"Please! I beg
of you," he entreated. "I have arranged for reparation of that
miserable mistake. You shall see what I have done. With your own
eyes you shall read the furious correspondence I have carried on
with the minister. Together you and I shall manage a settlement,
and you will find that I am a friend indeed!"
"I hope so."
"Have I not proved it? Am I not ready to give you my life?" the
general queried, earnestly. "Fix the damages at your own figure
and I shall see that you receive justice. If the government will
not pay, I will. I have means; I am not a poor man. All I possess
would be too little to buy your happiness."
"You embarrass me. I'm afraid you don't realize what you say."
Alaire remained cool under the man's protestations. "I have lost
more than a thousand head of cattle."
"We shall say two, three thousand, and the government will pay,"
Longorio asserted, brazenly. "I will vouch for your figures, and
no one will question them, for I am a man of honor."
"No! All I want--"
"It is done. Let us say no more about the affair. Senora, I have
thought of you every hour; the duties that held me in Nuevo Pueblo
were like irksome chains.
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