Catalina made no reply, but she ran swiftly to the big, canvas-covered diligence, climbed over the high wheel before Over could follow to assist her, and seated herself beside the driver with the most ingratiating manner that any of her party had seen her assume. Over placed himself beside her, the others took possession of the rear, the driver cracked his whip, and the six mules, jingling with half a hundred bells, leaped down the dusty road towards the steep and rocky heights where Tarragona has defied the nations of the earth. Then it was that Over laughed softly, and the innocent Moultons learned what depths of iniquity may lie at the base of a ranch-girl’s blandishments. As they reached the foot of the bluff the delighted youth who was answerable to Heaven for his precious freight abandoned the reins. Catalina gathered them in one hand, half rose from her seat, and with a great flourish cracked the long whip, not once, but thrice, delivering herself of sharp, peremptory cries in Spanish. The mules needed no further encouragement. They tore up the steep and winding road, whisked round curves, strained every muscle to show what a Spanish mule could do. They even shook their heads and tossed them in the air that their bells might jingle the louder. Mrs. Moulton and Jane screamed, clinging to each other, the portmanteaus bounced to the floor, and Mr. Moulton would have grasped Catalina’s arm but Over intercepted and reassured him. And, indeed, there were few better whips than Catalina in a state notorious for a century of reckless and brilliant driving. She drove like a cowboy, not like an Englishwoman, Over commented, but he felt the exhilaration of it, even when the unwieldy diligence bounded from side to side in the narrow road and the dust enveloped them. In a moment he shifted his eyes to her face. Her white teeth were gleaming through the half-open bow of her mouth, tense but smiling, and her splendid eyes were flashing, not only with the pleasure of the born horsewoman, but with a wicked delight in the consternation behind her. She looked, despite the mules and the dusty old diligence, like a goddess in a chariot of victory, and Over, who rarely imagined, half expected to see fire whirling in the clouds of dust about the wheels. As they reached the top of the bluff the driver indicated the way, and they flew down the Rambla San Carlos, past the astounded soldiers lounging in front of the barracks, and stopped with a grand flourish in front of the hotel. Catalina turned to Over, her lips still parted, her eyes glittering. “That is the first time I have been really happy since I left home,” she announced, ignoring her precipitately descending relatives. “I feel young again, and I’ve felt as old as the hills ever since I’ve been in Europe. I’ll like you forever because you approve of me, and I haven’t seen that expression on anybody’s face for months.” “Oh, I approve of you!” said the Englishman, laughing.