"Bah! you don't call this scenery, do you?" asked Hawkshaw, brusquely. "Is it not charming?" "May be so to you; but to me, who have hunted, scouted, and trapped over the mighty Sierras, which divide Texas from New Mexico--Sierras covered to their cloud-clapped summits with forests of oak, pine, and cedar, and all alive with wild horses and cattle; or to me, who have seen the yet denser woods out of which the Arkansas and Trinidad rivers come roaring to the sea, your mild, Dutch-looking, English landscape, is no more than a rat-ranche would be if compared to St. Paul's Cathedral?" "It must be somewhat dangerous, a land teeming with wild horses and cattle?" said Morley, to change the subject, and smiling, as he lit a fresh cigar. "Dangerous? _Caramba_! I rather calculate it is!" "How?" asked Morley, carelessly. "In those mountain ranges are wild trappers, and lawless bandidos, like those Barradas I told you of one evening--do you remember?" "Perfectly." "Fellows of all colours--white, black, and brown, yellow, and copper-coloured--who may be off with your purse and scalp before you know where you are. Then there are bears, conguars, buffaloes, panthers, wolves, foxes, and alligators. I was nearly gobbled up by one when bathing in the Red River. Immortal smash! I had a close run for it, and only kept him off by splashing and kicking like a sunfish in a breeze." After a pause-- "I wish we had the ladies here," said Morley; "the evening is so lovely--the sunset is so rich." "Aye--our Ethel is romantic, very!" observed Hawkshaw; "she rather likes 'Thaddeus of Warsaw,' and copies verses in a hot-pressed album; sighs often when alone, no doubt, and always ties the ribbons of her bonnet in a true-lover's knot." Morley looked fixedly at the speaker, for the whole speech, and the phrase, "our Ethel," displeased him. "Mr. Hawkshaw," said he, gravely, "there is something of a sneer in your tone, which I do not understand." "Sneer--not at all. Do you imagine that I would sneer at one so charming as our friend, Miss Basset--one whom we mutually admire so much?" replied Hawkshaw; but as he spoke the fire of secret hate mingled in his eye with that of the admiration, we cannot term it love, he bore for Ethel. "Apropos of Miss Basset," said Morley, now careless whether he offended or not, "I have here a ring of yours, Captain Hawkshaw, which she commissioned me to return to you, as, on reflection, she cannot think of depriving you of so interesting a relic of your Mexican campaigns." "Thank you," replied Hawkshaw, with a quiet stare, as he took the ring from Morley, and placed it on one of his fingers, even his bushy moustache failing to conceal the fierce quiver of his upper lip; "I received it at a ball, from the eldest daughter of General Santa Anna, and so can well afford to receive it back from a daughter of old Scriven Basset." This was the third or fourth history of the ring Morley had heard; but he only smiled in silence.