lt at that distance he half suspected ASTRIDE! His
effusive compliments to the mother on this exhibition of skill were
sincere, for he was struck by the girl's fearlessness. But when
both horse and rider at last stood before him, he was speechless and
embarrassed.

For Richards had not exaggerated the girl's charms. She was indeed
dangerously pretty, from her tawny little head to her small feet,
and her figure, although comparatively diminutive, was perfectly
proportioned. Gray eyed and blonde as she was in color, her racial
peculiarities were distinct, and only the good-humored and enthusiastic
Richards could have likened her to an American girl.

But he was the more astonished in noticing that her mustang was as
distinct and peculiar as herself--a mongrel mare of the extraordinary
type known as a "pinto," or "calico" horse, mottled in lavender and
pink, Arabian in proportions, and half broken! Her greenish gray eyes,
in which too much of the white was visible, had, he fancied, a singular
similarity of expression to Cota's own!

Utterly confounded, and staring at the girl in her white, many flounced
frock, bare head, and tawny braids, as she stood beside this incarnation
of equine barbarism, Grey could remember nothing like it outside of a
circus.

He stammered a few words of admiration of the mare. Miss Cota threw out
her two arms with a graceful gesture and a profound curtsey, and said--

"A la disposicion de le Usted, senor."

Grey was quick to understand the malicious mischief which underlay this
formal curtsey and danced in the girl's eyes, and even fancied it shared
by the animal itself. But he was a singularly good rider of untrained
stock, and rather proud of his prowess. He bowed.

"I accept that I may have the honor of laying the senorita's gift again
at her little feet."

But here the burly Ramierez intervened. "Ah, Mother of God! May the
devil fly away with all this nonsense! I will have no more of it," he
said impatiently to the girl. "Have a care, Don Pancho," he turned to
the editor; "it is a trick!"

"One I think I know," said Grey sapiently. The girl looked at him
curiously as he managed to edge between her and the mustang, under the
pretense of stroking its glossy neck. "I shall keep MY OWN spurs,"
he said to her in a lower voice, pointing to the sharp, small-roweled
American spurs he wore, instead of the large, blunt, five-pointed star
of the Mexican pattern.

The girl evidently did not