“Have mercy,” she said.  “I am alone.  I brought no one, because I have that to tell you which no one else must hear.”

He stepped back and looked at the ground.

“Listen,” she said.  “I could not wait until to-morrow, because a moment lost might mean—­might mean the ruin of your career, and you say your envoy has not gone yet.  Just now—­I will tell you the other first.  Mother of God! that I should betray my brother to my enemy!  But it seems to me right, because you placed your confidence in me, and I should feel that I betrayed you if I did not warn you.  I do not know—­oh, Mary!—­I do not know—­but this seems to me right.  The other night my brother came to me and asked me—­ay! do not look at me—­to marry you, that you would balk his ambition no further.  He wishes to go as diputado to Mexico, and he knows that you will not let him.  I thought my brain would crack,—­an Iturbi y Moncada!—­I made him no answer,—­there was no answer to a demand like that,—­and he went from me in a fury, vowing vengeance upon you.  To-night, a few moments ago, he whispered to me that he knew of your plans, your intentions regarding the Americans:  he had overheard a conversation between you and Alvarado.  He says that he will send letters to Mexico to-morrow, warning the government against you.  Then their suspicions will be roused, and they will inquire—­Ay, Mary!”

Estenega brought his teeth together.  “God!” he exclaimed.

She saw that he had forgotten her.  She turned and went back more swiftly than she had come.

Estenega was a man whose resources never failed him.  He returned to the house and asked Reinaldo to smoke a cigarito and drink a bottle of wine in his room.  Then, without a promise or a compromising word, he so flattered that shallow youth, so allured his ambition and pampered his vanity and watered his hopes, that fear and hatred wondered at their existence, closed their eyes, and went to sleep.  Reinaldo poured forth his aspirations, which under the influence of the truth-provoking vine proved to be an honest yearning for the pleasures of Mexico.  As he rose to go he threw his arm about Estenega’s neck.

“Ay! my friend! my friend!” he cried, “thou art all-powerful.  Thou alone canst give me what I want.”

“Why did you never ask me for what you wanted?” asked Estenega.  And he thought, “If it were not for Her, you would be on your way to Los Angeles to-night under charge of high treason.  I would not have taken this much trouble with you.”

XXIV.

A rodeo was held the next day,—­the last of the festivities;—­Don Guillermo taking advantage of the gathering of the rancheros.  It was to take place on the Cerros Rancho, which adjoined the Rancho de las Rocas.  We went early, most of us dismounting and taking to the platform on one side of the circular rodeo-ground.  The vaqueros were already galloping over the hills, shouting and screaming to the cattle, who ran to them like dogs; soon a herd came rushing down into the circle, where they were thrown down and branded, the stray cattle belonging to neighbors separated and corralled.  This happened again and again, the interest and excitement growing with each round-up.