Valencia, at that, looked up into Manuel’s face and smiled in spite of the pain in his feet and the emptiness in his stomach.

“Does it please you, then, Valencia?  All night I rode to bear a message to that blue-eyed one who thinks himself supremo in all things; a challenge from Don Jose, to fight a duelo if he is not a coward; so did Jose write.  ’Unless you are afraid to meet me’—­and the vanity of that blue-eyed one is great, Valencia.  Of a truth, the man is loco.  What think you, Valencia?  He had the right to choose the weapons—­and Jose believed that he would choose those pistols of which you make so much talk.  Madre de Dios!  What says the blue-eyed one, then?—­and laughed in my face while he spoke the words!  ’Go tell Don Jose I will fight him whenever and wherever he likes; and for weapons I choose riatas.’  Heard you anything—­”

“Riatas!” Valencia’s jaw dropped an inch before he remembered that Manuel’s eyes were sharp and eager to read the thoughts of a man in the twitching muscles of his face.

“Si, riatas!” Manuel’s whole fat body shook with laughter.  “Even you, who are wholly bewitched by those gringos, even you are dismayed!  Tell me, Valencia, have you seen him lasso anything?”

But Valencia, having pulled himself together, merely lifted his shoulders and smiled wisely, so that even Manuel was almost deceived into believing that Valencia’s faith was great because it was built upon a secret knowledge of what the blue-eyed one could do.

“Me, I heard you boasting to those San Vincente vaqueros,” Manuel accused, shifting the talk to generalities.  “And the Senor Hunter boasts also that the blue-eyed one is supremo with the riata, as he is with everything else!” The tone of Manuel was exceeding bitter.  “Well, he will have the chance to prove what he can do.  No gringo can come among us Californians and flap the wings and crow upon the tule thatch for naught.  There has been overmuch crowing, Valencia.  Me, I am glad that boaster must do something more than crow upon the thatch, Valencia!”

“Si, there has been overmuch crowing,” Valencia retorted, giving to his smile the lift that made it a sneer, “but the thatch has not been of Picardo tules.  Me, I think they grew within hearing of the mission bells of Santa Clara!  And the gallo [rooster] which crows is old and fat, and feeds too much upon the grapes that are sour!  Adios!  I must haste to give congratulations to the Senor Jack, that he will have opportunity to wring the necks of those loud-crowing gallos of the Pacheco thatches.”

Whereupon he picked up his saddle and walked on, very straight in the back and patently unashamed of the injustice of his charge; for it was the crowing of Valencia himself beside the San Vincente camp-fire that had brought Manuel with the message, and Valencia knew that perfectly well.

The family of Don Andres had been breakfasting upon the wide veranda when Manuel strode grimly across the patio and confronted them.  They were still seated there when Valencia, having deposited his riding gear at the saddle-hut, limped to the steps and stood with his sunny smile upon his face and his sombrero brim trailing the dust.  It seemed to Valencia that the don was displeased; he read it in the set of his head, in the hardness that was in his glance, in a certain inflexible quality of his voice.