Kitabı oku: «Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch», sayfa 9
“I heard a funny yarn about a horse with a stiff leg; that the moment the sound of a drum was in his ears cooly tossed his aged rider into the gutter and marched off with the brass band, head up, eyes flashing, tail switching, a soldier with the best of them. See–it’s here in this evening’s Gossip.”
He held the sheet toward her and Jessica read the humorous account of Stiffleg’s desertion. But there was no account of what had further befallen Ephraim, and it seemed but a poor excuse for his non-appearance.
She tossed the paper aside, impatiently:
“But he had his own two good feet left. He could have followed me on them? I–I–he was always so faithful before.”
Mr. Sharp’s face sobered.
“He is faithful still, but his feet will serve him poorly for the next few weeks. Maybe months. Old bones are slow to heal, and the surgeon says it is a compound fracture. When he fell into the gutter, as my co-laborer so gayly puts it, he ‘broke himself all to smash.’ He’s in hospital. As a great favor from the authorities in charge I’ve seen him. I’ve told him about you. I’ve promised to befriend you and I’ll take you to see him in the morning. I’m sorry that your first night in our angelic city must be passed in a station-house, but I reckon it’s the safest till I can think of some fitter shelter. Good-night. My mother used to say that the Lord never shut one door but He opened another. Ephraim laid up–here am I. Count on me. Good-night.”
CHAPTER XVI
A HOSPITAL REUNION
When Ninian Sharp sat down to smoke a cigar at the window of his club it was with no idea that he was then and there to begin a bit of detective work which should make him famous. For, though this is anticipating, that was the reward which the future held for him because of his yielding to a kindly impulse.
Through him, the helplessness of a little girl won for an almost hopeless cause the aid of a great newspaper, than which there is no influence more potent. It took but one hearing of Jessica’s story to rouse his interest and to convince him that here was a “good thing if it could be well worked up.” It promised a “sensation” that would result in benefit to his paper, to himself, and–for his credit be it said–to the family of the dead philanthropist.
After he had bidden Lady Jess good-night, the reporter called at the hotel where Morris Hale was registered and held an interview with that gentleman. The result of this was pleasing to both men. They had one common object: the recovery of the missing money which had been entrusted to Cassius Trent. Mr. Hale wished this for the sake of his New York patrons, but now hoped, as did Ninian Sharp, that if it were accomplished it would also clear the memory of Jessica’s father from the stain resting upon it. For the present, they decided to join forces, so to speak. By agreement, they went together to the station-house on the following morning, and found Lady Jess looking out of a window with a rather dreary interest in the scene. But she instantly caught sight of them and darted to the doorway to meet them, holding out both hands toward the lawyer and entreating:
“Oh! I beg your pardon for the ‘boys’! And for us that we should ever have let it happen to any guest of Sobrante. Can you forgive it?”
The reporter looked curious and Mr. Hale’s face flushed at the painful memory her words had revived. But he did not explain and passed the matter over, saying:
“Don’t mention it, my child. Odd, isn’t it? To think you should follow me so quickly all this long way. Well, you deserve success and I’m going to help you to it, if I can. So is this new friend you’ve made. Now, are you ready to see poor ‘Forty-niner’? If so, get your cap, bid the matron good-by, and we’ll be off.”
Jessica obeyed, quickly; taking leave of Mrs. Wood with warm expressions of gratitude for her “nice bed and breakfast,” assuring that rather skeptical person that these men “were certainly all right, because one of them had been at her own dear home and her mother had recognized him for a gentleman. The other–why, the other wrote for a newspaper. Even drew pictures for it! Think of that!”
“Humph! A man might do worse. But, never mind. This is the place to come to if you get into any more trouble. There’s the street and number it is, and here’s my name on a piece of paper. Now, it’s to be put in the book about your going, who takes you, and where. After that–after that I suppose there’s nothing more.”
Ninian Sharp watched this little by-play with much interest, and remarked to the lawyer:
“That child has a charm for all she meets. Even this old police matron, whose heart ought to be as tough as shoeleather, looks doleful at parting with her. I think her the most winning little creature I ever met.”
“You should see her with her ‘boys,’ as she calls the workmen at Sobrante. They idolize her and obey her blindly. Sometimes, their devotion going further than obedience,” he added, with a return of annoyance in his expression.
As she stepped into the street, Jessica clasped a hand of each, with joyful confidence, and they smiled at one another over her head, leading her to the next corner where they hailed a car and the reporter bade her jump aboard.
“Am I to ride in that? Oh, delightful!”
“Delightful” now seemed everything about her. Friends were close at hand and a few minutes would bring her to Ephraim. That he was injured and helpless she knew, yet could not realize; while she could and did realize to the full all the novelty about her. The swift motion of the electric car, the gay and busy streets, the palm-bordered avenues they crossed, the ever-changing scenes of the city, each richer and more wonderful than the other, in her inexperienced eyes. She would have liked to ask many questions, but her companions were now conversing in low tones and she would not interrupt. Soon, however, she saw Mr. Sharp make a slight gesture with his hand and the car stopped. “Our street,” he said, rising.
A brief walk afterward brought them to a big building, standing somewhat back from the avenue, with a green lawn and many trees about it. Above the several gateways of its iron fence were signs, indicating: “Accident Ward,” “Convalescent’s Ward,” “General Hospital,” “Nurses’ Home,” “Dispensary,” etc., all of which confused and somewhat startled the country-reared girl. The more, it may be, as, at that moment, the gong of an ambulance warned them to step off the crossing before the “accident” alley beside the main building, and the big van dashed toward an open door.
Jessica gripped Mr. Hale’s hand, nervously, and watched in a sort of fascination while white-garbed attendants lifted an injured man from the ambulance and carried him tenderly into the hospital.
“Is–is he hurt?”
“Yes, dear, I suppose so.”
“Was it like that they brought Ephraim here?”
“Probably.”
“Oh! how dreadful! My poor, poor ‘Forty-niner.’”
“Rather, how merciful. But come; such a brave little woman as you mustn’t show the white feather at the mere sight of a hospital van. Ephraim has been well cared for, be sure; and as he has been told to expect you he’ll be disappointed if you bring him a scared, unhappy face.”
“Then I’ll–I’ll smile,” she answered, promptly, thought the effort was something of a failure.
Soon they entered the building, whose big halls were so silent in contrast with the street outside, and where the white-clad doctors and nurses seemed to Jessica like “ghosts” as they moved softly here and there. Again she clinched the lawyer’s hand and whispered:
“It’s awful. It smells queer. I’m afraid. Aren’t you?”
“Not in the least. I like it. I’ve been a patient in just such places more than once and think of them as the most blessed institutions in the world. The odor of chemicals and disinfectants is noticeable at first, but one soon gets accustomed to it and likes it. At any rate I do. But, see, we’re falling behind. Mr. Sharp evidently knows his way well and we must hurry if we’d keep him in sight.”
Indeed, the reporter was just disappearing around a turn of the broad staircase leading up into a sun-lighted corridor. He was quick and decided in all his movements, and had paused but for one instant to speak with an attendant at the door before he took his direct way to Ephraim’s room.
“Why, I supposed he was in the general ward” said Mr. Hale, as he joined Ninian, who had to stop and wait for his more leisurely advance.
“He was, but he couldn’t stand it. So I had him put into a private room and he’s much better satisfied. He has money enough to pay for it and if he hadn’t–well, it was just pitiful to see the old man’s own distress at sight of the distress of others all about him. I’d have had to do it, even if it had taken my bottom dollar.”
“True to your class! I’ve always heard that newspaper men were the most generous in the world, and now I believe it. Well, count me in, on this transaction. But when were you here?”
“Last night and–early this morning.”
“Whew! If you put such energy as that into the rest of the business you’ll make a speedy finish of it!”
“That’s my intention. Well, child, here we are. Put your best foot forward and cheer up that forlorn old chap.”
Jessica had paused to look down a great ward, opening upon that corridor, and was staring, spellbound, at the rows upon rows of white beds, each with its occupant, and at the white-capped nurses bending over this or that sufferer. The wide, uncurtained windows, all open to the soft morning air, the snowy walls, the cleanliness and repose impressed her.
“Why–it’s nice! I thought it would be dreadful; and where is Ephraim? Can I go in? How shall I find him among so many?”
“Don’t you understand? This way, I said, Lady Jess. The sharpshooter wants to see his captain.”
She turned swiftly at that, and the smile he had hoped to rouse was on her face as she caught the reporter’s hand.
“Why–how did you know that? Who told you I was Lady Jess, or captain?”
“Who but ‘Forty-niner’ himself? Here he is,” and he gently forced her through an open doorway into a little room, which seemed a miniature of the great ward beyond. There was the same white spotlessness, another kind-faced nurse, and another prostrate patient.
“Ephraim! Ephraim! You poor, dear, precious darling!”
She was beside him, her arms about his neck, her tears and kisses raining on his wrinkled face–a face that a moment before had been full of sadness and impatience, but was now brimming with delight.
“Little Lady! Little captain! I’m a pretty sort of a guardeen, I am! But, thank God, I’m not the only man in the world, and you’ve found them that can help you more than I could, with all my smartness. Did you hear about that turn-tail, Stiffleg? Wasn’t that enough to make a man disgusted with horseflesh forever after? Ugh! I wish I had him, I’d larrup him crossing before the ‘accident’ alley beside the main well! And to think you, Cassius Trent’s daughter, spent your first night in town at a station-house! Child, I’ll never dare to go home and face the ‘boys’ again, after that. Never.”
“Don’t talk too much, sir,” cautioned the nurse, offering her patient a spoonful of some nourishment.
“No, Ephraim, I’ll talk. Oh! what wouldn’t Aunt Sally give to be here now! To think she’s lost such a chance for dosing you!”
“Forty-niner” laughed and the laughter did him good; though he soon explained: “They say I’ll have to lie here for nobody knows how long, without moving, scarcely. That pesky old leg of mine did the job up thorough, while it was at it. Thought it might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, I s’pose. Well, it was the luckiest thing ever happened–you getting lost and me getting hurt. That’s the only way to look at it. But–Atlantic! How’m I ever going to stand it? Having other folks do for you and I, that’d give my right hand to help you–useless.”
“Easily, Ephraim. If it’s a good thing, as you say, why then it can’t be a bad one. Here’s your money. You must use it to pay for anything you want. Or give it all to Mr. Hale about the business. You know.”
“Money! I don’t want that. All I had they took away from me. Put it in the hospital safe till I’m ready to go out. But you can’t live in a city without hard cash in every pocket. Oh! dear! I don’t see what is to be done! One minute it all is clear and I think what I said about my accident being lucky for you; the next–I can’t stand it. What is to become of you, little captain?”
“I’m going to stay right here with you.”
“You are? You will?” demanded the patient, eagerly. “You wouldn’t be afraid? But, maybe, you wouldn’t be allowed. Hospitals are for sick folks and old fools that don’t know enough to sit a horse steady. They’re not for a happy little girl, who can make new friends for herself anywhere. No. I guess, maybe, that Mr. Hale’ll find you a place, or get you on the cars to go home again. Oh! child, I wish you were safe back at Sobrante this minute!”
“And our work not done? Foolish ‘boy!’ As if I’d leave you alone, either, when you’re ill and–and Aunt Sally so far away.”
Ephraim groaned and Jessica looked toward the reporter, who was talking earnestly with the nurse, just outside in the corridor. She heard him say:
“If it could be arranged it would be a solution of the whole difficulty. Her board would be assured, and at the first opportunity she shall be sent to her home. For the present–”
She felt it no shame to listen intently. She knew that they were discussing herself and what was to be done with her. On that subject she had already made up her own mind; so she slipped her hand from Ephraim’s and stepped to Mr. Sharp’s side.
“I want to say right here in this hospital. I will not make anybody a bit of trouble. I will mind everything I am told. I’ll not talk or laugh or anything I should not. I’ll help take care of Ephraim and there’s nobody who knows him here but me. He’s the best man there can be, and he’s old, though he doesn’t look it. Please let me stay. Anyway until all the money is spent. There’s enough for a while, I think. Please.”
In answer to the reporter’s look, rather than Jessica’s words, the nurse replied:
“Yes, we do often have friends of the patients here. If there happen to be rooms empty and so to spare. But a child–we never had a child-boarder before. I’ll consult the head nurse and let you know at once. Or, better why not go and see her for yourself?”
“I’d much prefer,” said Ninian, who had more faith in his own persuasive powers than in hers. “And I’ll take Jessica with me.”
The result was that the little girl was allowed to “remain for the present,” and was assigned a room very near Ephraim’s. Upon her good behavior, as viewed from a hospital standpoint, depended the continuance of her stay.
“She can have her clothes sent here, but only what are necessary,” added the lady, as she dismissed them.
“My clothes! Why–I don’t know where they are.”
“Whew! What do you mean? I–I never thought about clothes,” said Ninian Sharp.
“Nor I, before, since I came. I had only a change of underwear and another flannel frock. Ephraim was to buy me more if I needed, though mother thought I should not. But what I did have were in the saddlebags on Stiffleg’s back.”
“And he marched off to glory with them, the old soldier, eh? Well, that’s soon remedied. There are lots of stores in Los Angeles and lots of girls your size. I’ll get a nurse to fix you out, when she can, and now, back to Ephraim and good-by.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE FINDING OF ANTONIO
For Jessica Trent there followed weeks of a quieter life than she had lived even at isolated Sobrante. “The behavior,” which was to be a test of her stay, proved so pleasing to the hospital residents that some of them wondered how they had ever gotten along without her helpful, happy presence.
Very quickly she lost her first vague fear of the place and learned to hear in the once alarming ambulance gong the signal of relief to somebody. She modulated her voice to the prevailing quietude of the house and her footfalls were as light as the nurses themselves. To many a sufferer, coming there in dread and foreboding, the sight of a child familiar and happy about the great building brought a feeling of comfort and homelikeness which nothing else could have given. She was so apt and imitative that Ephraim often declared:
“All you need, Lady Jess, is a cap and apron to make you a regular professional. Take care of me better’n any of ’em, you do; and I’ll be a prime experience for you, that’s a fact. Another of the good things come out of my fool riding, I s’pose. You’ll be able to nurse the whole parcel of us, when you get back to Sobrante. Beat Aunt Sally all hollow, ’cause you trust a bit to nature and not all to–picra.”
“But you’re not ill, Ephraim Marsh. You’re just broken. So you don’t need medicine. All you need is patience. And your nourishments, regular.”
“I get them all right; but–patience! Atlantic!”
The old man sighed. It was weary work for him, the hardest he had ever done, to lie so motionless while he was so anxious to be active. He really suffered little and he had the best of care. Still, he sighed again, and, unfortunately, Jessica echoed the sigh. Then he looked at her keenly and spoke the thought which had been in his mind for a long time:
“Captain, you must go home. There’s twenty to need bossing there and only one poor old carcass here.”
Poor Lady Jess! She tried to answer brightly as was her habit, but that day homesickness was strong upon her, and at mention of Sobrante her courage failed. She forgot that she was a “nurse”; forgot the good “behavior,” forgot everything, indeed, but her mother’s face and Ned’s mischievous affection. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in the old man’s pillow while she sobbed aloud:
“Oh, ‘Forty-niner,’ shall we ever see that home again?”
Weak and unstrung, the patient moaned in sympathy, while tears fell from his own eyes; and it was upon this dismal tableau that Mr. Hale walked in, unannounced.
“Hurrah, here! What’s amiss? Been quarreling? Just when I’ve come to bring you good news, too.”
“Quarreling, indeed! Ephraim and I could never quarrel. Never. But–but–this isn’t Sobrante, and we’re–I guess we’re awful homesick.”
“That’s a disease can be cured, you know. One of you, at least, can go home. If you wish, Jessica, I will put you on a train and arrange for one of your ‘boys’ to meet you at the railway terminus. But–”
“Hello, everybody!” called a cheery voice, and there in the doorway was Ninian Sharp, smiling, nodding, and embracing all three with one inspiring look. “What’s that I overheard about ‘home’? Been telling state secrets, Hale? My plan beats yours, altogether. We’re all going ‘home’ to Sobrante, in a bunch, one of these fine days. The Lancet never fails!”
Jessica sprang to him and caught his hand to kiss it. He had not been to see them for some days and she had missed him sadly. Far more than Mr. Hale he made her feel that the mystery surrounding “that missing New York money,” as she called it, would certainly be explained. It was he who, by questions innumerable, had recalled to her and to Ephraim the names of persons with whom Mr. Trent had ever done business. Incidents which to her seemed trifling had been of moment in his judgment. With the slight clews they had given him, as the first link in the chain, he had gone on unraveling the knots which followed with infinite patience and perseverance. He kept Mrs. Trent informed of the welfare of her daughter, and, without neglecting his legitimate business, did the thousand and one things which only the busiest of persons can have time to do. For it’s always the indolent who are overcrowded.
“Oh! Mr. Sharp! Have you found it all out?”
“Not I. Hale, here, has found out some things, himself. But he’s a lawyer, which means, a–beg pardon–a snail. If newspapers were as slow as the law–h-m-m–we might all take a nap. Look here, Miss Sunshine, you’ve been crying.”
Jessica blushed as guiltily as if she had been accused of some crime.
“I know it. I’m sorry.”
“So am I. I know why. Because you’re shut up here like a dormouse when you’ve lived like a lark. On with your little red Tam and come with me. Our work is getting on famously, famously. If I could get hold of one person that I’ve hunted this and every other city near for I’d have the matter in a nut shell and the guilty man in–a prison. I’ve found–three or four more of those links I mentioned, Hale, and every man of them is another witness to the uprightness of one, Cassius Trent, late of Sobrante. I began this job for little Jess, but I confess I’m finishing it for the sake of a man I never saw. He was a trump, that fellow. One of the great-hearted, impracticable creatures that keep my faith in humanity. If we could only find that Antonio!”
“Yes. If! But when he rode away from Sobrante that day he seems to have ridden out of the world, so far as any trace he left behind. I’m getting discouraged, for without him all the rest falls to the ground.”
“Well, discouraged? We’ll just step out and find him, won’t we, Lady Jess?”
She had hastened to ask permission to go out with her friend and had come back radiant, now, at prospect even of so brief an outing. It was quite as the reporter had judged; the close confinement of the hospital, after the out-of-door life at Sobrante, was half the cause of Jessica’s depression, and she was ready now to fall in with the gay mood of Ninian Sharp and answered, promptly:
“Oh, yes. We’ll find ‘him,’ since you wish it. But I don’t happen to know which ‘him’ you want?”
“Why, our fine Senor Bernal. Who else?”
“Then let us go to the old Spanish quarter.”
“I’ve been, many times. Sent others also. No. He’s a wise chap and if he is in this town frequents no haunt where he’ll be looked for so surely. No matter. It’s a picturesque corner of the town and maybe a sight of some old adobes would do your homesick eyes good.”
“Or harm,” suggested Mr. Hale.
But they did not stop to hear his objections and were speedily on the car which would take them nearest to the district Jessica had heard of, both from Antonio at home and now from others here. A relic of the old California, whose history she loved to hear from the lips of Pedro, Fra Mateo, or even “Forty-niner” himself.
But once arrived there she was disappointed. They were old adobes, true enough, and the people who lived in them had the same dark, Spanish cast of face which she remembered of Antonio. Yet there the resemblance ended. This was the home of squalor, of poverty that was not self-respecting enough to be clean, and of an indolence which had brought about a wretched state of affairs.
“Oh! is this it? But it can’t be. Antonio’s ‘quarter’ was a splendid place. The old grandees lived there, keeping up a sort of court and all the customs of a hundred years ago. It was ‘a picture, a romance, a dream,’ he said. Of an evening he would describe it all to us at home till I felt as if it were the one spot in the world I most wished to see. But–this!”
“Turn not up your pretty nose, for ‘this,’ my dear little unenlightened maiden, is also a dream–a nightmare. Nevertheless, the very ground your lost hero boasted and embellished with his fancy. The more I hear of this versatile Antonio the greater becomes my longing to behold him. In any case, since we’re here, we must not go away without entering some of these shops. You shall buy a trinket or two and present one of them as a keepsake to this fine senor, when you find him. Oh! that I had your familiar knowledge of his features, this absent ‘grandee,’ that if by accident I met him I might know him on the instant. See. This ‘bazaar’ is somewhat tidier than its neighbors, as well as larger, and there are some really beautiful Navajo blankets in the window. Unfortunately the pocketbook of a reporter isn’t quite equal to more than a dozen of these, at fifty dollars apiece. Something more modest, Lady Jess, and I’ll oblige you!”
She looked up to protest and saw that he was teasing, and exclaimed, with an air of mock injury:
“Those or nothing! But when shall I learn to understand your jest from earnest?”
“When you produce me your Antonio!”
“Upon the instant, then,” she retorted, gayly.
Upon the instant, indeed, there were hurrying footsteps behind them, the sound of some one breathing rapidly and of angrily muttered sentences, that were a jumble of Spanish and English, and in a voice which made Jessica Trent start and turn aside, clutching her companion’s hand.
He turned, also, throwing his arm about her shoulders, lest the rush of the man approaching should force her from the narrow sidewalk. But she darted from him, straight into the path of this wild-looking person and seized him with both hands, while she cried out:
“It’s he! It is Antonio! I’ve found him–Antonio Bernal!”
“Whew! A case of the ‘unexpected,’ indeed! The merest jest and the absolute fact. Hi! I’d rather this than–than be struck by lightning, and it’s on about the same order of things, for it is he, as she claimed. He’s more staggered than I am,” considered this lively newspaper man. Then he thought it time to step forward, and remark:
“Please present me to your friend, Miss Trent,” and lifted his hat, courteously.
Antonio bowed, after his own exaggerated fashion, and with his hand upon his heart; but though his eyes rested keenly on Ninian’s face he kept tight hold of Jessica’s hand and his torrent of words did not cease for an instant. Now and then he lifted the little hand and kissed it, whereupon Lady Jess would snatch it away and coolly wipe it on her skirt, only to have it recaptured and caressed; till, seeing he would neither give over the hateful action nor stop talking, she folded her arms behind her and interrupted with:
“That’s enough, Senor Bernal. This isn’t Sobrante, but I’m your captain here, same as there. You come tell your story to Mr. Hale and this gentleman. See Ephraim Marsh, too. He’s here in hospital with a broken leg. I’m in Los Angeles, also, as you see; and likely to find the same man you say has cheated you. That’s what he’s telling, Mr. Sharp,” she exclaimed.
Antonio hesitated. He had frowned at her tone of command, but now, to the reporter’s amazement, seemed eager to obey it.
“As the senorita will. That gentleman, who came last to Sobrante, was one lawyer, no? So the senora said. Fool! fool! that I was that I did not then and at that moment so disclose the secrets of my heart as was moved, yes. Let the senorita and the handsome friend lead on. I follow. I, Antonio.”
Five minutes earlier, had Ninian Sharp been asked what he should do if he did find this strange person, he would have promptly answered:
“Put him under lock and key, where he can do no harm and be handy to get at.”
Now he found himself as certain that the fellow needed no restraint of the law, at present. That he was dreadfully unhappy and had become as humble as he had before been arrogant. What could so have altered him? And was it thus that the Lady Jess had all her “boys” in leading strings?
“I must look out for myself or I’ll fall under a like spell,” he laughed, as with the air of one who knows it all, though she had been over that way but once, Jessica explained to her late manager:
“This car will take us straight back to the hospital. We’ve not been away long and I think Mr. Hale will still be there. He’ll be glad to see you. Very glad. He and Mr. Sharp have been looking for you. I think you can tell them something they’re anxious to know. Ephraim is there, anyhow. He, poor fellow, can’t go away, even if he wishes–yet.”
Mr. Hale was still in “Forty-niner’s” room and recognized Antonio with such an outburst of surprise that Ephraim opened his eyes, for he had been dozing, and fixed them on the newcomer, inquiringly.
“What! You, you snake! you here?”
“But certainly, yes. I, I, Antonio, at your service. Hast the broken leer? This is bad. Old bones are slow to heal. You will not shoot again at dear Sobrante, you.”
“Won’t? Well, I rather guess it’ll take somebody stronger ’n you to stop it.”
Antonio shrugged his shoulders in a manner deemed offensive by the patient, who struggled to rise, but was prevented by Jessica’s quick movement.
“Ephraim! Antonio! Don’t quarrel, this very first minute. One of you is sick and the other half frantic with some trouble. Please, Antonio, go away now with Mr. Hale and Mr. Sharp. One must never make a noise in a hospital,” said this wise maiden of eleven.
“Ah! so? But it is the lawyer I want, yet. The lawyer who will make a villain return the great money I have given. Caramba! If I had him in my hands this minute!”
Jessica lifted a warning finger and the manager lowered his voice. He even made an attempt at soothing Ephraim, but chose an unfortunate argument.
“Take peace to yourself, ‘Forty-niner.’ All must be told some day. Adios.”
“Adios, you foreign serpent! Old? Old! he calls me–me–old! Why, I’m a babe in arms to Pedro, or Fra Mateo, or even fat Brigida, who washes for us ‘boys.’ Old! A man but just turned eighty! Snake, I’ll outlive you yet. I’ll get well, to spite you; and I’ll be on hand, when they let you out the lockup, to give you the neatest horsewhippin’ you ever see. Old! Get out!”
Fearful of further excitement, the gentlemen hurried Antonio away, yet kept a keen watch upon his movements for, at that word “lockup,” the man’s dark face had turned to an ashen hue.
As they left the hospital the every-busy ambulance rolled past them toward the accident ward. The others averted their eyes, but the Spaniard peered curiously within, and, instantly a shuddering groan burst from his lips. Inside that van lay the solution to all their difficulties; though Antonio alone had comprehended it.
