Estenega brought his teeth together. "God!" he exclaimed.

She saw that he had forgotten her. She turned and went back more
swiftly than she had come.

Estenega was a man whose resources never failed him. He returned to
the house and asked Reinaldo to smoke a cigarito and drink a bottle of
wine in his room. Then, without a promise or a compromising word, he
so flattered that shallow youth, so allured his ambition and pampered
his vanity and watered his hopes, that fear and hatred wondered at
their existence, closed their eyes, and went to sleep. Reinaldo
poured forth his aspirations, which under the influence of the
truth-provoking vine proved to be an honest yearning for the pleasures
of Mexico. As he rose to go he threw his arm about Estenega's neck.

"Ay! my friend! my friend!" he cried, "thou art all-powerful. Thou
alone canst give me what I want."

"Why did you never ask me for what you wanted?" asked Estenega. And
he thought, "If it were not for Her, you would be on your way to Los
Angeles to-night under charge of high treason. I would not have taken
this much trouble with you."




XXIV.


A rodeo was held the next day,--the last of the festivities;--Don