Jack's face had recovered its colour by the time that Gabriel had finished, and he answered promptly, "A d—d sight more so! Why, that picture's fair alongside of her!"
Gabriel looked a little disappointed, Hamlin was instantly up in arms. "Yes, sir—and when I say that," he returned, "I mean, by thunder, that the whitest faced woman in the world don't begin to be as handsome. Thar ain't an angel that she couldn't give points to and beat! That's her style! It don't," continued Mr. Hamlin, taking the picture from his breast, and wiping its face with his handkerchief—"it don't begin to do her justice. What," he asked suddenly and aggressively, "have you got to say about it, anyway?"
"I reckoned it kinder favoured my sister Grace," said Gabriel, submissively. "Ye didn't know her, Mr. Hamlin? She was lost sence '49—thet's all!"
Mr. Hamlin measured Gabriel with a contempt that was delicious in its sublime audacity and unconsciousness. "Your sister?" he repeated, "that's a healthy lookin' sister of such a man as you—ain't it? Why, look at it," roared Jack, thrusting the picture under Gabriel's nose. "Why, it's—it's a lady!"
"Ye musn't jedge Gracey by me, nor even Olly," interposed Gabriel, gently, evading Mr. Hamlin's contempt.
But Jack was not to be appeased, "Does your sister sing like an angel, and talk Spanish like Governor Alvarado: is she connected with one of the oldest Spanish families in the state; does she run a rancho and thirty square leagues of land, and is Dolores Salvatierra her nickname? Is her complexion like the young bark of the madroño—the most beautiful thing ever seen—did every other woman look chalky beside her, eh?"
"No!" said Gabriel, with a sigh—"it was just my foolishness, Mr. Hamlin. But seein' that picter, kinder"——
"I stole it," interrupted Jack, with the same frankness. "I saw it in her parlour, on the table, and I froze to it when no one was looking. Lord, she wouldn't have given it to me. I reckon those relatives of hers would have made it very lively for me if they'd suspected it. Hoss stealing ain't a circumstance to this, Gabriel," said Jack, with a reckless laugh. Then with equal frankness, and a picturesque freedom of description, he related his first and only interview with Donna Dolores. I am glad to say that this scamp exaggerated, if anything, the hopelessness of his case, dwelt but slightly on his own services, and concealed the fact that Donna Dolores had even thanked him. "You can reckon from this the extent of my affection for that Johnny Ramirez, and why I just froze to you when I heard you'd dropped him. But come now, it's your deal; tell us all about it. The boys put it up that he was hangin' round your wife,—and you went for him for all he was worth. Go on—I'm waiting—and," added Jack, as a spasm of pain passed across his face, "and aching to that degree that I'll yell if you don't take my mind off it."
But Gabriel's face was grave and his lips silent as he bent over Mr. Hamlin to adjust the bandages. "Go on," said Jack, darkly, "or I'll tear off these rags and bleed to death before your eyes. What are you afraid of? I know all about your wife—you can't tell me anything about her. Didn't I spot her in Sacramento—before she married you—when she had this same Chilino, Ramirez, on a string. Why, she's fooled him as she has you. You ain't such a blasted fool as to be stuck after her still, are you?" and Jack raised himself on his elbow the more intently to regard this possible transcendent idiot.
"You was speakin' o' this Mexican, Ramirez," said Gabriel, after a pause, fixing his now clear and untroubled eyes on his interlocutor.