appendage to his daughter's state! Ah, Jesus Maria! such a state! such a
muchacha! A picked-up foundling--a swineherd's daughter--to be
ennobled by his, Pedro's, attendance, and for whose vulgar, clownish
tricks,--tricks of a swineherd's daughter,--he, Pedro, was to be brought
to book and insulted as if she were of Hidalgo blood! Ah, Caramba! Don
Juan Peyton would find he could no more make a servant of him than he
could make a lady of her!"

The two young girls were rapidly approaching. Judge Peyton spurred his
horse beside the vacquero's, and, swinging the long thong of his bridle
ominously in his clenched fingers, said, with a white face:--

"Vamos!"

Pedro's hand slid towards his sash. Peyton only looked at him with a
rigid smile of scorn.

"Or I'll lash you here before them both," he added in a lower voice.

The vacquero met Peyton's relentless eyes with a yellow flash of hate,
drew his reins sharply, until his mustang, galled by the cruel bit,
reared suddenly as if to strike at the immovable American, then,
apparently with the same action, he swung it around on its hind legs, as
on a pivot, and dashed towards the corral at a furious gallop.




CHAPTER III.