Jack’s rage passed as quickly as it came; but it left him stubborn under her recriminations.

“You are very soft-hearted, all of a sudden, senorita,” he said, with a fairly well-defined sneer, when he could bear no more.  “You won’t enjoy the bull-fighting, then, to-morrow—­for all you have been looking forward to it so anxiously, and have robbed yourself of ribbons to decorate the darts.  It’s not half so brutal to kill a bull that tries to kill you, as it is to fill it with flag-trimmed arrows for fun, and only put it out of its misery when you’re tired of seeing it suffer!  This bull came near killing you!  That’s why I’m going to kill it.”

“You are not!  Santa Maria, what a savage beast you are!  Let him go instantly!  Let him go, I say!”

If she had been on the ground, she would have stamped her foot.  As it was, she shook an adorably tiny fist at Jack, and blinked her long lashes upon the tears of real, sincere anger that stood in her black eyes, and gritted her teeth at him; for the senorita had a temper quite as hot as Jack’s, when it was roused, and all her life she had been given her own way in everything.

“Let him go this moment, or I shall never speak to you again!” she threatened rashly.

For answer, Jack walked deliberately past her to where Surry stood with his feet braced still against the pull of the riata and his neck arched knowingly, while he rolled the little wheel in the bit with his tongue.  Jack made himself a cigarette, lay down in the shade of his horse, and smoked just as calmly as though his heart was not thumping so that he could hear it quite plainly.  She had gone the wrong way about making him yield; threats had always acted like a goad upon Jack’s anger, just as they do upon most of us.

Teresita looked at him in silence for a minute.  And Jack, his head upon his arm in a position that would give him a fair view of her from the brim of his sombrero while he seemed to be taking no notice of her, wondered how soon she would change her mood to coaxing, and so melt that lump of obstinacy in his throat that would not let him so much as answer her vixenish upbraidings.  A very little coaxing would have freed the bull then, and he would have kissed the red mouth that had reviled him, and would have called her “dulce corazon,” as she loved to have him do.  Such a very little coaxing would have been enough!

“Dios!  How I hate a gringo!” she cried passionately, just when Jack believed she was going to cry “Senor Jack?” in that pretty, cooing tone she had that could make the words as tender as a kiss.  “Jose is right.  Gringos are savages and worse than savages.  Stay and torture your bull, then!  I hate you!  Never have I known hate, till now!  I shall be glad when Jose drags you from your horse to-morrow.  I shall laugh and clap my hands, and cry, ‘Bravo, bravo, querido mio!’ [my beloved] when you are flung into the dirt where you belong.  And when he kills you, I shall kiss him for his reward, before all the people, and I shall laugh when they fling you to the coyotes!” Yes, she said that; for she had a temper—­had the Senorita Teresita—­and she had a tongue that could speak words that burned like vitriol.