the paper, caught some words that induced me to read on.

"_Gallant_ capitan! I had a favourite mare. How fond I was of that
creature you may understand, who are afflicted by a similar affection
for the noble Moro. In an evil hour, your aim, too true, alas! robbed
me of my favourite, but you offered to repay me by _robbing_ yourself,
for well know I that the black is to you _the dearest object upon
earth_. Indeed, were I the lady of your love, I should ill brook such a
divided affection! Well, mio capitan, I understood the generous
sacrifice you would have made, and forbade it; but I know you are
desirous of cancelling your debt. It is in your power to do so.
Listen!"

Some _hard_ conditions I anticipated would follow; I recked not of that.
There was no sacrifice I was not ready to make. I would have dared any
deed, however wild, to have won that proud heart--to have inoculated it
with the pain that was wringing my own. I read on:

"There is a horse, famed in these parts as the `white steed of the
prairies' (_el cavallo bianco de los llanos_). He is a wild-horse, of
course; snow-white in colour, beautiful in form, swift as the swallow--
But why need I describe to you the `white steed of the prairies?' You
are a Tejano, and must have heard of him ere this? Well, mio capitan, I
have long had a desire--a frantic one, let me add--to possess this
horse. I have offered rewards to hunters--to our own vaqueros, for he
sometimes appears upon our plains--but to no purpose. Not one of them
can capture, though they have often seen and chased him. Some say that
he _cannot be taken_, that he is so fleet as to gallop, or rather
_glide_ out of sight in a glance, and that, too, on the open prairie!
There are those who assert that he is a phantom, _un demonio_! Surely
so beautiful a creature cannot be the devil? Besides, I have always
heard--and, if I recollect aright, some one said so last night--that the
devil was _black_. `Poor devil!' Ha, ha, ha!"

I rather welcomed this allusion to my misconduct of the preceding night,
for I began to feel easier under the perception that the whole affair
was thus treated in jest, instead of the anger and scorn I had
anticipated. With pleasanter presentiments I read on:--

"To the point, mio capitan. There are some incredulous people who
believe the white steed of the prairies to be a myth, and deny his
existence altogether. _Carrambo_! I know that he _does_ exist, and
what