arefully
over a foolish little Spanish girl.

"An evil spirit is in the caballo to-day," Diego finally ventured to
inform his mistress gravely. "For a week he has not felt the weight
of saddle, and he loves not the trees which sway and sing, or the wind
whistling in his ears."

"And for that he pleases me much," retorted the senorita, and touched
Tejon with her spurred heel, so that he came near upsetting Diego with
the lunge he gave.

When the peon recovered his balance, he stood braced against the wind,
and with both hands held his hat upon his head while he watched her
flying down the slope and out of sight amongst the trees. No girl in
all the valley rode better than the Senorita Teresa Picardo, and Diego
knew it well and boasted of it to the peons of other hacendados; but
for all that he was ill-at-ease, and when, ten minutes later, he
came upon Valencia at the stable, he told him of the madness of the
senorita.

"Tejon she would ride, and none other; and to-day he is a devil. Twice
he would have bitten my shoulder while I was saddling, and that is the
sign that his heart is full of wickedness. Me, I would have put the
freno Chilene (Chilian bit) in his mouth--but that would start him
bucking; for he hates it because then he cannot run."

Valencia, a little later, met the new majordomo and repeated what
Diego had said; and Dade, catching a little of the uneasiness and yet
not wanting to frighten the girl's father with the tale, made it his
immediate business to find Jack and tell him that Teresita had ridden
away alone upon a horse that neither Diego nor Valencia considered
safe.

Jack, at first declaring that he wouldn't go where he plainly was
not wanted, at the end of an uncomfortable half-hour borrowed Surry,
because he was fleet as any mustang in the valley, and rode after her.

In this wise did circumstances and Jack obey the piqued desire of the
senorita.

After the first headlong half mile, Tejon became the perfect little
saddle-pony which fair weather found him; and Teresita, cheated of her
battle of wills and yet too honest to provoke him deliberately,
began to think a little less of her own whims and more of the Senora
Simpson, housed miserably beneath the canvas covering of the prairie
schooner.

She found Mrs. Jerry sitting inside, with a patchwork quilt over
her shoulders, her eyes holding a shade more of wistfulness and less
twinkle, perhaps, but with her lips quite ready to smile upon h