In the course of it Betty exercised her usual privilege and went to sleep in Bull’s arms. But though, when he retired, the warmth of the soft child-body enwrapped, as before, his heart, his thoughts were not of her. Long after the silence of midnight wrapped the dark house he dismissed a waking dream with the brusque comment:
“’Tain’t for you, Bull. You killed all that years ago, with your own hand.”
He repeated it next morning, looking back on the rancho from the last rise. “No, Son, ’tain’t for you.”
At that moment Betty and her mother stood in the doorway watching his distant figure, and had he been close enough to see and hear he might have read denial of his thought in both the child’s words and the widow’s reflective smile. Said reflection was due to a lively memory of his sudden reddening when she had left her hand in his just a shade longer than was necessary. She blushed, now, and cut off Betty’s words with a sudden squeeze.
“Mother, I just know he’s falling in love with you. Wouldn’t it be nice if he asked—”
[XVI: ONE MAN CAN TAKE A HORSE TO WATER, BUT—]
The sun shone brightly on the morning of the widow’s birthday. Not that there was anything sensational in the fact. Except in the rainy season, the sun always shines brightly in Chihuahua—altogether too brightly for a white man’s comfort, so while waiting for Lee, Gordon led their horses into the shade of the ’dobe where dwelt his little playmate. Seated in the doorway, under the pleased eyes of the brown mother, he was initiating the chubby thing into the mysteries of “cat’s cradle” with a loop of string, when Lee came walking across from the house.
At the sight of the two heads bent over the “cradle,” the girl’s face lit up with a soft glow that was not belied by her mock severity. “Hello, Brother! What are you doing to my godchild?”
“Is this she?” Rising, he swung the child up on his shoulder. “I had just about made up my mind to adopt her myself.”
“Let me see—” Lee’s smooth brow achieved a thoughtful wrinkle. “She’s about one-fiftieth of it. You know I am padrina to all that have been born here in the last fifteen years. But this is my favorite, and I cannot suffer you to steal her allegiance as you tried the other night. Oh, you needn’t blush! Maria brought the news with my coffee. She was loud in your praises. ‘Don Gor-r-r-don sat with Refugio’s sick babe all night. What a husband for some happy señorita!’”