He threw a gold coin down upon the counter so that it rang. Lopez turned slowly and faced him, looked him straight in the eyes a moment, then went back to the shelf and began arranging the jars again. If the eyes of the caballero had snapped before, they blazed now. He placed both hands upon the counter as if to spring over it and throttle the man who refused to speak, but he seemed to decide against that, and the smile came upon his face again, only the quality of the smile was not the same. On one end of the counter was a heap of small stone jars, filled, evidently with fruit and oil. The caballero picked up a bar of metal from the counter, walked deliberately to the heap of jars, and crashed the heavy bar down among them. Señor Lopez jumped as if he had been shot, and turned to see the caballero standing before the ruin, the inscrutable smile still upon his lips. He raised the bar again, and again he crashed it among the jars, sending fruit and oil to the floor. “_Señor!_” Lopez cried. “I thought that would make you find your voice. As for the damage, I’ll pay it. Now suppose you open your lips and explain this strange conduct, before I get genuinely angry and carry on the work of destruction.” Their eyes clashed for a moment, and then Lopez spoke: “I open my lips this once, and after that, _señor_, perhaps you will go back up El Camino Real and admit yourself a beaten man. San Diego de Alcalá has a name for hospitality, it is true, but there is none even here for Captain Fly-by-Night.” “It seems to me,” said the caballero, “that I have heard that name before.” “It is known from San Francisco de Asis to San Diego de Alcalá, _señor_, without credit to the man who bears it.” “Indeed?” “We play at words, _señor_, and that is not necessary. News of your coming was received several days ago. When the news went up El Camino Real that the good Señor Fernandez had gone the way of all flesh and left to his fair daughter, Anita, and her very distant relative, Rojerio Rocha, the fortune and broad acres he had acquired by a lifetime of hard work and danger, you boasted, before the body of the _señor_ was scarcely cold in the ground, that here was a fair maid and a fortune to be won, and that you could and would win them.” “I boasted that, eh?” “’Tis well known, Captain Fly-by-Night. You boasted loudly. Even when it became known that Rojerio Rocha was to come down El Camino Real from distant San Francisco de Asis and wed his distant relative, and be the head of the great rancho, you boasted that, betrothal or no, you’d win Señorita Anita and the rancho would be yours.” “Indeed, _señor_?”