t. Again Cogan could hear the residents explaining to
their American guests that this was one of a famous lot of bulls bred
especially for the ring, from the ranch of Don Vicente Guillen, and for
this afternoon's sport the government had provided six of these bulls,
paying fifteen hundred pesos--about fifteen hundred dollars--in gold for
them, and also that the bulls had been fed on half rations for the past
forty-eight hours to make them of a high eagerness for this most widely
advertised combat.

"Back there in the half light under the shed, Cogan could see the big
bull weaving his head from side to side and swaying on his forelegs as
he looked out on the ring. The sudden light probably blinded him, for he
didn't seem to see, not for a few seconds at least, the scarlet cape
Juan was holding up. But when he did! Out he came, head on, for Juan.
And Juan stayed there with not a move, until Cogan thought the bull
surely had him hooked. But no. At arm's length, and in front of the
flaming eyes, Juan flirted the cape, and still in front of the blazing
eyes he held it, and behind him, past his horse's withers, he whipped
it, and with that, with but a single word, and drawing in on his reins,
he seemed to lift his horse off the ground, to whirl him on his hind
heels, almost without moving from his tracks; and the bull rushed on by.

"Juan spurred his horse, waved the scarlet cape aloft, took up a new
position, and the people cheered. And again cheered as the bull charged,
for once more Juan was safe away. Oh, Juan was the brave one! And Juan
looked toward the other bull-fighters, as if to say: 'And now is not
this Argentine a horse to talk about?' And that horse Juan patted and
whispered to, and laughed and sang to him; and with the reins taut in
the left hand and the flaming cape always in his right, he did as he
pleased with that bull. He talked to the bull, too, but differently--he
knew how--to make him angry, and the bull frothed and tore up the sand
to get at him, and a dozen times it looked as if the bull would bowl
over and gore both the horse and Juan, but always just in time Juan
flashed the red cape, and always he and the wonderful horse would come
safe away. Juan was certainly the champion horseman of all that Cogan
had ever seen. And when Juan rode out of the ring and the bull stood
there and looked after him, bewildered like, Cogan didn't half blame
him, for the pair of them, Juan and his horse, certainly made a