He reined in indignantly and stood up in his stirrups.

Nothing was to be seen above the level of the grain.

Beneath him the trailing riata had as noiselessly vanished as if it had been indeed a gliding snake.

Had he been the victim of a practical joke, or of the blunder of some stupid vacquero?
For he made no doubt that it was the lasso of one of the performers he had watched that afternoon.

But his preoccupied mind did not dwell long upon it, and by the time he had reached the wall of the old garden, the incident was forgotten..