The pleasantest task which fell to Jessica’s hands, during her hospital life, was the distributing of flowers and fruits, almost daily sent by the charitable for the comfort of the patients.

The nurses received and apportioned these gifts; and, carrying her big, tray-like basket, Lady Jess visited each ward and room in turn, adding to the pretty offering some bright word of her own. For she now had the freedom of the house and knew the occupant of each white bed better, even, than his or her attendant nurse. The quiet manner which she had gained here, her ready help and loving sympathy, made her coming looked for eagerly; but the happiness she thus bestowed was more than returned upon her own heart. Could her “boys” have seen her they would have been proud, but not surprised, for to the appreciative words his own attendant gave his darling, Ephraim would instantly reply?

“’Course. What else could you expect? Didn’t she have the finest man in the world for her father? and isn’t her mother a lady? Isn’t she, herself, the sweetest, lovingest, most unselfish child that ever lived? But it’ll be meat to feed the ‘boys’ with, all these stories you’re telling me. They most worship her now, and after they listen to such talk a spell–h-m-m. The whole secret is just–love. That’s what our captain is made of; pure love. ’Twas a good thing for this old earth when she was born.”

“But you’ll spoil her among you, I fear.”

“Well, you needn’t. Little Jessica Trent can’t be spoiled. ’Cause them same ‘boys’ would be the first ones to take any nonsense out of her, at the first symptoms. She couldn’t stand ridicule. It would break her heart; but they’d give her ridicule and plenty of it if she put on silly airs. You needn’t be afraid for Lady Jess.”

On that very day, after Antonio had left the hospital with his friends, or captors, as the case might prove. Jessica went through the building with her tray of roses, and in the wing adjoining the accident ward saw a man lying in one of the hitherto empty rooms.

“A new patient. He must have been brought in to-day. I’ve never been to the new ones till I was told, but I hate to pass him by. I wonder if it would be wrong to ask him if he wished a flower! And how still he stays. Yet his eyes are very wide open and so round! He looks like somebody I’ve seen–why, little Luis Garcia! ’Tis Luis himself, grown old and thin. For Luis’ sake, then I’ll try.”

A nurse was sitting silent at the patient’s bedside and toward her the child turned an inquiring glance. The answer was a slight, affirmative nod. The attendant’s thought was that it would please Lady Jess to give the rose and could do the patient no harm to receive it. Indeed, nothing earthly could harm him any more.

So Jessica stepped softly in and paused beside the cot. Her face was full of pity and of a growing astonishment, for the nearer she beheld it the more startling was the sick man’s likeness to a childish face hundreds of miles away.

Her stare brought the patient’s own vacant gaze back to a consciousness of things about him. He saw a yellow-haired girl looking curiously upon him and extending toward him a half-blown rose. A fair and unexpected vision in that place of pain, and he asked, half querulously:

“Who are you? An angel come to upbraid me before my time?”

“I’m Jessica Trent, of Sobrante ranch, in Paraiso d’Oro valley.”

“W-h-a-t!”

The nurse bent forward, but he motioned her aside.

“Say that again.”

“I’m just little Jessica Trent. That’s all.”

“All! Trent–Trent. Ah!”

“And you? Are you Luis Garcia’s missing father?”

“Luis–Luis Garcia. Was it Luis, Ysandra called him?”

“Yes, yes. That was the name on the paper my father found pinned to the baby’s dress. The letter told that the baby’s father had gone away promising to come back, but had never come. The mother had heard of my dear father’s goodness to all who needed help, and she was on her way to him when her strength gave out. So she died there in the canyon, and she said the baby’s name was like the father’s. I remember it all, because to us the ‘Maria’ seems like a girl’s name, too. Luis Maria Manuel Alessandro Garcia.”

The man’s round eyes opened wider and wider. It seemed as if his glare pierced the child’s very heart, and she drew back frightened. The nurse motioned her to go, but at her first movement toward the door the patient extended his hands imploring:

“No. Not yet. My time is spent. Let me hear all–all. The child your father found–ah! me! Your father of all men! Did–did it live?”

“Of course it lived. He is a darling little fellow and he looks–he looks so like you that I knew you in a moment. He has the same wide brown eyes, the same black curls, his eyebrows slant so, like yours, he is your image. But he is the cutest little chap you ever saw. He is my own brother’s age and they have grown up together, like twins, I guess. It would break Ned’s heart to have you take him away from us. You won’t now, will you?”

A pitiful smile spread over the pain-racked features, and the man glanced significantly toward the nurse. She smiled encouragingly upon him, but he was not misled. After a moment of silence, during which Jessica anxiously watched his drawn face, he spoke.

“Go, child. Your mission is done. Send a lawyer, quick. Quick. The man I wronged–the savior of my son! A lawyer, quick. Bring the suit case–the case! Let none open it but the child. Quick. Quick!”

Higher authority even than her own convinced the nurse that obedience to his urgency was the only way now to allay the patient’s rising excitement. The accident which had crushed the lower part of his body, so that his life was but a question of hours, had left his head clear for the present; and here, indeed, seemed a case for more than surgical treatment.

Fortunately, the needed “lawyer” was close at hand, waiting with the reporter and the half-distraught Antonio whose shriek of recognition had been Luis Garcia’s welcome to the hospital. Unceasingly, the manager had declared that this was the man all three of them were seeking; had insisted upon returning to the ante-room of the hospital, and avowed that he would never leave the spot until the “villain” had been apprehended.

“He has misled and cheated me. I, Antonio! He has all my money. He has the savings of my life, yes. He has all that I did not yet pay, of the crops so good, to the Senora Trent. More, more. That money–which, ah, me! He told me, yes, a thousand million times, that I, and not that New York company, to me alone was the inheritance of Paraiso d’Oro. My money was to prove it, that inheritance, yes. To me was the power of attorney, was it not? of Cassius Trent, who was the so good man and the so poor fool at business.”

“Look out, there, neighbor! Speaking of fools and business, you don’t appear to have been so brilliant yourself,” corrected Ninian, promptly.

Antonio continued, heedless of the interruption:

“He was the great banker, Garcia, no? What then? Who would so safe keep the money from that far New York? With the master’s wish I gave it to that bank. And the letters–Caramba! So high, to one’s knees, to one’s waist I pile them, the letters! All wrote of his own hand. All say by-and-by, manana, he give me the perfect title and send back that which belongs, after all expenses, no? To them in New York.”

“A pretty scheme. You don’t seem to have profited by it greatly, as yet.”

“I, profit? But I am now the beggar, I, poor Antonio. This day I come from resting in the houses of my friends and I find–what do I find? The bank is not. The banker is not, yes. His house where he lived more plain than our adobes at Sobrante, that house is closed. His man tell me this: ‘He has gone away. One little, little trip, a journey. Across the sea. He will come back. Have patience, Antonio.’ But my money? my papers? my inheritance so all but proved? Tush. He told me not that. ‘When he comes back you can ask him, himself.’ So. Good. He has come back. Here. I see him, sure. I–”

A summons to Mr. Hale cut short this fierce harangue, which had been repeated till their ears were tired.

The banker had come back, indeed, poor creature. By the very train on which he was to depart with his plunder–all rendered into the solid cash which would tell no tales, as he fancied–by this swift-moving juggernaut he was overtaken and crushed down. A moment earlier he would have been in time. But in haste and by a misstep he had ended all his earthly journeyings.

When the lawyer was called the reporter followed his friend and Antonio followed him, and when these three approached the little room in which the dying man lay, the nurse would have sent them back; but Garcia himself pleaded: “Let them be. What matters it how many hear or see? The dress-suit case. Bring it, and bring the child.”

They obeyed and he bade them place the key in Jessica’s small hand.

“Open it, little one.”

But her fingers shook so that the nurse, in pity, pushed them from the lock and herself unfastened the heavily laden case. It contained no clothing, such as might have been looked for within; but rolls and packets neatly tied.

“Open them, child.”

“Oh! please! I do not want to; I am afraid!”

“Afraid, Jessica Trent? Do you not yet understand? That is money, money–of which your father stood accused before the world as having stolen. Afraid to prove your father what you know him–an honest man!” cried Ninian in anger.

She understood him then, and in frantic haste obeyed. Roll after roll, till Mr. Hale said:

“Enough. His strength is failing. This scene is too much for him.”

At that she pushed the gold away and, falling on her knees beside the bed, caught Luis Garcia’s hand and covered it with kisses.

“Oh! thank you, Luis’ father! God bless you, God take care of you!”

“Oh! the divine pity of childhood,” murmured Ninian, huskily. “She forgets that it was he who wronged her in the fact that he has now set her right.”

The sick man’s face brightened, nor did he withdraw his hand.

“You forgive me?”

“Yes, yes.”

“The little Luis. The son I never saw. What shall you tell him of his father?”

“That he was good to me, and that he suffered.”

“More. Tell the boy this: I never knew he lived. I should have known, I should have searched. I did not. Ask him, too, to forgive me. And because of me, turn him not away.”

The nurse motioned all the others to go out, and they went, Ninian Sharp himself standing guard over the dress-suit case the attendant had relocked until it was once more safely deposited in the strong box of the hospital, where even Antonio’s greedy eyes could see it no longer.

But Jessica knelt on, awed and silent, yet now quite unafraid. And Luis Garcia still clasped her hand and fixed his fading gaze upon her pitying face.

“The mother–Ysandra. Where lies she now? Little one, do you know that?”

“Do I not? In the consecrated ground of the old mission itself. With all the good dead priests sleeping about her. Rose vines cover her grave and my own mother tends them herself. Little Luis is made to water it, sometimes, though, for that is a good way to keep her memory green, my mother says. Near by is where my father rests. Would–would you wish to sleep there, too, beside them both, and where Luis could bring flowers to you as to her?”

“I may? You–are–willing? Would–your mother–so kind–little Luis–”

“My mother pities and helps all who suffer. You suffer, poor man, and I wish that she were here to tell you ‘yes’ herself.”

But he had closed his eyes and she could not know if he had heard her, though she was glad to see that the look of pain had almost left his features. She did not speak again but sat quite still until, at last, her hand grew numb and she turned toward the nurse, whispering:

“Can I move it? Will it disturb him? He seems to be asleep.”

The nurse bent over her patient, then gently answered:

“Yes, darling. Your task is over. Nothing will ever trouble him again. He is at peace–asleep.”

CHAPTER XIX
ANTONIO’S MESSAGE

Jessica went back to Ephraim’s room, to tell him this wonderful ending of their once almost hopeless search, and for long they discussed the story that was at once so strange, so moving, and yet so simple.

“Man proposes, God disposes,” quoted “Forty-niner,” with all the emphasis of an original philosophy. “If we’d set out to make up a fairy story we couldn’t have beat this. But I’m so glad, it seems like I could get right up and dance a jig, smashed leg and all.”

“Glad! Ephraim, I’m so glad, too, and the gladness is so deep, deep down that I don’t want to dance. I just want to cry. And that poor man is little Luis’ father. Oh! it is pitiful.”

“Hush, captain. Don’t you go to grieving over that scamp. A man don’t get good nor bad all in a minute. It was hard enough, I ’low, for a fellow to be snatched out of the world that sudden. Yet, if he could speak for himself, he’d say a thousand times better that than what the law would have given him. Let him be. His part is done. He’s passed in his checks and don’t you hear that Heaven won’t pay out on all the good ones. Now–what next?”

Both knew, yet both disliked to mention that which each felt. Till Ephraim swallowed something like a sob and remarked:

“The longer I lie here, like a log, the madder I get at myself and the weaker minded. I’m just about as ready to cry as a whipped baby. I know ’twas the best thing could have happened, my getting hurt, though why a plain, everyday break wouldn’t have answered the purpose just as well as this ‘compound fracture,’ the doctors make such a fuss over and takes so long to heal, I don’t see. Nor never shall. If it had been just ordinary bone-crackin’ I’d been lively as a hop-toad by now, and ready to start right home with you this minute. As it is–”

“Oh, Ephraim! I hate to leave you–but I must get quickly to my mother! Don’t you see I must? To smooth all those sad lines out of her dear face and make her happy again, as this news surely will. They’ll be good to you here, and you can come the first minute they’ll let you.”

“Why not telegraph her? The boys go every day to Marion for the letters you and all send, and the postmaster is the operator, too. Why not that, and wait just a day or two. Likely I’ll be cavortin’ round, supple as a lizard on a fence, by then.”

Jessica did not answer and Ephraim asked:

“How could you go, anyway, without me or some protector? Though I made a bad job of it once I wouldn’t the second time.”

“I don’t know how, dear old fellow, and I do know how bitter disappointed you are that you can’t be there to see my mother’s face and get her thanks right away. But–”

Fortunately for both of these perplexed people, Ninian Sharp came along the passage just then, and one glimpse of his bright, helpful face cleared away Jessica’s anxieties.

“You’ll know what’s best and how to do it, won’t you, dear Mr. Sharp?”

“Certainly. That’s my business. Straightening out the tangled affairs of the silly rest of the world! Fetch on your trouble!”

He was in the gayest of moods, elated over the successful termination of his tedious labors, though in his heart not unmindful of the tragedy which had brought his share in them to an end. What was left, the law’s dealings with Antonio and the division and disposition of the recovered funds, belonged to Mr. Hale, and he very thankfully resigned these matters to that gentleman’s capable hand.

“I want to go home. And I don’t want to leave Ephraim.”

“I want to go with you. And I’m going to leave Ephraim–because he’d have to stay awhile, whether or not. He will be an important witness for the prosecution, providing that New York Company bothers any further after having recovered all that belongs to them, with some that doesn’t. I’ve a ‘loose foot,’ as I’ve heard that your ‘Aunt Sally’ also has betimes, and I mean to shake it out Sobrante way. If you’d like to travel in my company I can’t prevent it, as I see!”

“Oh! you darling man! You mean–I know it, for it’s just like all the rest of your great kindness–that you’re going wholly on purpose to take me home!”

“Beg pardon, but indeed, I’m not. At this present moment I have no stronger desire than to see that wonderful ranch of yours and those ‘boys’ who’ve spoiled you so. Why, I couldn’t stay away, after putting my finger so deeply into your family pie. I propose to start on the nine o’clock train to-morrow morning. Think you can be ready by then?”

“I’m ready this minute! No, I mean, as soon as I bid everybody good-by, and–and–”

“Do a little shopping, eh? That’s what most young ladies delay for, I believe.”

“But I’m neither a young lady nor have I any shopping to do. I couldn’t have because I haven’t any money, you see, even if I knew how to shop.”

“Why?” demanded “Forty-niner,” impatiently. “No money? I don’t believe all ours is gone yet.”

“Why, I forgot that. I really did. And I would love, if Mr. Sharp thinks it would be all right to use it when there is all this hospital board for both of us to pay, to take a tiny bit of a present to–to–”

“Everybody you ever knew, I’ll be bound!” cried Ninian.

“I–believe I would. But of course I can’t. So I’d best treat all alike and take nothing but our glorious goods news.”

“I’m going to take that myself, part of the way. At the finish I’ll let you carry the heavy burden and deliver it yourself into your mother’s hands. Now, come sit down a minute. Ephraim, put on your own thinking cap, and if she forgets anybody you let me know. We are going to take something to everybody, just as you’d like. Now, begin. The mother–but she’s settled, already. For her I’ve made a finished picture from a sketch I have, of a little yellow-haired girl asleep upon a piebald burro’s shoulder. Ned? A train of cars. Luis, ditto. Samson–what for Samson?”

“Would it cost too much to take them each, all the ‘boys’ the same thing, and that would be a bright red necktie?”

“Cost not a bit too much and be a deal easier than thinking of separate things for so many. Next? Aunt Sally?”

“Oh! she’s no trouble. A few bits of new calico ‘print’ for her patchwork would make her very happy.”

They forgot nobody, not even Ferd whom Jessica so disliked; and at the end of the list she rather timidly suggested: “Antonio.”

To that, however, both her friends cried a vehement “No!” Not a cent of their money should ever go to please such a man as the Senor Bernal.

“But, that reminds me. This Antonio himself wishes to have an interview with you before you leave Los Angeles. I want you, though, to feel at liberty to refuse this request if you so desire. He deserves no kindness at your hands.”

“No. Don’t you go near him, captain. He’s a snake and snakes are unpleasant critters even after their fangs are drawn. Leave Antonio to me. When I get well I’ll have a little score to settle with him on my own behalf,” urged Ephraim.

“Why doesn’t he come to me, himself? Instead of sending for me to him. Then I shouldn’t have to trouble you to take me.”

Mr. Sharp looked at Ephraim and smiled, significantly.

“I suppose because he cannot. Else so polished a gentleman would surely do so.”

“Why cannot he? Is he ill, too?”

“Rather ill in his mind, but not in body. Simply, he isn’t allowed.”

“Won’t the hospital folks have him?”

“Not at present.”

“I believe you are teasing me. Where is Antonio?”

“At police headquarters.”

“Oh! with Matron Wood?”

“Not with that good woman, I fear.”

“Mr. Sharp, please, don’t tease me any more. What do you mean?”

“Antonio is under restraint of the law. He is a prisoner, for the present. Detained until Mr. Hale can consult with his New York people and find out their disposition toward the fellow. He has done criminal things without, apparently, any benefit to himself. He says there is something on his mind that he must tell you. We’ll call to see him on our way to the shopping district and get him over and done with. I’ve no desire to continue his acquaintance, myself.”

Jessica’s face grew serious.

“Oh! poor Antonio!”

“Quit that!” commanded “Forty-niner,” with more sharpness than he often used toward his beloved lady.

“But, it is so terrible to be a–prisoner. That means that one can never go out into the fields or climb the mountains, or ride, or hunt, or anything one likes. He has done dreadful wrongs, and I never used to like him as well as I ought, but now I’m sorry for him. I can’t help it, Ephraim, even if it does displease you.”

“H-m-m. He brought his own misfortunes upon himself. But first he had brought worse ones on his truest friends and innocent persons whom he never saw.”

“Maybe he didn’t know any better. Maybe–”

“Child, you are incorrigible. You’d pity–anybody. Yet, perhaps, you are right in a measure. Antonio strikes me as more fool that knave.”

“Well, I’ll be glad to say good-by to him, anyway.”

It was a greatly altered Antonio they found. All his haughtiness was gone and his depression, his fear, was so abject that while Lady Jess pitied him even more than before, the reporter felt only contempt. It was he who cut short the manager’s wordy explanations and commanded:

“Now, if you’ve got anything special to say to Miss Trent, out with it and have done. We must be off.”

“Then leave her alone with me for five minutes, yes.”

“No. What you can say to her must be said in my presence.”

But Jessica petitioned for the favor, and Ninian stepped into an adjoining room, leaving the door ajar.

As soon as he was out of sight, Senor Bernal leaned forward, clasping his hands.

“It is the good turn I do. Well, then, it is the good turn you will answer, no.”

“Of course. I’d do you any ‘good turn’ which was right for me.”

“Then plead for me, my liberty. It is you, senorita, who have the so great, the strange power to move many hearts to your will. Si. You will plead, then, if I tell you–something–a little story–maybe?”

“I’m in no mood for stories, and you’re talking in riddles as you’ve always been fond of doing. Say what you mean at once, Antonio, for I’m going home to-morrow. Home! going home!”

“Ah! me! And? But yes. I will. I will force myself. I will ask it. That–that–title? Know you of that?”

“How should I know?”

“Ephraim. Was not Ephraim at the safe one midnight? Is not Ephraim a little strange–here?” touching his own forehead.

Jessica turned away, indignant.

“No, but you are. The queerest, crookedest man I ever saw. If you’ve anything to tell me, just be quick, I am going. As for Ephraim, I wish, unhappy man, that you had half the goodness and honesty in your whole body that dear old fellow has in his littlest finger. He couldn’t do a mean thing nor even think one, and if you sent for me to abuse him to me you might have spared yourself the trouble.”

“Well, then. It is known, is it not? That when I shook the dust of Sobrante rancho from my feet I took away with me all the papers that appertained to the so great business of the place? Why not? Was I not to go back the master, and for the settlement of all affairs which I had with the Dona Gabriella?”

“You will please never call my mother by her first name again, Antonio Bernal. She is an American gentlewoman, and her title is Mrs. Trent. Understand? She is not afraid of you, nor am I, though she was patient and, for her children’s sakes, would not quarrel nor resent your insolence. All that is changed. You can do us no further harm. My father’s name is freed from all the shadow that your wickedness cast over it, and as for titles to property–poor! None of the Trents, big or little, care anything for property since we have regained honor! Besides, Sobrante isn’t the only home in the world. They are everywhere, waiting for those who will take them. If we lose Sobrante, as I suppose we may, I–just I, Jessica Trent, a child, will make a home for my mother and my brother–somewhere. I am strong. I can work. I am not at all afraid.”

Despite his meanness and cupidity, Antonio was moved. The girl was radiant in her courage and enthusiasm, and her disdain of what he could make her suffer was infinite.

“Good, senorita. When you speak and look like that I can no longer keep silence, I. The papers! It is possible, no? That among them, in my so great haste at leaving Sobrante, that little, yes, it might–it might be among those other papers appertaining to the so great business. Si. If I point the way, if I tell the secret retiring place of me, I, Antonio Bernal, you will plead and set me free? It is a contract, a bargain–yes?”

Jessica pondered. The temptation was strong to say “yes” without delay; but she had now learned to distrust the late manager of her mother’s business, and answered, cautiously:

“I’ll do what I can, Antonio, but if my mother forbids me to ‘plead,’ I shall not disobey her. You did what you pleased, and my friends say you will have to suffer the consequences.”

“Ah! but it is the so old head on the so small shoulders. That wisdom was not of your own, senorita. But, I forgive the suspicion. Yes, I am magnanimous. I am generous, I, Senor Bernal, heir–rightful heir–to Sobrante rancho and all of Paraiso d’Oro. See! Behold! Did the Lady Jessica never hear of El Desierto, no?”

“The Deserted Ranch? Where Pedro says the spirits of dead people walk? Of course. Everybody has heard of that. Why?”

“Sometimes the ‘spirits’ keep hidden treasures safe. Yes. Si. Does the senorita know the trail thither, to that haunted place?”

“No. Nor wish to. Good-by, Antonio. I can wait for no more of your nonsense.”

“The paper. The pencil, which the Lady Jess holds in her hand. One moment, that to me, if the senorita pleases.”

“I brought these for my little shopping trip, which I’m to take with Mr. Sharp. I can’t give them to you, but I’ll lend, for a moment. Here they are. Be quick.”

Antonio seized the pencil and rapidly sketched upon the pad a few dots and lines, suggesting a zigzag road and stations upon it. At the starting point he wrote “Marion,” and at the end “Sobrante.” Midway, and well to the north, where a curving course indicated an arroyo he marked “El Desierto.”

Then he looked up, and Jessica reached forward to take back her possessions.

But with what he considered great chaft and cunning he thrust them behind him and smiled grimly:

“The promise, senorita. First the promise; ‘I will plead for the liberty of Senor Antonio Bernal, so help me–’”

Unperceived by the artful manager, Ninian Sharp had entered the room from a rear door. He was tired of waiting for the interview to end and had overheard most of it from the outer room. He now quietly stretched out his own hand and possessed himself of the rude map, and then as quietly and instantly withdrew with it, calling as he did so:

“Come on, Lady Jess. Time’s up. So is Antonio’s little game; yet, thanks, senor, for playing it so openly, Good-day. Adios. Farewell. Et cetera. Au revoir and all the rest. We’ll show you that title deed–if we find it!”