Teresita showed her
the ruby chain which, like a child, she had brought over for the pretty
senora to admire.

Therefore, Jack's lips found reason to tighten and cease their eager
quivering for a kiss. For Teresita twitched her shoulders pettishly and
her reins dexterously, and so removed herself some distance from the
kissing zone.

"No? Well, I'll have to depend on my good riata, then. I'll take that
gentleman at twenty-five feet, and if I can get him to run right, I'll
heel him. Don't ride any closer, Teresita."

He had not called her dulce corazon (sweetheart) as she had expected him
to call her; he had not even insisted upon the kiss, but had given up
altogether too tamely; and for that she rode closer to the bull in
spite. She even had some notion of getting in Jack's way, and of making
him miss if she could. She was seventeen, you see, and she was terribly
spoiled.

Jack had never made any attempt to study the psychological twists of a
woman's nature. He contented himself with loving, and with being
straightforward and selfish and a bit arrogant in his love, after the
manner of the normal man. It would never occur to him that Teresita was
piqued because he had not called her sweetheart, and he straightway
sinned more grievously still.

"Go back, the other way! He's liable to start in your direction," he
cried, intent upon her safety and his own whim to rope the beast.

Teresita deliberately kicked her horse and loped forward.

It would not be nice to say that bulls are like some humans, but it is a
fact that they are extremely illogical animals, full of impulses and
whims that have absolutely no relation to cause or effect. This bull had
not moved except to roll his eyes from one to the other of the riders.
If he meditated war he should, by all the bovine traditions of warfare,
have bellowed a warning and sent up a whiff or two of dirt over his
back, as one has a right to expect a pessimistic bull to do. Instead of
which he flung down his head and made an unexpected rush at
Teresita--and Jack had left his pistols at home.

Jack's riata was coiled in his hand and his head was turned towards the
girl, his brain busy with his thoughts of her and her wilfulness. From
the tail of his eye he caught the first lunge of the bull, and that
automatic mental adjustment to unexpected situations, which we call
presence of mind, sent a knee-signal to Surry which that intelligent
animal obeyed implicitly.

Surry rus