Me, I have braided the riatas and bridles since I was so high." From the height of his measuring hand from the beaten clay beneath the oak, he proclaimed himself an infant prodigy; but Jack did not happen to be looking at him and so remained unamazed.
"Well, you ought to know something about them.

Get the best riata you can find.

I leave it to your judgment." "Si, Senor.

To-morrow I will bring them to you." He hesitated, his eyes dwelling curiously upon the coppery hair of this stranger, whose presence he was not quite sure that he did not resent vaguely.

Dade he had come to accept as a man whose innate kindliness, which was as much a part of him as the blood in his veins, wiped out any stain of alien birth; but this blue-eyed one--"The senor himself is perhaps a judge of riatas ?" he insinuated, politely veiling the quick jealousy of his nature.
"We-el-l--you bring me one ready to fall all to pieces, and I reckon I could tell it was poor, after it had stranded." Dade laughed.