“And this is the poor senor who was in such dreadful danger!” she went on commiseratingly.  “Ah, the wicked times that have come upon us!  Presently we shall fear to sleep in our beds—­Senor Hunter, you have been hurt!  The mark of blood is on your sleeve, the stain is on your side!  A-ah, my poor friend!  Come instantly and I will—­”

“Gracias, Senora; it is nothing.  Besides, Manuel put on a poultice of herbs.  It’s only a scratch, but it bled a little while I rode to the hut of Manuel.”  If blushes could have shown through the tan, Dade might have looked as uncomfortable as he felt at that moment.

The senorita was already in the doorway, convoying a sloe-eyed maid who bore wine and glasses upon a tray of beaten silver; and the smile of the senorita was disturbing to a degree, brief though it was.

Behind the wine came cakes, and the senorita pointed tragically to the silver dish that held them.  “Madre mia, those terrible children of Margarita have stolen half the cakes!  I ran after them in the orchard—­but they swallow fast, those ninos!  Now the senors must starve!”

Up went the hand of the senora in dismay, and down went the head of the senorita to hide how she was biting the laughter from her lips.  “I ran,” she murmured pathetically, “and I caught Angelo—­but at that moment he popped the cake into his mouth and it was gone!  Then I ran after Maria—­and she swallowed—­”

“Teresita mia!  The senors will think—­” What they would think she did not stipulate, but her eyes implored them to judge leniently the irrepressibility of her beautiful one.  There were cakes sufficient—­a hasty glance reassured her upon that point—­and Teresita was in one of her mischievous moods.  The mother who had reared her sighed resignedly and poured the wine into the small glasses with a quaint design cut into their sides, perfectly unconscious of the good the little diversion had done.

For a half-hour there was peaceful converse; of the adventure which had brought the two gringos to the ranch as to a sanctuary, of the land which lay before them, and of the unsettled conditions that filled the days with violence.

Jose still strummed softly upon the guitar, a pleasant undertone to the voices.  And because he said very little, he saw and thought the more; seeing glances and smiles between a strange man and the maid whom he loved desirefully, bred the thought which culminated in a sudden burst of speech against the gringos who had come into the peaceful land and brought with them strife.  Who stole the cattle of the natives, calmly appropriated the choicest bits of valley land without so much as a by-your-leave, and who treated the rightful owners with contempt and as though they had no right to live in the valley where they were born.

“Last week,” he went on hotly, “an evil gringo with the clay of his burrowings still upon his garments cursed me and called me greaser because I did not give him all the road for his burro.  I, Jose Pacheco!  They had better have a care, or the ‘greasers’ will drive them back whence they came, like the cattle they are.  When I, a don, must give the road to a gringo lower than the peons whom I flog for less impertinence, it is time we ceased taking them by the hand as though they were our equals!” His eyes went accusingly to the face of the girl.