ce. He was
magnificent and he was war incarnate.

In that country, which is a hard-working country, there is really very
little sport. Further south in California, the ease-loving Spanish
people who remain among the Americans still love music and the dance. We
worked, and worked hard; only Sundays brought us a little surcease from
toil. All our notions of sport centred on our bull. I had many Italian
co-workers, some Swedes, and an odd citizen of the United States. All
alike agreed in being proud of El Toro. We yearned to match him against
any bull in the State. Sometimes of a Sunday morning, after he had
devastated the country and was back again, he held a kind of _levee_.
The Italians brought him pears as I sat on him in triumph and combed him
in places where he had not been wounded. He always forgot that I had
come behind him and laced his tough hide with my stock-whip. He bore no
malice, but took his fruit like a good child. I think he was almost as
proud of himself as we were. Certainly we were proud of him. As for me,
had I not ridden desperate miles after him: had I not interviewed
outraged owners of other bulls and broken fences: had I not played the
diplomat or the bully according to the treatment which seemed indicated?
He was, properly speaking, my bull; I did not care if I had to spend
three days mending our home gates and other's alien fences.

Yes, it was a fine thing to gallop through that warm, bright,
Californian air after El Toro, with the brown hills on either side and
its patches of green vineyard brightening daily. It was freedom after
the toil of axle-greasing and the slow work with sheep. It was better
than grinding axes and trying to cut the tough knobs of vine stumps:
better than grooming horses and milking cows. It made me think even more
of the great Australian plains and of the Texas prairie and the round
up. _Ay de mi_, I remember it now, sometimes, and I wish I was on
horseback, swinging my whip and uttering diabolic yells, significant of
the freedom of the spirit as I rush after the spirit of El Toro. For my
pet, my brindled fighter, my own El Toro, whom I combed so delicately
with a bent nail, for whom I gathered buckets of bruised but fat
Californian pears, is now no more. They told me, when I visited Los
Guilucos seven years ago, that he became difficult, morose, hard to
handle, and they sold him. They sold this joyous incarnation of the
spirit of battle and the pure joy of life for a