im know how
we made out, anyway."

A blank leaf from the little memorandum book he always carried, and a
bullet for pencil--perforce, the note was brief; but it told what he
wanted: gold to buy a riding outfit, his pistols which Perkins had
taken from him, and news of Bill's well-being. When the paper would
hold no more and hold it legibly, he folded it carefully so that it
would not smudge, and gave it to his host.

"What if the Committee catches you with that buckskin, Manuel?" he
asked abruptly. The risk Manuel would run had not before occurred to
him. "Dade he's liable to get into trouble, if they catch him with
that horse; let's turn the darned thing loose."

"Me, I shall not ride where the gringos will see me," broke in Manuel
briskly. "The senors need not be alarmed. I shall keep away from El
Camino Real. At the Mission I will buy what the senor desires, and I
will bring it to him at the hacienda."

"Get the best they've got," Jack adjured him. "An outfit better than
Dade's, if you can find one. Bill Wilson has got about twelve hundred
dollars of mine; get the best if it cleans the sack." He grinned at
Dade. "If you're going to bully me into turning vaquero again, I'm
going to have the fun of riding in style, anyway. You've set the pace,
you know. I never saw you so gaudy. Er--what did you say her name is?"

"I didn't say."

"Must be serious. Too bad." Jack shook his head dolefully. "Say,
Manuel, do you know a good riata, when you see one lying around
loose?"

"Si, Senor. Me, I have braided the riatas and bridles since I was
so high." From the height of his measuring hand from the beaten clay
beneath the oak, he proclaimed himself an infant prodigy; but Jack did
not happen to be looking at him and so remained unamazed.

"Well, you ought to know something about them. Get the best riata you
can find. I leave it to your judgment."

"Si, Senor. To-morrow I will bring them to you." He hesitated, his
eyes dwelling curiously upon the coppery hair of this stranger, whose
presence he was not quite sure that he did not resent vaguely. Dade he
had come to accept as a man whose innate kindliness, which was as much
a part of him as the blood in his veins, wiped out any stain of alien
birth; but this blue-eyed one--"The senor himself is perhaps a judge
of riatas?" he insinuated, politely veiling the quick jealousy of his
nature.

"We-el-l--you bring me one ready to fall all to pieces, and I reckon I
could tell it