Jessica Trent: Her Life On A Ranch Part 27

"Whew! What do you mean? I--I never thought about clothes," said Ninian Sharp.

"Nor I, before, since I came. I had only a change of underwear and another flannel frock. Ephraim was to buy me more if I needed, though mother thought I should not. But what I did have were in the saddlebags on Stiffleg's back."

"And he marched off to glory with them, the old soldier, eh? Well, that's soon remedied. There are lots of stores in Los Angeles and lots of girls your size. I'll get a nurse to fix you out, when she can, and now, back to Ephraim and good-by."

CHAPTER XVII

THE FINDING OF ANTONIO

For Jessica Trent there followed weeks of a quieter life than she had lived even at isolated Sobrante. "The behavior," which was to be a test of her stay, proved so pleasing to the hospital residents that some of them wondered how they had ever gotten along without her helpful, happy presence.

Very quickly she lost her first vague fear of the place and learned to hear in the once alarming ambulance gong the signal of relief to somebody. She modulated her voice to the prevailing quietude of the house and her footfalls were as light as the nurses themselves. To many a sufferer, coming there in dread and foreboding, the sight of a child familiar and happy about the great building brought a feeling of comfort and homelikeness which nothing else could have given. She was so apt and imitative that Ephraim often declared:

"All you need, Lady Jess, is a cap and ap.r.o.n to make you a regular professional. Take care of me better'n any of 'em, you do; and I'll be a prime experience for you, that's a fact. Another of the good things come out of my fool riding, I s'pose. You'll be able to nurse the whole parcel of us, when you get back to Sobrante. Beat Aunt Sally all hollow, 'cause you trust a bit to nature and not all to--picra."

"But you're not ill, Ephraim Marsh. You're just broken. So you don't need medicine. All you need is patience. And your nourishments, regular."

"I get them all right; but--_patience!_ Atlantic!"

The old man sighed. It was weary work for him, the hardest he had ever done, to lie so motionless while he was so anxious to be active. He really suffered little and he had the best of care. Still, he sighed again, and, unfortunately, Jessica echoed the sigh. Then he looked at her keenly and spoke the thought which had been in his mind for a long time:

"Captain, you must go home. There's twenty to need bossing there and only one poor old carca.s.s here."

Poor Lady Jess! She tried to answer brightly as was her habit, but that day homesickness was strong upon her, and at mention of Sobrante her courage failed. She forgot that she was a "nurse"; forgot the good "behavior," forgot everything, indeed, but her mother's face and Ned's mischievous affection. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in the old man's pillow while she sobbed aloud:

"Oh, 'Forty-niner,' shall we ever see that home again?"

Weak and unstrung, the patient moaned in sympathy, while tears fell from his own eyes; and it was upon this dismal tableau that Mr. Hale walked in, unannounced.

"Hurrah, here! What's amiss? Been quarreling? Just when I've come to bring you good news, too."

"Quarreling, indeed! Ephraim and I could never quarrel. Never.

But--but--this isn't Sobrante, and we're--I guess we're awful homesick."

"That's a disease can be cured, you know. One of you, at least, can go home. If you wish, Jessica, I will put you on a train and arrange for one of your 'boys' to meet you at the railway terminus. But----"

"h.e.l.lo, everybody!" called a cheery voice, and there in the doorway was Ninian Sharp, smiling, nodding, and embracing all three with one inspiring look. "What's that I overheard about 'home'? Been telling state secrets, Hale? My plan beats yours, altogether. We're all going 'home' to Sobrante, in a bunch, one of these fine days. _The Lancet_ never fails!"

Jessica sprang to him and caught his hand to kiss it. He had not been to see them for some days and she had missed him sadly. Far more than Mr. Hale he made her feel that the mystery surrounding "that missing New York money," as she called it, would certainly be explained. It was he who, by questions innumerable, had recalled to her and to Ephraim the names of persons with whom Mr. Trent had ever done business. Incidents which to her seemed trifling had been of moment in his judgment. With the slight clews they had given him, as the first link in the chain, he had gone on unraveling the knots which followed with infinite patience and perseverance. He kept Mrs. Trent informed of the welfare of her daughter, and, without neglecting his legitimate business, did the thousand and one things which only the busiest of persons can have time to do. For it's always the indolent who are overcrowded.

"Oh! Mr. Sharp! Have you found it all out?"

"Not I. Hale, here, has found out some things, himself. But he's a lawyer, which means, a--beg pardon--a snail. If newspapers were as slow as the law--h-m-m--we might all take a nap. Look here, Miss Suns.h.i.+ne, you've been crying."

Jessica blushed as guiltily as if she had been accused of some crime.

"I know it. I'm sorry."

"So am I. I know why. Because you're shut up here like a dormouse when you've lived like a lark. On with your little red Tam and come with me. Our work is getting on famously, famously. If I could get hold of one person that I've hunted this and every other city near for I'd have the matter in a nut sh.e.l.l and the guilty man in--a prison. I've found--three or four more of those links I mentioned, Hale, and every man of them is another witness to the uprightness of one, Ca.s.sius Trent, late of Sobrante. I began this job for little Jess, but I confess I'm finis.h.i.+ng it for the sake of a man I never saw. He was a trump, that fellow. One of the great-hearted, impracticable creatures that keep my faith in humanity. If we could only find that Antonio!"

"Yes. _If!_ But when he rode away from Sobrante that day he seems to have ridden out of the world, so far as any trace he left behind. I'm getting discouraged, for without him all the rest falls to the ground."

"Well, discouraged? We'll just step out and find him, won't we, Lady Jess?"

She had hastened to ask permission to go out with her friend and had come back radiant, now, at prospect even of so brief an outing. It was quite as the reporter had judged; the close confinement of the hospital, after the out-of-door life at Sobrante, was half the cause of Jessica's depression, and she was ready now to fall in with the gay mood of Ninian Sharp and answered, promptly:

"Oh, yes. We'll find 'him,' since you wish it. But I don't happen to know which 'him' you want?"

"Why, our fine Senor Bernal. Who else?"

"Then let us go to the old Spanish quarter."

"I've been, many times. Sent others also. No. He's a wise chap and if he is in this town frequents no haunt where he'll be looked for so surely. No matter. It's a picturesque corner of the town and maybe a sight of some old adobes would do your homesick eyes good."

"Or harm," suggested Mr. Hale.

But they did not stop to hear his objections and were speedily on the car which would take them nearest to the district Jessica had heard of, both from Antonio at home and now from others here. A relic of the old California, whose history she loved to hear from the lips of Pedro, Fra Mateo, or even "Forty-niner" himself.

But once arrived there she was disappointed. They were old adobes, true enough, and the people who lived in them had the same dark, Spanish cast of face which she remembered of Antonio. Yet there the resemblance ended. This was the home of squalor, of poverty that was not self-respecting enough to be clean, and of an indolence which had brought about a wretched state of affairs.

"Oh! is this it? But it can't be. Antonio's 'quarter' was a splendid place. The old grandees lived there, keeping up a sort of court and all the customs of a hundred years ago. It was 'a picture, a romance, a dream,' he said. Of an evening he would describe it all to us at home till I felt as if it were the one spot in the world I most wished to see. But--_this!_"

"Turn not up your pretty nose, for '_this_,' my dear little unenlightened maiden, is also a dream--a nightmare. Nevertheless, the very ground your lost hero boasted and embellished with his fancy. The more I hear of this versatile Antonio the greater becomes my longing to behold him. In any case, since we're here, we must not go away without entering some of these shops. You shall buy a trinket or two and present one of them as a keepsake to this fine senor, when you find him. Oh! that I had your familiar knowledge of his features, this absent 'grandee,' that if by accident I met him I might know him on the instant. See. This 'bazaar' is somewhat tidier than its neighbors, as well as larger, and there are some really beautiful Navajo blankets in the window. Unfortunately the pocketbook of a reporter isn't quite equal to more than a dozen of these, at fifty dollars apiece. Something more modest, Lady Jess, and I'll oblige you!"

She looked up to protest and saw that he was teasing, and exclaimed, with an air of mock injury:

"Those or nothing! But when shall I learn to understand your jest from earnest?"

"When you produce me your Antonio!"

"Upon the instant, then," she retorted, gayly.

Upon the instant, indeed, there were hurrying footsteps behind them, the sound of some one breathing rapidly and of angrily muttered sentences, that were a jumble of Spanish and English, and in a voice which made Jessica Trent start and turn aside, clutching her companion's hand.

He turned, also, throwing his arm about her shoulders, lest the rush of the man approaching should force her from the narrow sidewalk. But she darted from him, straight into the path of this wild-looking person and seized him with both hands, while she cried out:

"It's he! It is Antonio! I've found him--Antonio Bernal!"

"Whew! A case of the 'unexpected,' indeed! The merest jest and the absolute fact. Hi! I'd rather this than--than be struck by lightning, and it's on about the same order of things, for it is he, as she claimed. He's more staggered than I am," considered this lively newspaper man. Then he thought it time to step forward, and remark:

"Please present me to your friend, Miss Trent," and lifted his hat, courteously.

Antonio bowed, after his own exaggerated fas.h.i.+on, and with his hand upon his heart; but though his eyes rested keenly on Ninian's face he kept tight hold of Jessica's hand and his torrent of words did not cease for an instant. Now and then he lifted the little hand and kissed it, whereupon Lady Jess would s.n.a.t.c.h it away and coolly wipe it on her skirt, only to have it recaptured and caressed; till, seeing he would neither give over the hateful action nor stop talking, she folded her arms behind her and interrupted with: