ewhat older than myself, and of flirtatious reputation. As she
persistently and--as I now have reason to believe--mischievously
lingered, I had only a passing glimpse of Consuelo riding past at an
unaccustomed speed which surprised me at the moment. But as I reasoned
later that she was only trying to avoid a merely formal meeting, I
thought no more about it.

It was not until I called at the house to fetch Chu Chu at the usual
hour, and found that Consuelo had not yet returned, that a recollection
of Chu Chu's furious pace again troubled me. An hour passed--it was
getting towards sunset, but there were no signs of Chu Chu nor her
mistress. I became seriously alarmed. I did not care to reveal my fears
to the family, for I felt myself responsible for Chu Chu. At last I
desperately saddled my horse and galloped off in the direction she had
taken. It was the road to Rosario and the _hacienda_[162-1] of one of
her relations, where she sometimes halted.

The road was a very unfrequented one, twisting like a mountain
river--indeed, it was the bed of an old watercourse--between brown
hills of wild oats, and debouching at last into a broad blue lake-like
expanse of alfalfa[162-2] meadows. In vain I strained my eyes over the
monotonous level; nothing appeared to rise above or move across it. In
the faint hope that she might have lingered at the _hacienda_, I was
spurring on again when I heard a slight splashing on my left. I looked
around. A broad patch of fresher-colored herbage and a cluster of
dwarfed alders indicated a hidden spring. I cautiously approached its
quaggy edges, when I was shocked by what appeared to be a sudden
vision! Mid-leg deep in the center of a greenish pool stood Chu Chu!
But without a strap or buckle of harness upon her--as naked as when she
was foaled!

For a moment I could only stare at her in bewildered terror. Far from
recognizing me, she seemed to be absorbed in a nymph-like contemplation
of her own graces in the pool. Then I called "Consuelo!" and galloped
frantically around the spring. But there was no response, nor was there
anything to be seen but the all-unconscious Chu Chu. The pool, thank
Heaven! was not deep enough to have drowned any one; there were no
signs of a struggle on its quaggy edges. The horse might have come from
a distance! I galloped on, still calling. A few hundred yards further I
detected the vivid glow of Chu Chu's scarlet saddle-blanket in the
brush near the trail. My hea