Notwithstanding which, at the last moment, Gabriel hung awkwardly and heavily around the carriage in which the invalid was seated.
"I'd foller arter ye, Mr. Hamlin, in a buggy," he interpolated, in gentle deprecation of his unwieldy and difficult bulk, "but I'm sorter kept yer with my wife—who is powerful weak along of a pore small baby—about so long—the same not bein' a fammerly man yourself, you don't kinder get the hang of. I thought it might please ye to know that I got bail yesterday for thet Mr. Perkins—ez didn't kill that thar Ramirez—the same havin' killed hisself—ez waz fetched out on the trial, which I reckon ye didn't get to hear. I admire to see ye lookin' so well, Mr. Hamlin, and I'm glad Olly's goin' with ye. I reckon Grace would hev gone too, but she's sorter skary about strangers, hevin' bin engaged these seving years to a young man by the name o' Poinsett ez waz one o' my counsel, and hevin' lately had a row with the same—one o' them lovers' fights—which bein' a young man yourself, ye kin kindly allow for."
"Drive on!" imprecated Mr. Hamlin furiously to the driver; "what are you waiting for?" and with the whirling wheels Gabriel dropped off apologetically in a cloud of dust, and Mr. Hamlin sack back exhaustedly on the cushions.
Notwithstanding, as he increased his distance from One Horse Gulch, his spirits seemed to rise, and by the time they had reached San Antonio he had recovered his old audacity and dash of manner, and raised the highest hopes in the breast of everybody but—his doctor. Yet that gentleman, after a careful examination of his patient one night, said privately to Pete, "I think this exaltation will last about three days longer. I am going to San Francisco. At the end of that time I shall return—unless you telegraph to me before that." He parted gaily from his patient, and seriously from everybody else. Before he left he sought out Padre Felipe. "I have a patient here, in a critical condition," said the doctor; "the hotel is no place for him. Is there any family here—any house that will receive him under your advice for a week? At the end of that time he will be better, or beyond our ministration. He is not a Protestant—he is nothing. You have had experience with the heathen, Father Felipe."
Father Felipe looked at Dr. Duchesne. The doctor's well-earned professional fame had penetrated even San Antonio; the doctor's insight and intelligence were visible in his manner, and touched the Jesuit instantly. "It is a strange case, my son; a sad case," he said, thoughtfully. "I will see."
He did. The next day, under the direction of Father Felipe, Mr. Hamlin was removed to the Rancho of the Blessed Fisherman, and notwithstanding the fact that its hostess was absent, was fairly installed as its guest. When Mrs. Sepulvida returned from her visit to San Francisco, she was at first astonished, then excited, and then, I fear, gratified.
For she at once recognised in this guest of Father Felipe the mysterious stranger whom she had, some weeks ago, detected on the plains of the Blessed Trinity. And Jack, despite his illness, was still handsome, and had, moreover, the melancholy graces of invalidism, which go far with an habitually ailing sex. And so she coddled Mr. Hamlin, and gave him her sacred hammock by day over the porch, and her best bedroom at night. And then, at the close of a pleasant day, she said, archly—
"I think I have seen you before, Mr. Hamlin—at the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity. You remember—the house of Donna Dolores?"
Mr. Hamlin was too observant of the sex to be impertinently mindful of another woman than his interlocutor, and assented with easy indifference.
Donna Maria (now thoroughly convinced that Mr. Hamlin's attentions on that eventful occasion were intended for herself, and even delightfully suspicious of some pre-arranged plan in his present situation): "Poor Donna Dolores! You know we have lost her for ever."