About the time Bull started, Lee and Gordon rose from the breakfast-table under the Los Arboles portales.

Perhaps with sympathetic intuition, for they exchanged an amiable grin, Sliver and Jake had already passed out. It is true that Maria and Teresa, the small brown criadas, were peeping from the crypt-like depths of their kitchen. But even had she been aware of their vast interest, Lee would not have withdrawn the hand which, as they rose, had somehow tangled with Gordon’s. Reflected and thrown up from the yellow wall, the strong morning lights bathed the flesh of her arms, face, and neck with suffused amber, wove a soft glow in the mesh of her hair. So different from her usual boyish activity, her gentle quiet, combined with the warm air, suffused lights, to create a dreamy spell. Goodness knows how long they would have stood if Maria had not come out to clear the table.

Then Lee spoke. “Such sloth! This will never do if I am to go to El Sol and return to-day. While I dress will you please get my horse?”

When Gordon reached the stable Sliver had already gone, but Jake had lingered to say a word. It was very much to the point. “Say! Bull tipped me off as how the young greaser was likely to show up an’ raise some hell to-day. Don’t you allow I’d better hang around?”

He nodded, however, when Gordon explained the situation. “Missy don’t know he’s coming, hey?—thinks she’s going over there. Then they’ll meet on the way. Mebbe I’d better tag along.”

But to this Gordon’s pride would not consent. “Don’t you think I can take care of her?”

“No one better,” Jake hastened to appease. “But, say! If he doesn’t show up, don’t you let her go on over there—not if you have to rope an’ drag her home.”

“Like we did before?” He smiled at the memory. “This time I’ll not leave her the saddle machete.”

“Little bit too smart for you that time,” Jake grinned in sympathy. “Take care she don’t spring a new one. She ain’t so very slow.”

Nevertheless, in the face of his apparent acquiescence, while apparently heading out on his usual beat, he whirled behind the first ridge and, proceeding at a fast lope, had covered five miles of the way to El Sol, the Icarzas’ hacienda, by the time Lee came out. Slowing down, then, he rode more leisurely, had covered another mile when, over the crest of a ridge, he sighted Ramon coming at a gallop down the opposite slope. A clump of mesquite and palo verde afforded convenient cover. Forcing his beast in, Jake stooped low and watched Ramon go by, so close that his stirrup whipped the bushes.

It had never been Jake’s habit to notice Mexicans. But now he noted with surprise the change in the young man’s face. The lines deeply plowed down the nose under the cheeks, the hardening of the red, womanish lips, the vindictive black sparkle that had contracted his great dusky eyes into burning black dots, added ten years to his age.

“The Mex is souring in him,” Jake inwardly commented. “That guinea’s liable to try an’ hurt some one. Glad I came.”

Allowing Ramon to pass on, Jake then rode after, and so, progressing from ridge to ridge, keeping always the height of land between them, was less than fifty yards behind when, peeping over the crest, he saw Lee and Gordon coming up the slope.

Another bunch of chaparral afforded cover, and after tying his horse in it, Jake crawled up to the ridge and looked over.

It was not without argument that Gordon had obtained Lee’s consent to accompany her. When she found him standing with two horses at the gate, her brows rose in a troubled arch.

He understood that she hesitated to accuse him of bad taste, and quoted Bull’s last orders to remove the impression. “He said that you were never to ride alone.”

The responsibility being thus shifted, she felt able to speak. “It is rather— Really, I don’t see how I can do anything else.”

“Why go at all? Why not write?”

She shook her head. “I’ve known him since childhood—and have treated him badly. I owe him an apology and it will have to come from my own lips.”

It was reasonable enough from her point of view, but not from his. If Ramon were an American he would have said, “Go, ahead; take your medicine!” Being Mexican, discretion bade him remain.

“At least let me ride with you part of the way. I will turn before you reach El Sol.”

“Oh, that will be all right,” she had conceded at once.

He had felt certain, of course, that they would meet Ramon. But the usual witcheries, sweep of the tawny earth-waves under the bright sun, satisfying thud of hoofs on the trail, creak and smell of hot leather, had combined to blind him to all but her presence. Now, before he could turn, Ramon reined in before them.

Like Jake, they noticed at once the sardonic furrows, set mouth, frown above the glittering eyes. With his youth had vanished that veneer of refinement which conceals natural Mexican grossness. Like veins in a stratum revealed by a landslide, selfishness, conceit, violence, revenge, lay exposed. With the natural instinct of good breeding, Gordon had half turned to withdraw. But even if one glance at the passion-torn face had not checked the impulse, it would have been killed when Lee backed toward him. Shocked and a little afraid, she gazed at Ramon before she spoke.

“Are you ill? You look so—”

“So it was true, what the seÑora told me yesterday!” He spoke in low, strained tones. “It was true, though I did not believe; refused to believe. But now I see. It is true that you used me as bait for your fishing.”

“Ramon!” She raised her hand, but he switched suddenly from denunciation to appeal.

“No! it is not true! It cannot be! She lied! I will not believe it even though you tell me yourself!”

From this he ran on with an appeal, hysterical and disconnected, which reflected as in a clear glass the nature of his love. In it was no appreciation of the feminine personality with its delicacies of feeling, refinements, inconsistencies, helplessness, all the illogicalities that render it charming, as much or more than its faith and love. In terms of blind egotism, it expressed only his passion and jealousy, fatuous conceit. As in a clear glass, under a powerful light, he revealed himself so that even a woman blinded by love could not have failed to see. In the middle of it Gordon heard Lee take a long breath, and knew it for thankfulness. Yet her relief did not kill her poignant regret for the part she had played.

She spoke softly, pityingly, when he stopped. “Ramon, I’m sorry. It was wicked of me to draw you on. But to marry you would be far worse. What can I do to make up?”

He told, with anger and offense. She had promised to be his wife! It was a betrothal! as binding in Mexican eyes as marriage! He had announced it to his father, mother, sister, friends! His conceit cropped out again as he pictured himself, jilted, in their eyes. Angered by his own imaginings, he was growing abusive when she cut him quietly off.

“I was on my way when we met, to own and ask pardon for my fault. I had counted on our old friendship and your generosity to make it less difficult. But I see, now, my error. There is nothing left but to bid you good-by.”

Now came the ultimate revelation, that passion of furious jealousy which drives the Mexican peon to cut off the hands, slash the face and breast, of his love. His eyes narrowed to shifting, insane sparks. Hand raised, as though to strike, he spurred his beast forward.

“You—you—”

He got no further, for one hard dig of the spur shot Gordon’s horse in between. From English to Spanish the argument had run, but from Lee’s answers Gordon had gathered enough. Though slower, his beast was heavier than Ramon’s, and while forcing horse and rider sideways with a steady pressure he issued his orders:

“That’s about enough for you! Get!”

Ramon’s hand flew to his saddle machete, but he did not draw, for Gordon’s had gone to his gun. Leg pressed against leg, they manoeuvered their plunging beasts; without drawing a weapon fought the old fight of the brown man and the white; the struggle which began when CortÉs imposed his will on the Aztec emperors; was continued by the Puritan forefathers against the American Indian; which has been fought to the same conclusion all over the world. And from the two faces—Gordon’s cold, hard-eyed, Ramon’s distorted with black fury—the cause of that inevitable ending might have been read.

So close they were Gordon could see the palpitation of light from the insane waverings of the other’s eyeballs steady under a doubt. He felt rather than saw the Mexican’s sudden swift reach for his knife. Even more swiftly he snatched, and with a sudden wrench of the other’s wrist sent the knife flying and bore him back flat in the saddle. For a moment he held him, then with a powerful shove his horse sent Ramon’s beast stumbling sideways and broke the grip. Wheeling in a circle, Ramon faced them again.

So far Lee had looked on distressed. Now she spurred forward and caught Gordon’s arm. “Let him go!—please!” Her anger gone now, sorrow quivering in her voice, she added, “You will, won’t you, Ramon?”

His fury, passion, wild jealousy had settled in dark calm. “Yes, I am going now. But the next time—.” He wheeled and galloped off.

Till the tip of his sombrero vanished behind the ridge Lee watched him go, distress and relief mingling in a wintry smile.

“Don’t give him too much of your pity,” Gordon consoled. “One disappointment doesn’t make much of a dent in such egotism as that. After a while he’ll find some pretty seÑorita to take him at his own valuation.”

“I hope so.” Her smile brightened. “Though I still feel guilty. But if he hadn’t behaved so ridiculously I should feel much worse.”

Gordon nodded toward the ridge. “You heard his threat. Do you suppose he’ll—-”

“Oh no!” Her hair flew in a cloud under her vigorous shake. “After he’s had time to cool off he’ll forget and forgive. But just to think”—her glance displayed an even mixture of mischief and reproach—“just to think that all this trouble was caused by you kissing that horrid girl!”

“Why—” he gasped, under the sudden attack. “Well, I’ll be— Say! Who drove me to it with her disgraceful flirting?”

“Did it make you feel awfully bad?”

“Did it?” The thought of his miserable unhappiness was still powerful enough to cloud his face, and she noted it with a little quiver of satisfaction. “Let’s forget it.” Snatching her hand, he worked his horse in against hers and tried to draw her to him. “There’s a momentous question I wish to consult you about; one you refused to consider yesterday. Will you—”

But she pulled away. “Not yet. First there’s something I want settled. Was it really pique that—made you kiss her?”

He wanted to laugh, but refrained, for under her smile he felt her earnestness. “Nothing else.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure!”

“Cross your heart to die?”

He performed that solemn and ancient function, and if she still entertained a doubt she stuffed it away down in consciousness.

“Very well.” With a little sigh of content she let her head fall back on his shoulder and a whisper escape from her upturned lips, “Now—you may.”

From his covert on the ridge Jake had observed the meeting, talk, struggle, Ramon’s retreat, also something which was hidden from the lovers in the valley below—the fact that, after crossing the ridge, Ramon had dismounted, pulled his rifle from the saddle slings, and crawled back on hands and knees to the edge of Jake’s covert. By that time the little tilt concerning Felicia was over, and as Lee’s head went to Gordon’s shoulder Ramon raised the rifle.

A shot at that short distance would have pierced them both, but as Ramon’s eye dropped to the sights a sharp order issued from the covert, “Throw up your hands! damn quick!”

A quick, startled glance showed Ramon the lean, grim face through a break in the chaparral. Not for nothing had the peones named Jake “The Python.” In moments such as this his lean personality, deadly eye, conveyed that very impression—of a snake coiled to strike. As Ramon’s hands went up, he stepped out and, crouching behind the ridge, took the other’s rifle and drove him downhill to his horse.

Having extracted the cartridge both from the rifle and from the revolver in Ramon’s holster, he threw the weapon at his feet. “I reckon I orter plug you, an’ I would for two cents. It’d be set down to raiders, which fixes it very nice. Sure, I reckon I orter do it, but if you’ve got a few thinks to the contrary spit ’em out.”

It was no idle threat. The vicious gleam of the cold gray eye told that. But in place of fear Ramon’s face showed almost relief. “Very good, seÑor. There is nothing you could do that would suit me better.”

The cold eye flickered. “Hell! you’re too anxious. I couldn’t make up my mind to do it that quick—an’ there’s a few things I wanter find out. For one, what’s your idee in wanting to drill them young folks?”

Ramon told—this time without the fireworks.

Jake summed it briefly. “Promised you, then threw you down. That’s hard luck. But there’s one thing you Mexes can never get into your hot heads—the right of our little American queens to change their pretty minds as often as they damn please without any gent’s consent. You was damn lucky that she ever give you a smile. If I conclude to change my mind on plugging you, have it writ up large in your family tree that oncet an American girl let herself be engaged to you for nearly five minutes. Now supposing I refrain from my desire to make you into a corpse, d’you reckon you could keep a promise and not make any attempt on their lives?”

While he was talking Ramon’s face had stiffened in defiance. He shook his head. But instead of anger, a small gleam of admiration lit Jake’s hard eyes. Raising his gun, he aimed full at the other’s breast.

“You have just two minutes to make up your mind.”

“One minute!”

For a time it seemed as though he would have to shoot. But just before the time expired, Ramon spoke. “For myself, I do not care. But I have an old father and mother, whom my death would surely kill. I promise.”

“All right.” Jake dropped the rifle in the hollow of his arm. “I allow that I’m foolish for trusting a Mex, but the little Missy allus liked you. On her account we’ll take one chance. Here’s your cartridge—only don’t load till you’re off this range. An’ remember”—a cold flash emphasized the order—“after this our boundary is your dead-line. Cross it again—you’ll be shot like a panther, coyote, or other varmint.”

Returning to his horse, he watched the other mount and ride away. A glance in the opposite direction showed him Lee and Gordon, going hand in hand up the opposite slope. Till they had gained across to the next valley he remained where he was. Then, riding in their rear, with a sharp eye always behind, keeping the width of a valley between them, he followed home.