ong
valley where the rodeo took place, the gallant Enriquez selected a bull
from the frightened and galloping herd, and, cleverly isolating him
from the band, lassoed his hind legs, and threw him exactly before the
platform where Miss Mannersley was seated. It was Enriquez who caught
the unbroken mustang, sprang from his own saddle to the bare back of his
captive, and with the lasso for a bridle, halted him on rigid haunches
at Miss Mannersley's feet. It was Enriquez who, in the sports that
followed, leaned from his saddle at full speed, caught up the chicken
buried to its head in the sand, without wringing its neck, and tossed
it unharmed and fluttering toward his mistress. As for her, she wore
the same look of animation that I had seen in her face at our previous
meeting. Although she did not bring her sketchbook with her, as at the
bullfight, she did not shrink from the branding of the cattle, which
took place under her very eyes.

Yet I had never seen her and Enriquez together; they had never, to my
actual knowledge, even exchanged words. And now, although she was the
guest of his uncle, his duties seemed to keep him in the field, and
apart from her. Nor, as far as I could detect, did either apparently
make any effort to have it otherwise. The peculiar circumstance seemed
to attract no attention from anyone else. But for what I alone knew--or
thought I knew--of their actual relations, I should have thought them
strangers.

But I felt certain that the fiesta which took place in the broad patio
of Don Pedro's casa would bring them together. And later in the evening,
as we were all sitting on the veranda watching the dancing of the
Mexican women, whose white-flounced sayas were monotonously rising and
falling to the strains of two melancholy harps, Miss Mannersley rejoined
us from the house. She seemed to be utterly absorbed and abstracted in
the barbaric dances, and scarcely moved as she leaned over the railing
with her cheek resting on her hand. Suddenly she arose with a little
cry.

"What is it?" asked two or three.

"Nothing--only I have lost my fan." She had risen, and was looking
abstractedly on the floor.

Half a dozen men jumped to their feet. "Let me fetch it," they said.

"No, thank you. I think I know where it is, and will go for it myself."
She was moving away.

But Don Pedro interposed with Spanish gravity. Such a thing was not to
be heard of in his casa. If the senorita would not permit HIM--an o