Teresita could; but her further store of American words related chiefly to the diet and general well-being of one very small and very black pup, which was at that moment sleeping luxuriously in the chimney corner at home; and without the pup the words would be no more than parrot-chattering. So the señorita shook her head and smiled, and Mrs. Jerry went back to the problem of the small patch and the large hole.
Hampered thus by having no common language between them, Teresita failed absolutely to accomplish her mission.
Mrs. Jerry, hazily guessing at the invitation without realizing any urgent need of immediate acceptance, shook her head and pointed to her pitifully few household appurtenances, and tried to make it plain that she had duties which kept her there in the little camp which she pathetically called home.
Teresita gathered that the pretty señora did not wish to leave that great, gaunt hombre who was her husband. So, when she could no longer conceal her shiverings, and having no hope that the big señor would understand her any better when he returned with the load of logs he and the peons were after, she rose and prepared to depart. Surely the Señor Jack, if he were going to follow, would by this time be coming, and the hope rather hastened her adieu.
"Adios, amiga mia," she said, her eyes innocently turning from the Señora Simpson to scan stealthily the northern slope.
"Good-by, honey. Come again and see me. Jerry knows a few Spanish words, and I'll make him learn 'em to me so I can talk a little of your kind, next time. And tell your mother I'm obliged for the wine; and them dried peaches tasted fine, after being without so long. Shan't I hold your horse while you git on? Seems to me he's pretty frisky for a girl to be riding; but I guess you're equal to him!"
Teresita smiled vaguely. She had no idea of what the woman was saying, and she was beginning to wish that she had not tried in just this way to punish the Señor Jack; if he were here now, he could make the Señora Simpson understand that the storm would be a very dreadful one—else Gustavo was a liar, and whom should one believe?
Even while she was coaxing Tejon alongside a log and persuading him to stand so until she was in the saddle, she was generously forswearing Señor Jack's punishment that she might serve the pretty señora who had Tejon by the bit and was talking to him softly in words he had never heard before in his life. She resolved that if she met Señor Jack, she would ask him to come back with her and explain to the señora about the cold and the rain, and urge her to accept the hospitality of her neighbors.
For that reason she looked more anxiously than before for some sign of him riding towards her through the fields of flowering mustard that heaved in the wind like the waves on some strange, lemon-colored sea tossing between high, green islands of oak and willow. Surely that fool Diego would never keep the still tongue! He would tell, when some one missed her. If he did not, or if Señor Allen was an obstinate pig of a man and would not come, then she would tell Señor Hunter, who was always so kind, though not so handsome as the other, perhaps.
Señor Hunter's eyes were brown—and she had looked into brown eyes all her life. But the blue! The blue eyes that could so quickly change lighter or darker that they bewildered one; and could smile, or light flames that could wither the soul of one.