resentful, spiteful, in its reluctance to obey rein and spur. It reared vainly in what appeared to be a determined effort to unseat the rider, and shied at the whipping-post as if some strange thing had sprung suddenly from the ground.
Roberto curbed the horse with unsparing hand, parading it back and forth across the courtyard with eye tugned always to the patio, his purpose as plain as if a herald had proclaimed it.
Roberto was dressed in the subdued lavishness which was a peculiar art with him, an art distinguishing him generally in gatherings since his return home, where the inclination of youth was for barbaric color without harmony or restraint. He wore a green jacket ornamented with silver braid, a sash of silver gray, its tasseled ends streaming a foot behind him when he rode. Henderson noted that he wore thrust into this belt the two Yankee pistols of the latest Massachusetts make which he had brought home from the capital.
When Roberto rode toward Don Felipe's end of the warehouse, he passed out of Henderson's sight; when he returned, he crossed the courtyard sometimes within a rod of where the half-free prisoner stood. While this parade was going on the people of the ranch, who appeared to have been given liberty to witness Don Roberto's valor that afternoon, began to gather along the face of the warehouse wall.
Some of these men and women had come to know Henderson well during the latter weeks of his
