He induced Moll to turn around, and led Manuel away from the presence of the women lest they should be shocked at his deed; and on the cool side of the farthest shed he did indeed give Manuel a “derned good walloping.”  After which he took a fresh chew of tobacco, lounged over to where Moll waited and switched desultorily at the flies, mounted, and went placidly home to his Mary.

* * * * *

Bill Wilson, having collected their winnings and his own, sought Dade and Jack, where they were lying under the shade of a sycamore just beyond the rim of the crowd chattering shrilly of the later events.  With a grunt of relief to be rid of the buzzing, Bill flung himself down beside them and plucked a cigar from an inner pocket.

“Say,” he began, after he had bitten off the end of the cigar and had moistened the whole with his tongue.  “Them greasers sure do hate to come forward with their losings!  Some bets I never will be able to collect; but I got a lot—­enough to pay for the trouble of coming down.”  He rolled over upon his back and lay smoking and looking up into the mottled branches of the tree; thought of something, and lifted himself to an elbow so that he faced Jack.

“Sa-ay, I thought you said you was going to kill that greaser,” he challenged quizzically.

Jack shrugged his shoulders, took two long draws on his cigarette, and blew one of his pet smoke-rings.  “I did.”  He moistened his lips and blew another ring.  “At least, I killed the biggest part of him—­and that’s his pride.”

Bill grunted, lay down again, and stared up at the wide-pronged sycamore leaves.  “Darn my oldest sister’s cat’s eyes if I ever seen anything like it!” he exploded suddenly, and closed his eyes in a vast content.

From the barbecue pits there came an appetizing odor of roasting beef; high-keyed voices flung good-humored taunts, and once they heard a great shout of laughter surge through the crowd gathered there.  From the great platform built under a group of live oaks near the patio they heard the resonant plunk-plunk-plunk of a harp making ready for the dance, and the shrill laughter of slim senoritas hovering there.  Down the slope before the three the shadows stretched longer and longer.  A violin twanged in the tuning, the harp-strings crooning the key.

“You fellows are going to dance, ain’t yuh?” Bill inquired lazily, when his cigar was half gone to ashes and smoke.  “Jack, here, can get pardners enough to keep him going fer a week—­judging by the eyes them Spanish girls have been making at him since the duel and the horse-breaking.

“Say!  How about that sassy-eyed Picardo girl?  I ain’t seen you and her in speaking distance all day; and the way you was buzzing around her when I was down here before—­”