hat had reviled him,
and would have called her "dulce corazon," as she loved to have him do.
Such a very little coaxing would have been enough!

"Dios! How I hate a gringo!" she cried passionately, just when Jack
believed she was going to cry "Senor Jack?" in that pretty, cooing tone
she had that could make the words as tender as a kiss. "Jose is right.
Gringos are savages and worse than savages. Stay and torture your bull,
then! I hate you! Never have I known hate, till now! I shall be glad
when Jose drags you from your horse to-morrow. I shall laugh and clap my
hands, and cry, 'Bravo, bravo, querido mio!' [my beloved] when you are
flung into the dirt where you belong. And when he kills you, I shall
kiss him for his reward, before all the people, and I shall laugh when
they fling you to the coyotes!" Yes, she said that; for she had a
temper--had the Senorita Teresita--and she had a tongue that could speak
words that burned like vitriol.

She said more than has been quoted; epithets she hurled upon the
recumbent form that seemed a man asleep save for the little drift of
smoke from his cigarette; epithets which she had heard the vaqueros use
at the corrals upon certain occasions when they did not know that she
was near; epithets of which she did not know the meaning at all.

"Bravo!" applauded some one, and she turned to see that Manuel and
Carlos, Jose's head vaquero, had ridden up to the group very quietly,
and had been listening for no one knew how long.

The senorita was so angry that she was not in the least abashed by the
eavesdropping. She smiled wickedly, drew off a glove and tossed it to
Manuel, who caught it dexterously without waiting to see why she wanted
him to have it.

"Take that to Jose, for a token," she cried recklessly. "Tell him I have
put a wish upon it; and if he wears it next his heart in the duelo
to-morrow he will win without fail. Tell Jose I shall ask the Blessed
Virgin to-night to let no accident befall him, and that I shall save the
first two dances for him and none other!"

She was not a finished actress, because of her youth. She betrayed by a
glance his way that she spoke for Jack's benefit. And Jack, in the
hardening of his stubborn anger, blew a mouthful of smoke upward into a
ring which the breeze broke almost immediately, and laughed aloud.

Teresita heard, bit her lips cruelly at failing to bring that stubborn
gringo to his feet--and to hers!--and wheeled Tejon close to Manuel