José laughed without much mirth to lighten the sound. "The blue-eyed one--did you find from the vaqueros why he did not come? He need not have been afraid of me--not if his fame was earned honestly." If his tone were patronizing, José perhaps had some excuse, since Fame had not altogether passed him by with face averted. "Part of the way he came, and turned back. The vaqueros do not know why, except Valencia. And Valencia--he is growing a gringo heart, like the patron. He will speak nothing but boasts of what that blue-eyed one can do. Me, I came near fighting with Valencia; only he would not do anything but smile foolishly, when I told him what I think of traitors like himself." "Let him smile," advised José, "while he may." Which was not a threat, in spite of its resemblance to one, but rather a vague reference to the specter of trouble that stalks all men as a fox stalks a quail, and might some day wipe that broad smile from the face of Valencia, as it had swept all the gladness from his own. He went back and smoked a final cigarette in Dade's company; and if he said little, his silences held no hint of antagonism. It was not until Dade rose to return to camp for the night that José put the question that had tickled the tongue of him ever since the arrival on his ranch of the Picardo vaqueros. "Your friend, the Señor Allen--he is to join you later, perhaps?" "Jack was left to look after the ranch." Dade's eyes were level in their glance, his voice quiet with the convincing ring of truth. "He won't be on rodeo at all." José went paler than he had been two weeks before with his hurt, but a simple word of polite surprise held all his answer. For Jack to stay at home, to be near Teresita every day, to have nothing in the way of his love-making--nothing, since those doting two, her parents, would but smile at whatever she might choose to do--there was acid enough in that thought to eat away all the warmth, all the generosity José possessed. He let Dade go without even the perfunctory phrases of regret, which custom had made almost compulsory; and Manuel, sitting in silent wrath upon the porch, listened to the steady footfalls moving up and down the room behind him until the moon, that had been shining in his smoldering eyes, slipped over the red tiles of the roof and left all but the tree-tops in black shade. "Dios! There will be one gringo the less when those two meet," he muttered, staring at the tiny glow of his cigarette; and afterward folded his arms tightly over a chest that heaved with the impatience within. When those two met, Manuel meant to be there also to see. "Me, I should like to drag him to death with the six-strand riata he despised!" was the beautiful thought he took to bed with him.