m, as it had always affected Aunt
Ri, with an indefinable, solemn sense of something revealed, yet hidden.
"San Jacinto?" he said to a bystander, pointing to it with his whip.

"Yes, Senor," replied the man. As he spoke, a pair of black horses came
whirling round the corner, and he sprang to one side, narrowly escaping
being knocked down. "That Tennessee fellow'll run over somebody yet,
with those black devils of his, if he don't look out," he muttered, as
he recovered his balance.

Felipe glanced at the horses, then driving his spurs deep into his
horse's sides, galloped after them. "Baba! by God!" he cried aloud in
his excitement and forgetful of everything, he urged his horse faster,
shouting as he rode, "Stop that man! Stop that man with the black
horses!"

Jos, hearing his name called on all sides, reined in Benito and Baba
as soon as he could, and looked around in bewilderment to see what had
happened. Before he had time to ask any questions, Felipe had overtaken
him, and riding straight to Baba's head, had flung himself from his own
horse and taken Baba by the rein, crying, "Baba! Baba!" Baba knew his
voice, and began to whinny and plunge. Felipe was nearly unmanned. For
the second, he forgot everything. A crowd was gathering around them. It
had never been quite clear to the San Bernardino mind that Jos's title
to Benito and Baba would bear looking into; and it was no surprise,
therefore, to some of the on-lookers, to hear Felipe cry in a loud
voice, looking suspiciously at Jos, "How did you get him?"

Jos was a wag, and Jos was never hurried. The man did not live, nor
could the occasion arrive, which would quicken his constitutional drawl.
Before even beginning his answer he crossed one leg over the other and
took a long, observant look at Felipe; then in a pleasant voice he said:
"Wall, Senor,--I allow yer air a Senor by yer color,--it would take
right smart uv time tew tell yeow haow I cum by thet hoss, 'n' by the
other one tew. They ain't mine, neither one on 'em."

Jos's speech was as unintelligible to Felipe as it had been to Ramona,
Jos saw it, and chuckled.

"Mebbe 't would holp yer tew understand me ef I wuz tew talk Mexican,"
he said, and proceeded to repeat in tolerably good Spanish the sum and
substance of what he had just said, adding: "They belong to an Indian
over on San Jacinto; at least, the off one does; the nigh one's his
wife's; he wouldn't ever call thet one anything but hers. It had be