“And are none of our own people tactful or intelligent, Don Andres Picardo?” demanded Manuel, having overheard the last sentence or two from the doorway.  He came out and stood before his beloved “patron,” his whole fat body quivering with amazed indignation, so that the bottle which the senora had filled for him shook in his hand.  “Amongst the gringos must you go to find one worthy?  Truly it is as Don Jose tells me; these gringos have come but to make trouble where all was peace.  To-day he told me all his thoughts, and me, I hardly believed it was as he said.  Would the patron have a majordomo who knows nothing of rodeos, nothing of the cattle—­”

“You’re mistaken there, Manuel,” Dade broke in calmly.  “Whether I become majordomo or not, I know cattle.  They have a few in Texas, where I came from.  I can qualify in cowology any time.  And,” he added loyally, “so can Jack.  You thought he didn’t know what he was talking about, when he was looking at that riata; but I’ll back him against any man in California when it comes to riding and roping.

“But that needn’t make us bad friends, Manuel.  I didn’t come to make trouble, and I won’t stay to make any.  We’ve been friends; let’s stay that way.  I’m a gringo, all right, but I’ve lived more with your people than my own, and if you want the truth, I don’t know but what I feel more at home with them.  And the same with Jack.  We’ve eaten and slept with Spaniards and worked with them and played with them, half our lives.”

“Still it is as Jose says,” reiterated Manuel stubbornly.  “Till the gringos came all was well; when they came, trouble came also.  Till the gringos came, no watch was put over the cattle, for only those who hungered killed and ate.  Now they steal the patron’s cattle by hundreds, they steal his land, and if Jose speaks truly, they would steal also—­” He hesitated to speak what was on his tongue, and finished lamely:  “what is more precious still.

“And the patron will have a gringo for majordomo?” He returned to the issue.  “Then I, Manuel, must leave the patron’s employ.  I and half the vaqueros.  The patron,” he added with what came close to a sneer, “had best seek gringo vaqueros—­with the clay of the mines on their boots, and their red shirts to call the bulls!”

“I shall do what it pleases me to do,” declared the don sternly.  “Advice from my vaqueros I do not seek.  And you,” he said haughtily, “have choice of two things; you may crave pardon for your insolence to my guest, who is also my friend, and who will henceforth have charge of my vaqueros and my cattle, or you may go whither you will; to Don Jose Pacheco, I doubt not.”

He leaned his white-crowned head against the high chair-back, and while he waited for Manuel’s decision he gazed calmly at the border of red tiles which showed at the low eaves of the porch—­calmly as to features only, for his eyes held the blaze of anger.

“Senors, I go.”  The brim of Manuel’s sombrero flicked the dust of the patio.