth and custard.
It's you that's been neglecting me."
The gleam of a strange fire was in her dark, bright eyes; in her cheeks
the soft glow of beating color.
"And _my_ business on earth is to fight you, is it not? But I can't do
that till you are on your feet again, sir."
He gave her back her debonair smile.
"I'm not so sure of that. Women fight with the weapons of their sex--and
often win, I'm told."
"You mean, perhaps, tears and appeals for pity. They are weapons I
cannot use, sir. I had liefer lose."
"I dare say there are other weapons in your arsenal. I know you're too
game to use those you've named."
"What others?" she asked quietly.
He let his eyes rest on her, sweep over her, and come back to the
meeting with hers. But he did not name them. Instead, he came to another
angle of the subject.
"You never know when you are licked, do you? Why don't you ask me to
compromise this land grant business?"
"What sort of a compromise have you to offer, sir?" she said after a
pause.
"Have your lawyers told you yet that you have no chance?"
"Would it be wise for me to admit I have none, before I go to discuss
the terms of the treaty?" she asked, and put it so innocently that he
acknowledged the hit with a grin.
"I thought that, if you knew you were going to lose, you might be easier
to deal with. I'm such a fellow to want the whole thing in my bargains."
"If that's how you feel, I don't think I'll compromise."
"Well, I didn't really expect you would. I just mentioned it."
"It was very good of you. Now I think I'll go back to my cousin."
"If you must I'm coming over to his room as soon as the doc will let me,
and as soon as he'll see me."
She gave him a sudden flash of happy eyes. "I hope you will. There must
be no more trouble between him and you. There couldn't be after this,
could there?"
He shook his head.
"Not if it takes two to make a quarrel. He can say what he wants to,
make a door-mat out of me, go gunning after me till the cows come home,
and I won't do a thing but be a delegate to a peace conference. No,
ma'am. I'm through."
"You don't know how glad I am to hear it."
"Are you as anxious I should make up my quarrel with you as the ones
with your friends?" he asked boldly.
The effrontery of this lean, stalwart young American--if effrontery it
was, and no other name seemed to define it--surprised another dash of
roses into the olive.
"The way to make up your quarrel with me is to make up those with my
friends," she answered.
"All right. Suits me. I'll call those deputies off and send them home.
Pablo and Sebastian will never go to the pen on my evidence. They're in
the clear so far as I'm concerned."
She gave him both her hands. "Thank you. Thank you. I'm _so_ glad."
The tears rose to her eyes. She bit her lip, turned and left the room.
He called after her:
"Please don't forget my tin box."
"I'll remember your precious box," she called back with a pretense of
scorn.
He laughed to himself softly. There was sunshine in his eyes.
She had resolved to leave him to Mrs. Corbett in future, but within the
hour she was back.
"I came about your tin box. Nobody seems to know where it is. Everybody
remembers having seen it in your hands. I suppose we left it on the
ground when we brought you to the house, but I can't find anybody that
removed it. Perhaps some of my people have seen it. I'll send and ask
them."
He smiled disconsolately.
"I may as well say good-bye to it."
"If you mean that my boys are thieves," she retorted hotly.
"I didn't say that, ma'am; but mebbe I did imply they wouldn't return
that particular box, when they found what was in it. I shouldn't blame
them if they didn't."
"I should. Very much. This merely shows you don't understand us at all,
Mr. Gordon."
"I wish I had that box. It ce'tainly disarranges my plans to have it
gone," he said irritably.
"I assure you I didn't take it."
"I don't lay it to you, though it would ce'tainly be to your advantage
to take it," he laughed, already mollified.
"Will you please explain that?"
"All my claims of title to this land grant are in that box, Miss
Valdés," he remarked placidly, as if it were a matter of no consequence.
She went white at his words.
"And it is lost--probably in the hands of my people. We must get it
back."
"But you're on the other side of the fence," he reminded her gaily.
With dignity she turned on him.
"Do you think I want to beat you that way? Do you think I am a
highwayman, or that I shall let my people be?"
"You make them draw the line between murder and robbery," he suggested
pleasantly.
"I couldn't stop them from attacking you, but I can see they don't keep
your papers--all the more, that it is to their interest and mine to keep
them."
She said it with such fine girlish pride, her head thrown a little back,
her eyes gleaming, scorn of his implied distrust in her very carriage.
For long he joyfully carried the memory of it.
Surely, she was the rarest creature it had ever been his fortune to
meet. Small wonder the gallant Spaniard Don Manuel loved her. Small
wonder her people fed on her laughter, and were despondent at her
frowns.
Dick Gordon was awake a good deal that night, for the pain and the fever
were still with him; but the hours were short to him, full of joy and
also of gloom. Shifting pictures of her filled the darkness. His
imagination saw her in many moods, in many manners. And when from time
to time he dropped into light sleep, it was to carry her into his
dreams.