Jessica Trent: Her Life On A Ranch Part 28

"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.

CHAPTER XVIII

APPREHENDED

The pleasantest task which fell to Jessica's hands, during her hospital life, was the distributing of flowers and fruits, almost daily sent by the charitable for the comfort of the patients.

The nurses received and apportioned these gifts; and, carrying her big, tray-like basket, Lady Jess visited each ward and room in turn, adding to the pretty offering some bright word of her own. For she now had the freedom of the house and knew the occupant of each white bed better, even, than his or her attendant nurse. The quiet manner which she had gained here, her ready help and loving sympathy, made her coming looked for eagerly; but the happiness she thus bestowed was more than returned upon her own heart. Could her "boys" have seen her they would have been proud, but not surprised, for to the appreciative words his own attendant gave his darling, Ephraim would instantly reply?

"'Course. What else could you expect? Didn't she have the finest man in the world for her father? and isn't her mother a lady? Isn't she, herself, the sweetest, lovingest, most unselfish child that ever lived?

But it'll be meat to feed the 'boys' with, all these stories you're telling me. They most wors.h.i.+p her now, and after they listen to such talk a spell--h-m-m. The whole secret is just--love. That's what our captain is made of; pure love. 'Twas a good thing for this old earth when she was born."

"But you'll spoil her among you, I fear."

"Well, you needn't. Little Jessica Trent can't be spoiled. 'Cause them same 'boys' would be the first ones to take any nonsense out of her, at the first symptoms. She couldn't stand ridicule. It would break her heart; but they'd give her ridicule and plenty of it if she put on silly airs. You needn't be afraid for Lady Jess."

On that very day, after Antonio had left the hospital with his friends, or captors, as the case might prove. Jessica went through the building with her tray of roses, and in the wing adjoining the accident ward saw a man lying in one of the hitherto empty rooms.

"A new patient. He must have been brought in to-day. I've never been to the new ones till I was told, but I hate to pa.s.s him by. I wonder if it would be wrong to ask him if he wished a flower! And how still he stays. Yet his eyes are very wide open and so round! He looks like somebody I've seen--why, little Luis Garcia! 'Tis Luis himself, grown old and thin. For Luis' sake, then I'll try."

A nurse was sitting silent at the patient's bedside and toward her the child turned an inquiring glance. The answer was a slight, affirmative nod. The attendant's thought was that it would please Lady Jess to give the rose and could do the patient no harm to receive it. Indeed, nothing earthly could harm him any more.

So Jessica stepped softly in and paused beside the cot. Her face was full of pity and of a growing astonishment, for the nearer she beheld it the more startling was the sick man's likeness to a childish face hundreds of miles away.

Her stare brought the patient's own vacant gaze back to a consciousness of things about him. He saw a yellow-haired girl looking curiously upon him and extending toward him a half-blown rose. A fair and unexpected vision in that place of pain, and he asked, half querulously:

"Who are you? An angel come to upbraid me before my time?"

"I'm Jessica Trent, of Sobrante ranch, in Paraiso d'Oro valley."

"W-h-a-t!"

The nurse bent forward, but he motioned her aside.

"Say that again."

"I'm just little Jessica Trent. That's all."

"All! Trent--Trent. Ah!"

"And you? Are you Luis Garcia's missing father?"

"Luis--Luis Garcia. Was it Luis, Ysandra called him?"

"Yes, yes. That was the name on the paper my father found pinned to the baby's dress. The letter told that the baby's father had gone away promising to come back, but had never come. The mother had heard of my dear father's goodness to all who needed help, and she was on her way to him when her strength gave out. So she died there in the canyon, and she said the baby's name was like the father's. I remember it all, because to us the 'Maria' seems like a girl's name, too. Luis Maria Manuel Alessandro Garcia."

The man's round eyes opened wider and wider. It seemed as if his glare pierced the child's very heart, and she drew back frightened. The nurse motioned her to go, but at her first movement toward the door the patient extended his hands imploring:

"No. Not yet. My time is spent. Let me hear all--all. The child your father found--ah! me! Your father of all men! Did--did it live?"

"Of course it lived. He is a darling little fellow and he looks--he looks so like you that I knew you in a moment. He has the same wide brown eyes, the same black curls, his eyebrows slant so, like yours, he is your image. But he is the cutest little chap you ever saw. He is my own brother's age and they have grown up together, like twins, I guess. It would break Ned's heart to have you take him away from us. You won't now, will you?"