III
AND RIDES AN OUTLAW
Wrinkled, grizzled old half-breed José, his hands trembling with eagerness, stood in the smaller rose-garden culling the perfect buds, a joyous tear running its zigzag way down each cheek.
"La señorita ees come home!" he announced triumphantly as Lee drew near on his way to the bunk-house. "Jesús Maria! Een my heart it is like the singing of leetle birdies. Mira, señor. My flowers bloomin' the brighter, already—no?"
Bud Lee paused. "So you know Miss Sanford then?" he asked.
José threw out his hands and opened his night-black eyes to their most enormous extent. "Do I know God?" he demanded.
"Well," smiled Bud, "as to that.…"
"But, señor," cried the devout José, "like on holy days I feel that Dios comes to sit down in the corner of my heart, so without seeing la señorita I know she ees come home! She ees in the air like the light of sun, like the sweetness of my roses!"
"You've known her a long time, Joe?"
"Seence she ees born!" and José, unashamed, wiped away a tear upon the back of a leathery hand. "Señor Sanford and me, señor, we teach her when she ees so leetle!" José's shaking hand was lowered until it marked the stature of a twelve-inch pigmy. In all things must the old fellow gain his emphasis by exaggeration which more often than not took the form of plain lying. "Never at all unteel one year ago does she leave us and the rancho. We, us two who love her, señor, learn her to walk and to ride and to shoot and to talk. You shall hear her say, 'Buenos dias, José, mi amigo!' You shall see her kees the cheek of old José."