rward, bleeding, exhausted,
feeling nothing of the blows, seeing only the distorted faces that
snarled on every side of him.

He knew that when he went down it would be to stay. Even as he flung
them aside and hammered at the brown faces he felt sure he was lost. The
coat was torn from his back. The blood from his bruised and cut face and
scalp blinded him. Heavy weights dragged at his arms as they struck
wildly and feebly. Iron balls seemed to chain his feet. He plowed
doggedly forward, dragging the pack with him. Furiously they beat him,
striking themselves as often as they did him. His shoulders began to
sway forward. Men leaped upon him from behind. Two he dragged down with
him as he went. The sky was blotted out. He was tired--deadly tired. In
a great weariness he felt himself sinking together.

The consciousness drained out of him as an ebbing wave does from the
sands of the shore.

CHAPTER XIV

MANUEL TO THE RESCUE

Valencia Valdes did not conform closely to the ideal her preceptress at
the Washington finishing school had held as to what constitutes a
perfect lady. Occasionally her activities shocked Manuel, who held to
the ancient view that maidens should come to matrimony with the
innocence born of conventual ignorance. He would have preferred his wife
to be a clinging vine, but in the case of Valencia this would be
impossible.

No woman in New Mexico could ride better than the heiress of the Rio
Chama. She could throw a rope as well as some of her _vaqueros_. At
least one bearskin lay on the floor of her study as a witness to her
prowess as a Diana. Many a time she had fished the river in waders and
brought back with her to the ranch a creel full of trout. Years in the
untempered sun and wind of the southwest had given her a sturdiness of
body unusual in a girl so slenderly fashioned. The responsibility of
large affairs had added to this an independence of judgment that would
have annoyed Don Manuel if he had been less in love.

Against the advice of both Pesquiera and her foreman she had about a
year before this time largely increased her holdings in cattle, at the
same time investing heavily in improved breeding stock. Her
justification had been that the cost of beef, based on the law of supply
and demand, was bound to continue on the rise.

"But how do you know, _Dona_?" her perplexed major domo had asked.
"Twenty--fifteen years ago everybody had cattle and lost money. Prices
are high to-