low ye kin go 'n a
week, ef nothin' don't go agin ye more'n I see naow; but ef yer git ter
talkin', thar's no tellin' when yer'll git up. Yeow jest shet up, honey.
We'll look arter everythin'."

Feebly Ramona turned her grateful, inquiring eyes on Felipe. Her lips
framed the words, "With you?"

"Yes, dear, home with me," said Felipe, clasping her hand in his. "I
have been searching for you all this time."

An anxious look came into the sweet face. Felipe knew what it meant. How
often he had seen it in the olden time. He feared to shock her by the
sudden mention of the Senora's death; yet that would harm her less than
continued anxiety. "I am alone, dear Ramona," he whispered. "There is no
one now but you, my sister, to take care of me. My mother has been dead
a year."

The eyes dilated, then filled with sympathetic tears. "Dear Felipe!"
she sighed; but her heart took courage. Felipe's phrase was like one
inspired; another duty, another work, another loyalty, waiting for
Ramona. Not only her child to live for, but to "take care of Felipe"!
Ramona would not die! Youth, a mother's love, a sister's affection and
duty, on the side of life,--the battle was won, and won quickly, too.

To the simple Cahuillas it seemed like a miracle; and they looked on
Aunt Ri's weather-beaten face with something akin to a superstitious
reverence. They themselves were not ignorant of the value of the herb
by means of which she had wrought the marvellous cure; but they had made
repeated experiments with it upon Ramona, without success. It must be
that there had been some potent spell in Aunt Ri's handling. They would
hardly believe her when, in answer to their persistent questioning, she
reiterated the assertion that she had used nothing except the hot water
and "old man," which was her name for the wild wormwood; and which,
when explained to them, impressed them greatly, as having no doubt some
significance in connection with the results of her preparation of the
leaves.

Rumors about Felipe ran swiftly throughout the region. The presence in
the Cahuilla village of a rich Mexican gentleman who spent gold like
water, and kept mounted men riding day and night, after everything,
anything, he wanted for his sick sister, was an event which in the
atmosphere of that lonely country loomed into colossal proportions. He
had travelled all over California, with four horses, in search of her.
He was only waiting till she was well, to take her to hi