ickly away to another
fire-glow with its ring of Rembrandt figures and faces, and none save
Valencia knew that it was Manuel gone to tell his master what had been
said. Valencia smiled while he smoked.

Presently Jose was listening unwillingly to Manuel's spite-tinged
version of the talk at the San Vincente camp. "The vaqueros are making a
mock of thy bravery and thy skill!" Manuel declared, with more passion
than truth. "They would see thee beaten, in fight as well as in love--"

The stiffening of Jose's whole figure stopped Manuel short but not
dissatisfied, for he saw there was no need that he should speak a single
word more upon the subject.

"They shall see him try, unless he is a coward." The voice of Jose was
muffled by the rage that filled him.

So it came to pass that Manuel saddled his best mustang within an hour
and rode away to the north. And when Valencia strolled artlessly to the
Pacheco fire and asked for him, Jose hesitated perceptibly before he
replied that Manuel had gone home with a message to the foreman there.

Valencia grinned his widest when he heard that, and over two cigarettes
he pondered the matter. Being a shrewd young man with an instinct for
nosing out mysteries, he flung all uncertainty away with the stub of his
second cigarette and sought Dade.

He found him standing alone beside a deep, still pool, staring at the
shadows and the moon-painted picture in the middle, and looking as if
his thoughts were gone on far journeys. Valencia was too full of his
news to heed the air of absolute detachment that surrounded Dade. He
went straight to the heart of his subject and as a precaution against
eavesdropping he put his meaning into the best English he knew.

"Jose, she's dam-mad on Senor Jack," he began eagerly. "She's hear talk
lak she's no good vaquero. Me, I hear San Vincente vaqueros talk, and
Manuel she's hear also and run queeck for tella Jose. Jose she's lak for
keela Senor Jack. Manuel, she's ride lak hell for say Jose, she lak for
fight Senor Jack. Me, I theenk Senor Jack keela Jose pretty dam-queeck!"

Dade had come to know Valencia very well; he turned now and eyed him
with some suspicion.

"Are you sure?" he asked, in the tone that demanded a truthful answer.
He had seen Manuel ride away in the white light of the moon, and he had
wondered a little and then had forgotten all about it in the spell of
utter loneliness which the moon brings to those who are cheated by Fate
from