“You say you came to see me on business,” he said, as he stood looking down upon Gard where he lay in bed in a big, low-ceiled room of the casa, “Well, I’m off to the upper range to-day, to pick out some work-cattle. I shall not be able to talk business till night; so that settles to-day.”
“You’re mighty good,” was Gard’s reply, “but that business o’ mine is only to ask you a question that you can answer in half a minute. You mustn’t think it’s some matter of consequence—to anybody but me, that is,” he added.
“All right; so much the better. It’ll keep, and we can keep you.”
Morgan Anderson had taken a liking to his unexpected guest, and made him welcome with true western hospitality. It was long since Gard had talked with a man of his stamp, and the mere sound of Anderson’s pleasant, easy voice was a joy to him. It was good just to lie there and listen; at the same time, he was concerned about his foot. He wanted to be up and about Kate Hallard’s business. He had not calculated that the delivery of the deed which he had found in Arnold’s coat-pocket two years before, would involve him as it had done.
He had come back to civilization with a strong purpose. He meant to make every effort to reinstate himself in the eyes of the law, and he realized that he must do all that he could before some chance recognition should work to hinder his efforts. Nevertheless, he told himself, the claim of this woman came first. Kate Hallard had no one to fend for her, and the responsibility, in this particular matter, had been laid on him, Gabriel Gard.
Later in the forenoon, when Anderson had ridden away with his men, Wing Chang, the Chinese cook, acting upon the patron’s instructions, established Gard in a long steamer-chair, under the cottonwoods beside the casa. Hither, when he was settled, came Helen, bearing a little tray on which were biscuits and a grape-fruit. Gard smiled as he saw her coming around a corner of the casa, and answered her greeting with a cheery “good-morning.”
“I wondered where you’d got to,” he began, and stopped, suddenly, the quick color rushing to his face.
“Now I just beg your pardon, Miss,” he stammered, in piteous confusion, “I mistook—I thought—I thought you were your little sister.”
“I am,” laughed Helen, putting the tray on a chair by his side.
“No, no: you mustn’t move your foot”—for Gard was struggling forward in his steamer-chair.