"I'll tell Jack," he said, as he started for the stables. "I guess
he'll do it, all right."
CHAPTER XIII
BILL WILSON GOES VISITING
"I Don't know what you've been doing to Jose Pacheco, lately," was
Dade's way of broaching the subject, "but Don Andres asked me to
'persuade' you not to go on rodeo, on account of some trouble between
you and Jose."
"He wants my scalp, is all," Jack explained easily, picking burrs from
the fringe of his sash--burrs he had gotten when he ran a race with
Teresita from the farther side of the orchard to the spring, a short
time before. "Valencia told me--and he got it from Manuel--that Jose is
right on the warpath. If it wasn't for his being laid up--"
"Oh, I know. You'd like to go over and have it out with him. But you
can't. The Pachecos and the Picardos are almost like one family. I don't
suppose Jose ever stayed away from here so long since he was a baby, as
he has since we came. It's bad enough to keep old friends away, without
mixing up a quarrel. Have you seen Jose lately? Don Andres seemed to
think so, but I told him you'd have said something about it to me if
you had."
"I met him in the trail, a week or so ago," Jack admitted with manifest
reluctance. "He wasn't overly friendly, but there wasn't any real
trouble, if that's what you're afraid of." He looked sidelong at the
other, saw the hurt in Dade's eyes at this evidence of the constraint
growing intangibly between them, and laughed defiantly.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151