LITMIR.BIZ

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style, greeted sundry acquaintances, and then drew aside. Don Vincente was the owner of Las Flores rancho, which bounded Del Monte on the north.

      But by now the people began rising here and there from the tables. The girls ceased to flit to and fro, and seated themselves at a side table. This was the chance for which some of the young men had waited; and they hastened to supply the damsels with food and drink. Many of the diners straggled down from the knoll in the direction of the whitewashed corrals where the vaqueros were already beginning the sports. Some of the younger couples were trying to dance to the music of the guitars. Couples strayed away up the cañon.

      Kenneth was one of the first at the corrals. He had never seen cowboy games, and proved most eager. The idea did not at all meet with the approval of his companions. The girls had no liking to expose their fresh toilettes to the dust, nor their fresh complexions to the burning sun and heat; the two young men pretended to be bored with such things. They preferred to remain in the shade with the guitar, so they trailed along back to the lawn under the Cathedral Oaks with the rest of the Colonel's "quality" guests. The Colonel himself went to the corrals. It was part of his hospitable duty to show there, he told Mrs. Judge Crosby with apparent regret; and then he ​scuttled away like a dear old boy afraid that already he might have missed something. He made his way through the dense packed crowd, shaking a hand here and there, exchanging remarks and greetings.

      "What has been done, Manuelo?" he asked in Spanish, when he had gained the fairway outside the ropes where a little group on foot were gathered. The audience were crowded along the lines, they perched on the top rails of all the corrals, and some of the youngest and most active had climbed to the roofs. Inside the ropes, beside the officials mentioned, lounged a number of horsemen, vaqueros, and cowboys awaiting their turns at the games. The Spaniards were dressed in old-time costumes exhumed for the occasion from brass-studded heirloom, chests, with the high-crowned hat heavy with silver; the short jacket and sash; the wide-legged pantaloons bound at the knee and split down the calf; the soft leather boots; the heavy silver inlaid spurs. The American cowboys were not so picturesque in their own persons; but they vied with the others in perfection of equipment. All of the heavy stock saddles were rich with carving; many of them had silver corners, or even silver pommels or cantles. They carried braided rawhide riatas; their horses champed with relish the copper rollers of spade bits whose broad sides were solid engraved silver; their bridles were of cunningly braided and knotted rawhide or horsehair coloured and woven in patterns. The riders sat with graceful ease far to one side, elbow on knee, smoking brown paper cigarettes.

      "Nothing yet has been done." Manuelo answered the Colonel's question reproachfully. "It could not be thought of that we should begin without your presence, señor."

      "That is good! that is good!" cried the Colonel, delighted. "Well, here I am. Let us start!"

      "Will the señor ride Caliente and judge the games?"

      "The señor will not," rejoined the Colonel emphatically. "You are a lazy fellow, Manuelo. I shall watch the games, and you will act as judge."

      "It is good," agreed Manuelo, and swung himself into the saddle of a magnificent pinto standing near.

      The Colonel retreated to the corral fence, already as full as a ​tree of blackbirds. However, at his approach a place magically became vacant, while all the bystanders stoutly maintained that that particular point had never had an occupant but had accidentally remained empty for the Colonel. So after some talk he mounted the fence and sat there, his heels hooked over a rail, his long legs tucked up, his black frock coat dangling, his hat on the back of his head, his fine old face alight with enthusiasm.

      Kenneth Boyd was also atop the corrals, and he happened to be next the Colonel. On his other side perched a long-legged demure child dressed in a bright dress. She looked to be about twelve or thirteen years old, which was of course beneath the particular notice of a man like Kenneth. He glanced at her, thought she was rather an attractive looking kid, and gave his attention to his surroundings.

      By now the sun was getting strong. Dust rose in the heated air. People were packed in close together. The sun and the crowding and the food and the red wine combined to turn faces red, to wilt collars and starched toilets; but nobody minded.

      "Great fun, great fun, my boy!" cried the Colonel to Kenneth, whom of course he did not remember. "Hello, Puss!" he cried across at the child. "Why aren't you out there on the palomino?"

      "I am getting much too big for such things," replied Daphne, composedly.

      "So, ho!" cried the Colonel, delighted. "Getting to be a young lady, are we? Do you know," he said to Kenneth, "this very grown-up young person is one of the best riders we have. This is the first merienda for two years at which she has not ridden. The people will shout for you, niña," he told Daphne.

      "They will not get me," she replied.

      Kenneth, thus led by this cross conversation to observe again his neighbour, smiled upon her the smile appropriate from one of his age and station.

      "I should have liked very much to see you ride," he said kindly. "Have you a pony of your own?"

      But she did not reply. Kenneth looked at her sharply. He could not for a moment determine whether this chit had de​liberately ignored him or whether her whole interest was centred on a group of horsemen at which she seemed to be gazing.

      "Now you will see the California sports as they were in the old days," the Colonel was saying. "See, there they go now!"

      The horsemen had come to life and were swooping gracefully back and forth like swallows. It was an exhibition only. Men "turned on a ten cent piece"; charged at full speed only to pull to a stand in a plunge and a slide; reined their horses to the perpendicular and half-turned in mid air; described figure eights at full speed. It was a gay scene of animation. Then little by little the movement died, leaving the horsemen grouped at one end of the course.

      Manuelo now rode to a middle point directing the activities of two men with shovels. They dug a small hole and buried something mysterious in the loosened light earth.

      "Why it's a chicken!" cried Kenneth.

      The fowl had been buried all but its head, which was extended anxiously in a most comical manner. But now one of the riders detached himself from the others and came flying down the course at full speed. When within ten feet of the buried chicken he seized his saddle horn with his left hand and leaned from the saddle in a long graceful dipping swoop. The long spur slid up to the cantle and clung there. With his right hand he reached for the neck of the half buried fowl. But at the last instant, as he left the saddle, his horse shied ever so slightly away from that suspicious object on the ground. Jose's clutching fingers missed by inches, and he swept grandly by and lightly up into his saddle again empty handed.

      "That looks to be quite a trick, anyhow," observed Kenneth with respect.

      "It's a knack," agreed the Colonel, "a beginner is likely to go off on his head. Isn't he, Puss?"

      "Can you do that?" Kenneth asked.

      "Of course," replied Daphne blandly. "Can't you?"

      Kenneth was spared the necessity of reply. Another contestant had managed to illustrate the Colonel's remark, and had gone off on his head; a little too long a reach, a trifle too much weight on the bent knee, the least possible hesitation in the ​pendulum-like swoop. His misfortune was greeted by laughter and ironic cheers. Several mounted men shook loose their riatas and loped away after his horse.

      But the chicken's good luck was at an end. The next contestant caught it by the neck and rode down the course swinging it triumphantly.

      "That is what I do not like," said Daphne, unexpectedly. "Poor chicken."

      "The shock breaks its neck," said the Colonel, "and José will have gallina to-night."

      "I know: but I do not like it," insisted Daphne.

      The next event should have pleased her better. Here horsemen armed with long and slender lances tilted

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