Gordon turned from gazing after her to find the little Spaniard bowing before him.
"Consider me at your service, Mr. Gordon----"
"Can't use you," cut in Dick curtly.
"I was remarking that, as her kinsman, I, Don Manuel Pesquiera, stand prepared to make good her words. What the Señorita Valdés says, I say, too."
"Then don't say it aloud, you little monkey, or I'll throw you over the house," Dick promised immediately.
Don Manuel clicked his heels together and twirled his black mustache.
"I offer you, sir, the remedy of a gentleman. You, sir, shall choose the weapons."
The Anglo-Saxon laughed in his face.
"Good. Let it be toasting-forks, at twenty paces."
The challenger drew himself up to his full five feet six.
"You choose to be what you call droll. Sir, I give you the word, poltroon--lâche--coward."
"Oh, go chase yourself."
One of Pesquiera's little gloved hands struck the other's face with a resounding slap. Next instant he was lifted from his feet and tucked under Dick's arm.
There he remained, kicking and struggling, in a manner most undignified for a blue blood of Castile, while the Coloradoan stepped leisurely forward to the irrigating ditch which supplied water for the garden and the field of grain behind. This was now about two feet deep, and running strong. In it was deposited, at full length, the clapper little person of Don Manuel Pesquiera, after which Dick Gordon turned and went limping down the road.
From the shutters of her room a girl had looked down and seen it all. She saw Don Manuel rescue himself from the ditch, all dripping with water. She saw him gesticulating wildly, as he cursed the retreating foe, before betaking himself hurriedly from view to the rear of the house, probably to dry himself and nurse his rage the while. She saw Gordon go on his limping way without a single backward glance.
Then she flung herself on her bed and burst into tears.