Me, I ride to find for-sure." Valencia dropped his match, and leaned negligently from the saddle and picked it out of the grass, his eyes stealing a look at the stranger as he came up.
"Good work," commented Jack under his breath to Dade.

But Valencia's ears were keen for praise; he heard, and from that moment he was Jack's friend.
"I borrowed your saddle, Valencia," Jack announced, meaning to promise a speedy return of it.
"Not my saddle; yours and mine, amigo," amended Valencia quite simply and sincerely.

"Mine, she's yours also.

You keep him." While he smoked the little, corn-husk cigarette, he eyed with admiration the copper-red hair upon which Manuel had looked with disfavor.
Before they rode on and left him, his friendliness had stamped an agreeable impression upon Jack's consciousness.

He looked back approvingly at the sombreroed head bobbing along behind a clump of young manzanita just making ready to bloom daintily.
"I like that vaquero," he stated emphatically.