“Dios de mi alma!” cried the girls, one to the other, “their coats are blacker than our hair!  Their nostrils pulse like a heart on fire!  Their eyes flash like water in the sun!  Ay! the handsome stranger, will he roll us in the dust?  Ay! our golden horses, with the tails and manes of silver—­how beautiful is the contrast with the vaqueros in their black and silver, their soft white linen!  The shame! the shame!—­if they are put to shame!  Poor Guido!  Will he lose this day, when he has won so many?  But the stranger is so handsome!  Dios de mi vida! his eyes are like dark blue stars.  And he is so cold!  He alone—­he seems not to care.  Madre de Dios!  Madre de Dios! he wins again!  No! no! no!  Yes!  Ay! yi! yi!  B-r-a-v-o!”

Guido Cabanares dug his spurs into his horse and dashed to the head of the field, where Don Vicente sat at the left of General Castro.  He was followed hotly by several friends, sympathetic and indignant.  As he rode, he tore off his serape and flung it to the ground; even his silk riding-clothes sat heavily upon his fury.  Don Vicente smiled, and rode forward to meet him.

“At your service, senor,” he said, lifting his sombrero.

“Take your mustangs back to Los Angeles!” cried Don Guido, beside himself with rage, the politeness and dignity of his race routed by passion.  “Why do you bring your hideous brutes here to shame me in the eyes of Monterey?  Why—­”

“Yes!  Why?  Why?” demanded his friends, surrounding De la Vega.  “This is not the humiliation of a man, but of the North by the accursed South!  You even would take our capital from us!  Los Angeles, the capital of the Californias!”

“What have politics to do with horse-racing?” asked De la Vega, coldly.  “Other strangers have brought their horses to your field, I suppose.”

“Yes, but they have not won.  They have not been from the South.”

By this time almost every caballero on the field was wheeling about De la Vega.  Some felt with Cabanares, others rejoiced in his defeat, but all resented the victory of the South over the North.

“Will you run again?” demanded Cabanares.

“Certainly.  Do you think of putting your knife into my neck?”

Cabanares drew back, somewhat abashed, the indifference of the other sputtering like water on his passion.

“It is not a matter for blood,” he said sulkily; “but the head is hot and words are quick when horses run neck to neck.  And, by the Mother of God, you shall not have the last race.  My best horse has not run.  Viva El Rayo!”

“Viva El Rayo!” shouted the caballeros.

“And let the race be between you two alone,” cried one.  “The North or the South!  Los Angeles or Monterey!  It will be the race of our life.”

“The North or the South!” cried the caballeros, wheeling and galloping across the field to the donas.  “Twenty leagues to a real for Guido Cabanares.”

“What a pity that Ysabel is not here!” said Dona Modeste Castro to Pio Pico.  “How those green eyes of hers would flash to-day!”