The Lone Ranche

by Mayne Reid

A Tale of Peril.

Thanks to the skill of Don Prospero, exerted with kind assiduity, Hamersley’s wounds are soon healed, his strength completely restored. Doubtless the tender nursing of the “angel” has something to do with his rapid recovery, while her presence, cheerful as gentle, does much to remove the gloom from his spirits, caused by the terrible disaster he had sustained. Long before reaching convalescence he has ceased to lament the loss of his property, and only sorrows as he reflects on the fate of his brave followers, whose lives were sacrificed in the effort to preserve it.

Happily, however, as time passes the retrospect of the red carnage loses something of its sanguinary hue, its too vivid tints becoming gradually obscured in the oblivion of the past with the singular surroundings of the present. Amid these his spirit yields itself to pleasanter reflections. How could it be otherwise?

Still, with restored strength, his curiosity has been increasing, till it has reached a point of keenness requiring to be satisfied. He wonders at all around him, especially the strange circumstance of finding his old friend and duelling second in such an out-of-the-way place. As yet, Miranda has only given him a hint, though one pretty much explaining all. There has been a revolution; and they are refugees.

But the young Kentuckian is curious to learn the details, about which, for some reason, the Mexican has hitherto preserved silence. His reticence has been due to an injunction of the doctor, who, still under some anxiety about the recovery of his patient, forbade imparting to him particulars that might have an injurious effect on his nervous system, sadly debilitated by the shock it has received.

Don Prospero is an acute observer. He perceives the growing interest which Hamersley takes in the sister of his host. He knows the story of the Chihuahua duel; and thinks that the other story—that of the disastrous revolution—told in detail, might retard the convalescence of his patient. Counselled by him, Colonel Miranda has refrained from communicating it.

Ignorant of the cause, Hamersley is all the more eager to learn it. Still, his curiosity does not impel him to importunate inquiry. In the companionship of such kind friends he can afford to be patient.

Walt Wilder has no curiosity of any kind. His thoughts have become centred, his whole soul wrapped up in Conchita. The heart of the colossal hunter has received a shock such as it never had before; for, as he declared himself, he is in love for the first time in his life.

Not but that he has made love before, after a fashion. For he has shared his tent with more than one Indian squaw, drank and danced with those nondescript damsels who now and then find their way to the forts of the fur-traders scattered among the Rocky Mountains and along the border-land of the prairies. To all this he has confessed.

But these have been only interludes, “trifling love scrapes.” His present affair with the little mestiza is different. Her sparkling black eyes pierced deeper and more direct—“straight plum-centre to his heart,” as, in professional jargon, he described it.