"Oh--the old miner never suggested that it was the woman did it--the wife!" he protested. "It was thought to be the work of the old hill tribe of Indians." "It was not alone the Indians," stated Dona Teresa, with sudden insight. "Men would not think to tie him with girl's hair. No, it was the wife." Alvara looked at her warningly over his glass. "If there are such wives in Mexico, we hope they stay there," he said. "Our own Indians make trouble enough for the padre and the alcalde. The kind you tell of are best left with their tribes in the hills." For a little longer they talked of the new horses needed for the frontier warfare, and touched upon the chance of the Capitan's stealing them before they got across the divide. "But there is no danger even of El Capitan now, when the Senor Don Bryton have put himself to help guard," remarked Teresa, eyeing him with a cat-like glance to discover if her sarcasm was appreciated. "We all feel very safe now in San Juan valley." "With those brilliant army officers in town, you certainly should," he remarked, easily. "The women have always been the Capitan's best friends, and the officers are cutting him out!" "He see too much--and he talk too much," said Teresa, as Bryton left them and walked leisurely down the road toward the inn and post-office. "He means no harm," remarked Alvara. "The ways of the Americano are not our ways, but I like him better than the army men. He makes no scandals." "If the army men make love to the girls, they keep quiet about it," returned Teresa. "But this man--he thinks himself too good for the 'brown girls' he talks of. Men who are too good should go to stay in the church and pray for the sinners!" Alvara knew that no remark of Bryton's had been meant to reflect in the least on social conditions in San Juan. But what use to argue with an angry, jealous woman hunting for a grievance? The widow of Miguel had gone through the years of jealous bitterness, the shock of Miguel's death, the knowledge that she would inherit but a widow's share, the nerve-wrenching strain of a Mexican funeral, the sight of her husband's Indian children beside the bier; but that had all been in the midst of the people who understood--where house-servants were often legacies to the estate from brother, or uncle, or cousin. But this man, who told of a wife that revenged herself, had unconsciously flung in her face a new standard; she hated him, and hated the sort of women he knew in his own country,--the white-faced women who had snow in their blood and did not understand!