Chapter 23 - Page 2

you've been off the range for two years, just about; and you've had a little over three weeks to make up for that lost practice." His eyes caught their two reflections in the glass, and something in Jack's made him smile ruefully. "Kick me good," he advised. "I need it. I've got nerves worse than any old woman. I know you'll come out on top. You always do. But--what'n hell made you say riatas?"

"What'n hell made you brag about me to Manuel?" Jack came back instantly, and was sorry for it when he saw how Dade winced. "Honest, I'm not a bit scared. I know what I can do, and I'm not worrying."

"You are. I never saw you so queer as you have been since I came back. You're no more like yourself than--"

"Well--but it ain't the duel altogether." Jack hesitated. "Say, Dade! Did--er--did Teresita take in all the sports? Bull fight and all?"

"Yes. She and that friend of hers from the Mission were in the front row having the time of their lives. Is that talk true about--" Dade eyed him sharply.

"You go on and get things ready. In five minutes I'll expect to make my little bow to Fate."

Outside in the sunshine, men waited and clamored greedily for more excitement. All day they had waited for the duel, at most merely appeased by the other sports; and now, with José actually among them, and with the wine they had drunk to heat their blood and the mob-psychology working its will of them, they were scarce human, but rather a tremendous battle beast personified by dark, eager faces and tongues that wagged continually and with prejudice.

A group of spur-jingling vaqueros, chosen because of their well-broken mounts, rode out in front of the adobe corral and the expectant audience, halted and dispersed to their various stations as directed by Dade, clear-voiced, steady of glance, unemotional, as if he were in charge of a bit of work from habit gone stale.

He might confess to "nerves" in private; in public, there were men who marveled at his calm.

Riatas uncoiled and with each end fastened to a saddle horn, the vaqueros filed out from the corral in two straight lines, with Dade and Valencia to lead the way. When they were placed to Dade's liking, the riatas fenced in a rectangle two hundred yards long, and one-third that distance across. At each riata length, all down the line, a vaquero sat quiet upon his horse, a living fence-post holding the riata fence tight and straight. Down the middle of the arena thus formed easily with definite boundaries, peons were stretching, upon forked stakes, a rope spliced to reach the whole six hundred feet--save that a space of fifty feet was left open at each end so that the combatants might, upon occasion, change sides easily.

Twice Dade paced the width of the area to make sure that the dividing line marked the