She wanted to beg the pretty Senora Simpson to come and stay with them
until the weather cleared and the cabin was finished. But more than
that she wanted to punish Senor Jack Allen for laughing when she tried
to speak the Americano sentence he had taught her the night before,
and got it all backwards. Senor Jack would be frightened, perhaps,
when he learned that she had ridden away alone upon Tejon; he would
ride after her--perhaps. And she would not talk to him when he found
her, but would be absolutely implacable in her displeasure, so that he
would be speedily reduced to the most abject humility.
Diego, when she ran stealthily across the patio, her riding-habit
flapping about her feet in the wind, looked at her uneasily as if he
would like to remonstrate; but being a mere peon, he bent silently
and held his calloused, brown palm for the senorita's foot; reverently
straightened the flapping skirt when she was mounted, and sent a hasty
prayer to whatever saint might be counted upon to watch most carefully
over a foolish little Spanish girl.
"An evil spirit is in the caballo to-day," Diego finally ventured to
inform his mistress gravely. "For a week he has not felt the weight
of saddle, and he loves not the trees which sway and sing, or the wind
whistling in his ears."
"And for that he pleases me much," retorted the senorita, and touched
Tejon with her spurred heel, so that he came near upsetting Diego with
the lunge he gave.
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