Lucy was interested in the Castleton ladies. Conrad said that Mrs. Turner Castleton was considered a great beauty, but that he liked Mrs. Ned, who was half Mexican, much the better and thought her the more interesting and charming. She asked if they ever visited the ranch. "Yes," said Curtis; "Ned and his wife come up for a few days every Spring. This year they'll be there after the round-up is over and the cattle shipped. Would you like to meet them? All right, we'll arrange it. While they are there I'll get up a barbecue and a _baile_, and ask some people. You and Miss Dent and your father must all come." The American in the Southwest, arrogant and contemptuous as the Anglo-Saxon always is when brought face to face with a difference in race, a difference in ideals, or a difference in speech, regards the Spanish language with frank disdain and ordinarily refuses to learn it. But where the Mexicans are present in large numbers, as in New Mexico, he adopts from the other's language a good many words which soon supplant their English equivalents. An evening party of any sort, whether a public dance in the town hall, a select affair in the house of a prominent resident, or a gathering in the Mexican quarter, is always a "_baile_," a thriftless, insignificant person of either race a "_paisano_," while upon "_coyote_" the American has seized with ready tongue, applying it to any creature, human or other, for which he wishes to express supreme contempt. Miss Dent had to have _baile_ explained to her, and their talk drifted to the subject of the Mexican people. Bancroft told her the story of the bold theft of Conrad's mare, the chase and capture of Melgares, and the wounding of Gaines. "It is thought that poor Jack cannot live," he said in conclusion, "and the Mexican is held in jail to await the result. If he dies the fellow will be tried for murder." "I've heard a queer story about Melgares," said Conrad, and went on to tell how the Mexican had lost his little ranch. Lucy listened attentively, with indignant eyes fixed on Curtis's face. "How shameful!" she broke out. "What a detestable way of getting money! The poor Mexicans! Just think of their being turned out of their homes in that way, with nothing to fall back on! I don't wonder poor Melgares became a thief--but he ought to have gone to Santa Fe and stolen Mr. Baxter's horses!" Bancroft's eyes were fixed on his plate. Had the others been watching him closely they would have seen no more than a flicker of his eyelids as his face took on a stony impassiveness. But they were looking at Lucy who, with head erect, face flushed, and eyes sparkling, made a pretty picture.