"Now, señor," he said, "you must let us place you in my coach. I am Don Garcia de Novales; my hacienda is three days' journey, but by pressing the mules we will get there by to-morrow night, then you will have every care and attention, and I will send off one of my servants to-morrow morning, so that he may get a surgeon there by the time we arrive. The journey is a long one, but I think that you will do well to come with us; you certainly cannot sit your horse, and can hardly be so well attended to in any place about here."
The young man murmured something about not liking to give trouble, but he was too faint to offer anything like a vigorous protest. Isabella was called out of the carriage, two pieces of wood were laid between the seats, and on these one of the cushions was placed, so that he could rest, and indeed lie down, for the carriage was a large one. While the Spaniard had been dressing the wound, the two servants had dug a shallow grave by the roadside, and in this they placed the bodies of their dead[!-- [Pg 393] --] comrades and covered them with earth. They now assisted Don Garcia and the coachman to lift the young man into the coach, where he was laid in a reclining position, with blankets and rugs under his head and shoulders. The Spaniard took his place beside him, and Isabella occupied the remaining seat. The servants then mounted.
"We shall not stop where we intended," Don Garcia said to the coachman, "we must get home to-morrow evening. We had best stop for the night at San Lorenzo, we can find accommodation at the priest's there. Be careful how you drive; you must go fast, but avoid all stones and rough places."
The young man who had so opportunely come to their rescue was apparently scarce twenty years old, and though bronzed to a deep brown by the sun, his hair showed that his complexion was naturally fair. He was attired in a coloured flannel shirt, Mexican trousers with fringed sides, and high riding-boots. On his head he wore one of the thick stiff hats with wide brim, encircled with a scarlet and gold cord, in use alike by the cowboys and Mexican vaqueros. Isabella filled a cup with water and acidulated juice of fruit from a bottle hanging from the roof of the carriage, and handed it to her father, who held it to the young man's lips. He drank it eagerly.
"I am ashamed to be of so much trouble," he said faintly.
"Why should you be ashamed?" Don Garcia asked heartily; "you have rendered us an invaluable service. Doubtless they would have put us to a very heavy ransom, if worse had not befallen us. You are an American, I presume?"
"No, I am English, señor; my name is Harry Denham; but I have been knocking about this country for the last five years, sometimes working on a ranche, sometimes hunting. I have been staying for the last few days with a vaquero and his family. I was just starting north to[!-- [Pg 394] --] look for work, as I could hear of none here, and as I came down upon the road I saw your coach ahead of me. I was a quarter of a mile behind when I heard some shots fired, and thinking that I might be of some use, I rode on at full speed, and of course did what I could."
He was speaking very faintly now, and Don Garcia said, "We will talk it all over later on; at present it would be best if you could doze off to sleep."
Harry Denham, although still little more than a lad, had led a life of adventure for the past five years. He was but fourteen when his father, a consulting physician, died suddenly. Harry had been a year at Rugby, and would have returned to school in the course of a few days, when his father's death deranged everything. His mother had died some years before, and his brother Tom, who had now been a year at Cambridge, was his only near relative. The day after the funeral Tom returned from a visit to the office of his father's trustee, with whom he had had a long talk.
"What day do you think I had better go down to school, Tom?"