She spoke in Spanish, that the Indian woman might not feel left out of their talk, and the latter smiled, toothlessly.
“My, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Hallard. “You don’t catch me taking on girls to look after. I’m on the buscar for a boy.”
“And have you succeeded?”
“Not I! They ain’t lookin’ for work; not the bucks; an’ she wouldn’t trust me with a girl, not even if I’d take one.”
She laughed, defiantly, and the young girl divined, instinctively, that she did so because she was ill at ease. She stood looking at her, wistfully.
Did Gabriel Gard really love this woman? Was she really coarse, and hard, and vitriolic of tongue, as her father had said? It could not be; or such a man could not care. There must be another side, and shame be upon her, Helen Anderson, if she could not win it to the surface.
“I wonder—” she began, with some hesitation. “Of course I don’t know what you want, but Wing Chang, our cook, has a young cousin—or something—visiting him. He came a few days ago, with some teamsters from the mines. I think Chang does not want to take him on. He was scolding about it, yesterday.”
The defiance was gone from Mrs. Hallard’s face, and a little look of friendliness crept among its hard lines.
“Why, if he’s old enough to wait on table,” said she, “I dare say he’d be just what I want.”
“Oh,” Helen replied, “I know that he can do that. He must be about sixteen years old, and he has waited in restaurants.” She did not add that that was one reason why neither she nor Chang cared for the lad’s services. “Why can’t you ride back to the rancho with me and see him yourself?” she asked, instead.