“Will you not stay for lunch?” Seyd protested.
But replying that he had already lunched at a ranch in the valley, the old man rode away on his usual heavy lope. “You see,” Seyd commented, watching him go, “it is all right for me to accept his invitation, but he will not eat of our bread.”
“Well, I don’t blame him,” Billy answered. “I’d feel sore myself if I were he. But, say, we’re getting quite gay up here. Regular social whirl. I wonder who’s next? We only need mamma to complete the family.”
The remark was prophetic, for, while the señora did not herself brave the Barranca steeps, only two days thereafter Francesca and the mozo reappeared driving before them a mule whose panniers were crammed with eggs and cheese, butter and honey, fruit, both fresh and preserved, also a full stock of bandages, liniments, curative simples, and home-made cordials. While unpacking them on the table in their house the girl laughingly explained that if Seyd would not come to be cured the cures must needs come to him.
“This is a wash for the wound.” She patted a large fat jug. “This other is to be taken every hour. Of this liquor you must take a glass at bed-time. Those pills must be swallowed when you rise. This”—noting Billy’s furtive grin, she finished with a laugh—“you will not have room for more. Give the rest to Mr. Thornton. But under pain of the good mamma’s severest displeasure I am to see you drink at least two cups of this soup.”
“You shall if you stay to lunch,” Seyd said. “Billy makes gorgeous biscuit, and they’ll go finely with the honey.”
“If you can eat bacon—we have only that and a few canned things,” Billy added, a little dubiously, and would have extended the list of shortcomings only that she broke in:
“Just what I like. I’m tired of Mexican cooking, and I am dreadfully hungry.”
That this was no idle assertion she presently proved, and while she ate of their rough food with the appetite of perfect health their acquaintance progressed with the leaps and bounds natural to youth. Before the end of the meal she had drawn Billy completely out of his painful bashfulness, and he was telling her with great pride of his beautiful sister while she contemplated her photograph with head held delicately askew.
“Yes, she’s fair,” he told her, adding with great pride, “but not a bit like me.”