"Señors, I bring you Don José Pacheco." So suddenly had the contest ended that those riders who helped to form the riata fence stood still in their places, as if another round had yet to be fought. Beyond the pistol shot and the girl voice crying well done, the audience was quiet, waiting. Then José, sitting spent upon his horse, lifted a hand that shook weakly. His fingers fumbled at his breast, and he held out the shining medal of gold--the medal with diamonds prisoning the sunlight so that the trinket flashed in his hand. "Señor," he said huskily, "the medalla--it is yours." Jack looked at him; looked at the bent faces of the frowning judges; looked up at Teresita, watching the two with red lips parted and breath coming quickly; looked again queerly at José, gasping still, and holding out to him the medalla oro. Jack did a good deal of thinking in a very short space of time. "I don't want your medal," he said. "Let some Californian fight you for it, if he likes. That is not for a gringo." Perhaps there was a shade of the theatrical element in his speech and his manner, but he was perfectly innocent of any such intention; and the people before him were nothing if not dramatic. He got his response in the bravos and the applause that followed the silence of sheer amazement. "Gracias!" they cried, in their impulsive appreciation of his generosity. "The horse which you offered for a prize, Don Andres, I will claim," Jack went on, when he could be heard--and he did not wait long, for short-lived indeed is the applause given to an alien. "And I will ride him as soon as you desire." "Yes! Let us see him ride that caballo!" cried the fickle mass of humanity. "By a trick of chance he won the duelo, and the medalla he refused because he knows it was not won fairly. Where is that yellow caballo which no man has ridden? Let him show us what he can do with that yellow one!" Dade, pushing his way exultantly toward him, saw the blaze of anger at their fickleness leap into Jack's eyes. "Sí, I will show you!" he called out. "It is well that you should see some horsemanship! Bring the yellow caballo, then. Truly, I will show you what I can do." "Come, Surry," called Dade, and the white horse walked up to him and nibbled playfully his bearskin chaparejos. "Solano's in the little corral, off this big one. I'll bring your saddle--" "I don't want any saddle. I'm going to ride him bareback, with a rope over his nose. Let me have your spurs, will you? Did you hear them say I won the duel with luck? I'll show these greasers what a gringo can do!" He spoke in Spanish, to show his contempt of their opinion of him, and he curled his lip at the jibes they began to fling down at him; the jibes and the taunts--and vague threats as well, when those who had wagered much upon the duelo began to reckon mentally their losings.