“You do speak their language,” Alaire said, after she had watched them for a few minutes.  “You have bewitched the creature.”  Dave nodded silently, and his face was young.  Then half to herself the woman murmured, “Yes, you have a heart.”

“I beg pardon?”

“Nothing.  I’m glad you like her.”

“Do you mind if I call her something else than Rosa, just to myself?”

“Why, she’s yours!  Don’t you like the name?”

“Oh yes!  But—­see!” Dave laid a finger upon Montrosa’s forehead.  “She wears a lone star, and I’d like to call her that—­The Lone Star.”

Alaire smiled in tacit assent; then when the two friends had completely established their intimacy she mounted her own horse and led the way to the round-up.

Dave’s unbounded delight filled the mistress of Las Palmas with the keenest pleasure.  He laughed, he hummed snatches of songs, he kept up a chatter addressed as much to the mare as to his companion, and under it Montrosa romped like a tomboy.  It was gratifying to meet with such appreciation as this; Alaire felt warm and friendly to the whole world, and decided that out of her abundance she must do more for other people.

Of course Dave had to tell of Don Ricardo’s thoughtful gift, and concluded by saying, “I think this must be my birthday, although it doesn’t fit in with the calendar.”

“Don Ricardo has his enemies, but he is a good-hearted old man.”

“Yes,” Dave agreed.  Then more gravely:  “I’m sorry I let him go across the river.”  There was a pause.  “If anybody harms him I reckon I’ll have a feud on my hands, for I’m a grateful person.”

“I believe it.  I can see that you are loyal.”

“I was starved on sentiment when I was little, but it’s in me bigger than a skinned ox.  They say gratitude is an elemental, primitive emotion—­”

“Perhaps that’s why it is so rare nowadays,” said Alaire, not more than half in jest.

“You find it rare?” Dave looked up keenly.  “Well, you have certainly laid up a store of it to-day.”

Benito and his men had rounded up perhaps three thousand head of cattle when Alaire and her companion appeared, and they were in the process of “cutting out.”  Assembled near a flowing well which gave life to a shallow pond, the herd was held together by a half-dozen horsemen who rode its outskirts, heading off and driving back the strays.  Other men, under Benito’s personal direction, were isolating the best animals and sending them back to the pasture.  It was an animated scene, one fitted to rouse enthusiasm in any plainsman, for the stock was fat and healthy; there were many calves, and the incessant, rumbling complaint of the herd was bloodstirring.  The Las Palmas cowboys rode like centaurs, doubling, dodging, yelling, and whirling their ropes like lashes; the air was drumming to swift hoof-beats, and over all was the hoarse, unceasing undertone from countless bovine throats.  Out near the grub-wagon the remuda was grazing, and thither at intervals came the perspiring horsemen to change their mounts.