The Splendid Idle Forties | Page 2

But the stranger is so handsome! Dios de mi vida! his eyes are like dark blue stars. And he is so cold! He alone--he seems not to care. Madre de Dios! Madre de Dios! he wins again! No! no! no! Yes! Ay! yi! yi! B-r-a-v-o!"
Guido Caba?ares dug his spurs into his horse and dashed to the head of the field, where Don Vicente sat at the left of General Castro. He was followed hotly by several friends, sympathetic and indignant. As he rode, he tore off his serape and flung it to the ground; even his silk riding-clothes sat heavily upon his fury. Don Vicente smiled, and rode forward to meet him.
"At your service, se?or," he said, lifting his sombrero.
"Take your mustangs back to Los Angeles!" cried Don Guido, beside himself with rage, the politeness and dignity of his race routed by passion. "Why do you bring your hideous brutes here to shame me in the eyes of Monterey? Why--"
"Yes! Why? Why?" demanded his friends, surrounding De la Vega. "This is not the humiliation of a man, but of the North by the accursed South! You even would take our capital from us! Los Angeles, the capital of the Californias!"
"What have politics to do with horse-racing?" asked De la Vega, coldly. "Other strangers have brought their horses to your field, I suppose."
"Yes, but they have not won. They have not been from the South."
By this time almost every caballero on the field was wheeling about De la Vega. Some felt with Caba?ares, others rejoiced in his defeat, but all resented the victory of the South over the North.
"Will you run again?" demanded Caba?ares.
"Certainly. Do you think of putting your knife into my neck?"
Caba?ares drew back, somewhat abashed, the indifference of the other sputtering like water on his passion.
"It is not a matter for blood," he said sulkily; "but the head is hot and words are quick when horses run neck to neck. And, by the Mother of God, you shall not have the last race. My best horse has not run. Viva El Rayo!"
"Viva El Rayo!" shouted the caballeros.
"And let the race be between you two alone," cried one. "The North or the South! Los Angeles or Monterey! It will be the race of our life."
"The North or the South!" cried the caballeros, wheeling and galloping across the field to the do?as. "Twenty leagues to a real for Guido Caba?ares."
"What a pity that Ysabel is not here!" said Do?a Modeste Castro to Pio Pico. "How those green eyes of hers would flash to-day!"
"She would not come," said the Governor. "She said she was tired of the race."
"Of whom do you speak?" asked De la Vega, who had rejoined them.
"Of Ysabel Herrera, La Favorita of Monterey," answered Pio Pico. "The most beautiful woman in the Californias, since Chonita Iturbi y Moncada, my Vicente. It is at her uncle's that I stay. You have heard me speak of my old friend; and surely you have heard of her."
"Ay!" said De la Vega. "I have heard of her."
"Viva El Rayo!"
"Ay, the ugly brute!"
"What name? Vitriolo? Mother of God! Diablo or Demonio would suit him better. He looks as if he had been bred in hell. He will not stand the quirto; and El Rayo is more lightly built. We shall beat by a dozen lengths."
The two vaqueros who were to ride the horses had stripped to their soft linen shirts and black velvet trousers, cast aside their sombreros, and bound their heads with tightly knotted handkerchiefs. Their spurs were fastened to bare brown heels; the cruel quirto was in the hand of each; they rode barebacked, winding their wiry legs in and out of a horse-hair rope encircling the body of the animal. As they slowly passed the crowd on their way to the starting-point at the lower end of the field, and listened to the rattling fire of wagers and comments, they looked defiant, and alive to the importance of the coming event.
El Rayo shone like burnished copper, his silver mane and tail glittering as if powdered with diamond-dust. He was long and graceful of body, thin of flank, slender of leg. With arched neck and flashing eyes, he walked with the pride of one who was aware of the admiration he excited.
Vitriolo was black and powerful. His long neck fitted into well-placed shoulders. He had great depth of girth, immense length from shoulder-points to hips, big cannon-bones, and elastic pasterns. There was neither amiability nor pride in his mien; rather a sullen sense of brute power, such as may have belonged to the knights of the Middle Ages. Now and again he curled his lips away from the bit and laid his ears back as if he intended to eat of the elegant Beau Brummel stepping so daintily beside him. Of