After the first headlong half mile, Tejon became the perfect little saddle-pony which fair weather found him; and Teresita, cheated of her battle of wills and yet too honest to provoke him deliberately, began to think a little less of her own whims and more of the Señora Simpson, housed miserably beneath the canvas covering of the prairie schooner. She found Mrs. Jerry sitting inside, with a patchwork quilt over her shoulders, her eyes holding a shade more of wistfulness and less twinkle, perhaps, but with her lips quite ready to smile upon her visitor. Teresita sat down upon a box and curiously watched the pretty señora try to make a small, triangular piece of cloth cover a large, irregular hole in the elbow of the big señor's coat sleeve. Sometimes, when she turned it so, the hole was nearly covered--except that there was the frayed rent at the bottom still grinning maliciously up at the mender. "'Patch beside patch is neighborly, but patch upon patch is beggarly!'" quoted Mrs. Jerry, at the moment forgetting that the girl could not understand. Whereupon Teresita bethought her of her last night's lesson, and replied slowly and solemnly: "My dear Mrs. Seem'son, how--do--you--_do_?" "Mrs. Seem'son," realizing the underlying friendliness of the carefully enunciated greeting, flushed with pleasure and for a minute forgot all about the patch problem. "Why, honey, you've been learnin' English jest so's you can talk to me!" She leaned and kissed the girl where the red blood of youth dyed brightest the Latin duskiness of the cheek. "I wish't you could say some more. Can't you?" Teresita could; but her further store of American words related chiefly to the diet and general well-being of one very small and very black pup, which was at that moment sleeping luxuriously in the chimney corner at home; and without the pup the words would be no more than parrot-chattering. So the señorita shook her head and smiled, and Mrs. Jerry went back to the problem of the small patch and the large hole. Hampered thus by having no common language between them, Teresita failed absolutely to accomplish her mission. Mrs. Jerry, hazily guessing at the invitation without realizing any urgent need of immediate acceptance, shook her head and pointed to her pitifully few household appurtenances, and tried to make it plain that she had duties which kept her there in the little camp which she pathetically called home. Teresita gathered that the pretty señora did not wish to leave that great, gaunt hombre who was her husband. So, when she could no longer conceal her shiverings, and having no hope that the big señor would understand her any better when he returned with the load of logs he and the peons were after, she rose and prepared to depart. Surely the Señor Jack, if he were going to follow, would by this time be coming, and the hope rather hastened her adieu.