“Say, Jack,” Dade interrupted, diplomacy winning against politeness, “I never dreamed you’d have the nerve to try that fancy corkscrew throw of yours before all that crowd.  Why, after two years to get out of practice, you took an awful chance of making a fool of yourself!  Y’see, Bill,” he explained with a deliberate garrulity, “that throw he made when he caught the horse was the finest bit of rope-work that’s been done to-day.  I don’t believe there’s another man in the crowd that could do it; and the chances are they never saw it done before, even!  I know I never saw but one man beside Jack that could do it.  Jack was always at it, when we happened to be laying around with nothing to do, and I know he had to keep his hand in, or he’d make a fizzle of it.  Of course,” he conceded, “you didn’t miss—­but if you had—­Wow!” He shook his head at the bare possibility.

Jack grinned at him.  “I’m not saying how much moonlight I used up, practicing out in the orchard when everybody else was asleep.  I reckon I’ve made that corkscrew five thousand times in the last three weeks!”

“Where you belong,” bantered Dade, “is on the stage.  You do love to create a sensation, better than any one I ever—­”

“Senors—­” Diego came hurriedly out of the shadows behind them.  “The patron begs that you will honor his table by dining with him to-night.  In one little half-hour will he hope to see you; and Don Jose Pacheco will also be happy to meet the senors, if it is the pleasure of the senors to meet him and dine in his company.  The patron,” added Diego, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his pensive black eyes, “desires also that I shall extend to you the deep regret of the senora and the senorita because it will be impossible for them to be present.”

The three looked at one another, and in Bill’s eyes dawned slowly the light of understanding.

“Tell the patron we are honored by the invitation, and that it gives us much pleasure to accept,” Dade replied for the three of them, after a moment spent in swift, mental measuring of the situation.  “Jack, you’ve got to get them bloody clothes off, and some decent ones on.  Come on, Bill; half an hour ain’t any too much time to get ready in.”

Half-way to the house they walked without saying a word.  Then Dade, walking between the two, suddenly clapped a hand down upon the shoulder of each.

“Say, I could holler my head off!” he exulted.  “I’m going to quit worrying about anything, after this; the nights I’ve laid awake and worried myself purple over this darned fiesta—­or the duel, rather!  And things are turning out smooth as a man could ask.

“Jack, I’m proud to death of you, and that’s a fact.  With that temper of yours, I kinda looked for you to get this whole outfit down on you; but the way you acted, I don’t believe there’s a man here, except Manuel, that’s got any real grudge against you, even if they did lose a lot of money on the fight.  And it’s all the way you behaved, old boy—­like a prince!  Just—­like a—­blamed prince!”