Ah, Senor!--Jose's skill is great; and Manuel swears that now he will truly fight like a demon, because the prayers of the senorita go with Jose.

Her glove she sent him for a token--Manuel swears that it is so, and a message that he is to kill thee, Senor!" "But my riata ?" To Diego's amazement, his blue-eyed god seemed not in the least disturbed, either by plot or gossip.
"Ah, the riata! Last night I greased it well, Senor, so that to-day it would be soft.

And this morning at daybreak I stretched it here in the stall and rubbed it until it shone.

Now it is here, Senor, where no knife-point can steal into it and cunningly cut the strands that are hidden, so that the senor would not observe and would place faith upon it and be betrayed." Diego lifted his loose, linen shirt and disclosed the riata coiled about his middle.
The eyes of his god, when they rested upon the brown body wrapped round and round with the rawhide on which his life would later hang, were softer than they had been since he had craved the kiss that had been denied him, many hours before.

It was only the blind worship and the loyalty of a peon whose feet were bare, whose hands were calloused with labor, whose face was seamed with the harshness of his serfdom.