Even while she was coaxing Tejon alongside a log and persuading him to stand so until she was in the saddle, she was generously forswearing Senor Jack’s punishment that she might serve the pretty senora who had Tejon by the bit and was talking to him softly in words he had never heard before in his life.  She resolved that if she met Senor Jack, she would ask him to come back with her and explain to the senora about the cold and the rain, and urge her to accept the hospitality of her neighbors.

For that reason she looked more anxiously than before for some sign of him riding towards her through the fields of flowering mustard that heaved in the wind like the waves on some strange, lemon-colored sea tossing between high, green islands of oak and willow.  Surely that fool Diego would never keep the still tongue!  He would tell, when some one missed her.  If he did not, or if Senor Allen was an obstinate pig of a man and would not come, then she would tell Senor Hunter, who was always so kind, though not so handsome as the other, perhaps.

Senor Hunter’s eyes were brown—­and she had looked into brown eyes all her life.  But the blue!  The blue eyes that could so quickly change lighter or darker that they bewildered one; and could smile, or light flames that could wither the soul of one.

Even the best rider among the Spanish girls as far south as Paso Robles should not meditate so deeply upon the color of a senor’s eyes that she forgets the horse she is riding, especially when the horse is Tejon, whose heart is full of wickedness.

A coyote, stalking the new-made nest of a quail, leaped out of the mustard and gave Tejon the excuse he wanted, and the dreaming senorita was nearly unseated when he ducked and whirled in his tracks.  He ran, and she could not stop him, pull hard as she might.  If he had only run towards home!  But instead, he ran down the valley, because then he need not face the wind; and he tried to outstrip the wind as he went.

It was when they topped a low knoll and darted under the wide, writhing branches of a live oak, that Jack glimpsed them and gave chase; and his heart forgot to beat until he saw them in the open beyond, and knew that she had not been swept from the saddle by a low branch.  He leaned lower over Surry’s neck and felt gratefully the instant response of the horse; he had thought that Surry was running his best on such uneven ground; but even a horse may call up an unsuspected reserve of speed or endurance, if his whole heart is given to the service of his master; there was a perceptible quickening and a lengthening of stride, and Jack knew then that Surry could do no more and keep his feet.  Indeed, if he held that pace for long without stumbling, he would prove himself a more remarkable horse than even Dade declared him to be.