Meantime, those spectators munched sweets and gossiped,
smoked cigarettes and gossiped; sweltered under the glare of the sun and
gossiped; and always they talked of the gringos, who had come one
hundred strong and never a woman among them; one hundred strong, and
every man of them dangling pistols at his hips--pistols that could shoot
six times before they must be reloaded, and shoot with marvelous
exactness of aim at that; one hundred strong, and every one of the
hundred making bets that the gringo with the red-brown hair would win
the medalla oro from Don Jose, who three times had fought and kept it
flashing on his breast, so that now no vaquero dared lift eyes to it!
Truly, those gringos were a mad people, said the gossips. They would
see the blue-eyed one flung dead upon the ground, and then--would the
gringos want to fight? Knives were instinctively loosened under sashes
when the owners talked of the possibility. Knives are swift and keen,
but those guns that could shoot six times with one loading--Gossip
preferred to dwell greedily upon the details of the quarrel between the
young Don Jose and his gringo rival.
There were whispers also of a quarrel between the senorita and her
gringo lover, and it was said that the young senorita prayed last night
that Jose would win. But there were other whispers than that: One, that
the maid of the senorita had been seen to give a rose and a written
message into the hands of the Senor Allen, not an hour ago; and had gone
singing to her mistress again, and smiling while she sang.
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