Beyond the pistol shot and the girl voice crying well
done, the audience was quiet, waiting.
Then Jose, sitting spent upon his horse, lifted a hand that shook
weakly. His fingers fumbled at his breast, and he held out the shining
medal of gold--the medal with diamonds prisoning the sunlight so that
the trinket flashed in his hand.
"Senor," he said huskily, "the medalla--it is yours."
Jack looked at him; looked at the bent faces of the frowning judges;
looked up at Teresita, watching the two with red lips parted and breath
coming quickly; looked again queerly at Jose, gasping still, and holding
out to him the medalla oro. Jack did a good deal of thinking in a very
short space of time.
"I don't want your medal," he said. "Let some Californian fight you for
it, if he likes. That is not for a gringo."
Perhaps there was a shade of the theatrical element in his speech and
his manner, but he was perfectly innocent of any such intention; and the
people before him were nothing if not dramatic. He got his response in
the bravos and the applause that followed the silence of sheer
amazement. "Gracias!" they cried, in their impulsive appreciation of his
generosity.
"The horse which you offered for a prize, Don Andres, I will claim,"
Jack went on, when he could be heard--and he did not wait long, for
short-lived indeed is the applause given to an alien. "And I will ride
him as soon as you desire.
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