“Senor,” she added impressively, holding back her hair from blowing across her face and gazing at him wide-eyed, with a wicked assumption of guileless innocence, “at the Mission San Jose there is a very old and very wise woman.  She lives in a tule hut behind the very walls of the Mission, and the Indians go to her by night when dreams have warned them that death threatens.  She is a terribly wise old woman, Senor, for she can look into the past and part the curtain which hides the future.  For gold will she part it.  And for gold will she put the curse or the blessing where curse or blessing is needed most.  Go you to the old woman and have her put a blessing upon the riata when it is dressed and you have prayed your prayers upon it, Senor!  For five pesos will she bless it and command it to fly straight wherever the senor desires that it shall fly.  Then can you meet Jose and not tremble so that the spur-bells tinkle.”

Jack went hot inside of him, but he made his lips smile at the jest; for so do brave men try to make light of torment, whether it be fire or flood or the tongue of the woman they love.

“All right,” he said.  “And I think I’ll have the judges rule that the fight shall be at fifty paces, as I would if we were to fight with pistols.”  He tried to keep his irritation out of his voice, but there must have been enough to betray him.

For Teresita smiled pleasedly and sent another barb.  “It would be wise.  For truly, Jose’s equal has never been seen, and caballeros I have known who would swear that Jose’s riata can stretch to fifty paces and more to find its mark.”

“Is it anxiety for me that makes you so solicitous?” demanded Jack, speaking low so that the peons could not overhear.

“Perhaps—­and perhaps it is pride; for I know well the skill and the bravery of my Jose.”  Again the twist of her pretty, pouting lips, blood-red and tempting.

Her Jose!  For just a minute the face of Teresita showed vague to him before his wrathful eyes.

“When you tell your beads again, Senorita,” he advised her crisply, “say a prayer or two for your Jose also.  For I promise you now that I will shame him before your face, and if he lives afterward to seek your sympathy, it will be by grace of my mercy!”

“Santa Maria, what a fierce senor!” Her laughter mocked him.  “Till the fiesta I shall pray—­for you!” Then she turned and ran, looking over her shoulder now and again to laugh at him.

Always before, when she had teased and flouted and fled laughing, Jack had pursued her with long strides, and in the first sequestered nook had made her lips pay a penalty.  But this time he stood still and let her go—­which must have puzzled the senorita very much, and perhaps piqued her pride as well.  For the girl who flouts and then flees laughing surely invites pursuit and an inexorable exaction of the penalty.  And if she is left to flee in safety, then must the flouted one pay for his stupidity, and pay high in the coin of love.