"Is there no way, Senor, in which you might avert this trouble? Truly it
saddens me to think of it, for Jose has been as my own son. His mother
and I were as twin sisters, Senor, and his mother prayed me to watch
over him when she had gone. 'Si, madre mia' would he tell me, when I
gave him the good counsel. And now he comes no more, and he wants to
fight the duelo! Is there no way, Senor?"
The hardness left Jack's lips but not his eyes, while he looked from her
to the don, smoking imperturbably his cigar beside her.
"There is no way, Senora, except for a coward. I have done what I could;
I know that Jose's skill is great with riatas, and the choice was mine.
I might have said pistols," he reminded her gently, but with meaning.
The plump hands of the senora went betrayingly into the air and her
earrings tinkled with the horror that shook her cushiony person. "Not
pistols! No, no--for then Jose would surely be killed! Gracias, Senor!
With riatas my Jose can surely give good account of himself. Three times
has he won the medalla oro in fair contest. He is a wizard with the
rawhide. Myself, I have wept with pride to see him throw it at the
fiestas--"
"Mother mine, Margarita would have you come at once," the senorita
interrupted her. "Little Francisco has burned his legs with hot water,
and Margarita thinks that your poultice--"
With twittering exclamations of dismay over the, accident the two women
hurried away to minister to the burned legs of Francisco, and Jack rose
and flung away his cigarette.
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