But there was no third name offered in the riata contest for which
Solano was announced as a prize. All up and down the valley; at the
ranches, on the trails when men met and stopped to talk awhile, and
around the camp-fires of the rodeo they talked of it; and many bets
would have been laid upon the outcome, had not all men been of one mind.
When Jose was not present, or Dade, or the more outspoken of the Picardo
vaqueros, always they spoke of it as the duelo riata, and took it for
granted that it would be fought to the death. Thus are secrets kept from
men who can read from their own natures the truth! The men of Santa
Clara lowered lids and smiled whenever they spoke of it as a contest,
for as a duel had the word first gone forth from the exultant lips of
Manuel; as a duel would it still remain among themselves, spite of the
fiesta and the prize that was offered, and the reiteration that it was
but sport.
One should picture the whole valley for the background; a sunken
paradise of greenery, splotched with color, made alive with bird-songs
and racing cloud-shadows on the grass; with the wooded slopes of the
Santa Cruz mountains closing in upon the west and sheltering it from the
sweeping winds from off the ocean, and the grassy hills rising high and
rugged on the east, giving rich pasturage to the cattle and all the wild
things that fed there.
When it was complete--that picture--then might one weep to be there in
the midst of it all! For there would be much laughter, and the
love-making would make young pulses beat fast to think upon.
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