"Your nervousness should make you more choice in your expressions," said Lucy Page, a tall, grave friend of Ethel's, a handsome girl, with whom Hawkshaw was walking, as they were all promenading one evening, after tea, among the trees of Acton Chase. "Though not much in the habit of receiving advice, I shall hope to profit by yours, Miss Page," said Hawkshaw, bowing with a malevolent smile. "Pardon me," continued Miss Page, colouring under the short veil of her round hat; "I do not presume to offer advice to so travelled a man; but, for all that, I know a very ugly word may be veiled in your favourite Spanish." The captain laughed so loudly, that the young lady bit her lips with vexation, and Rose saucily inquired if he were vain of his teeth. "I might be, if I had not seen yours, which the father of dentists and mother of pearl might envy," said he, with a mock reverential bow. "But we are sparring, it seems," he said, with a slight flush on his cheek, as Miss Page turned haughtily away and entered into conversation with Mr. Basset. But our officer of the Partizan Rangers was not to be easily put down, and to prove this, he began to whoop noisily at the cattle, which were browsing under the trees. "Hah, demonio!" he exclaimed; "if I had a lasso here, ladies, I would show you how we loop the cattle in Texas. Many a wild bull, I have overtaken with my horse at full gallop, and fairly tailed him." "What may that be?" asked Rose Basset, who loved, as she said, "to draw the Texan warrior out." "Cutting the poor animal's tail off, I suppose," suggested Miss Page. "Not at all," said Hawkshaw, curtly. "Then what is it, pray?" asked Ethel. "Technically, it is catching him by the tail when at full speed, and slewing him round like a ship in stays; that is what we call 'tailing' in Texas." "But to lasso?" began one of the ladies, to whom the captain's explanation was not very lucid. "That is to catch Master Bull by casting a looped rope round his horns." "Have you ever achieved this?" asked Morley. "I should think so--rather, and a great deal more," replied the captain, almost contemptuously. "I once caught one in midstream, when swimming the Arroya del Colorado, a salt arm of the sea, more than eighty yards broad, while a wild pampero (that is, a gale of wind, ladies) was rolling the waves in mountains up the bight; and with the same lasso, not long after, I caught a rascally picaroon, just about your size, Mr. Ashton, by the neck, and well-nigh garotted him, when I was riding past at full gallop." "And the result?" said Morley, disdaining to notice something offensive in Hawkshaw's tone, when addressing him. "Well, the result was mighty unpleasant for the poor devil of a picaroon," replied Hawkshaw, as the whole party rested themselves on the soft velvet grass of the lawn, when he began to amuse himself by tossing a clasp-knife of very ugly aspect among the buttercups, and skilfully decapitating one at every toss.