(beautiful fifteen), Perhaps fairer. Do not suppose that the dark lining on her lip damages the feminine expression of her face. Rather does it add to its attractiveness. Accustomed to the glowing complexion of the Saxon blonde, you may at first sight deem it a deformity. Do not so p.r.o.nounce, till you have looked again. A second glance, and--my word for it--you will modify your opinion. A third will do away with your indifference; a fourth change it to admiration!

Continue the scrutiny, and it will end in your becoming convinced: that a woman wearing a moustache--young, beautiful, and brunette--is one of the grandest sights which a beneficent Nature offers to the eye of man.

It is presented in the person of Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos. If there is anything unfeminine in her face, it is not this; though it may strengthen a wild, almost fierce, expression, at times discernible, when her white teeth gleam conspicuously under the sable shadow of the "bigot.i.te."

Even then is she beautiful; but, like that of the female jaguar, 'tis a beauty that inspires fear rather than affection.

At all times it is a countenance that bespeaks for its owner the possession of mental attributes not ordinarily bestowed upon her s.e.x.

Firmness, determination, courage--carried to the extreme of reckless daring--are all legible in its lines. In those cunningly-carved features, slight, sweet, and delicate, there is no sign of fainting or fear. The crimson that has struggled through the brown skin of her cheeks would scarce forsake them in the teeth of the deadliest danger.

She is riding alone, through the timbered bottom of the Leona. There is a house not far off; but she is leaving it behind her. It is the hacienda of her uncle, Don Silvio Martinez, from the portals of which she has late issued forth.

She sits in her saddle as firmly as the skin that covers it. It is a spirited horse, and has the habit of showing it by his prancing paces.

But you have no fear for the rider: you are satisfied of her power to control him.

A light lazo, suited to her strength, is suspended from the saddle-bow.

Its careful coiling shows that it is never neglected. This almost a.s.sures you, that she understands how to use it. She does--can throw it, with the skill of a mustanger.

The accomplishment is one of her conceits; a part of the idiosyncrasy already acknowledged.

She is riding along a road--not the public one that follows the direction of the river. It is a private way leading from the hacienda of her uncle, running into the former near the summit of a hill--the hill itself being only the bluff that abuts upon the bottom lands of the Leona.

She ascends the sloping path--steep enough to try the breathing of her steed. She reaches the crest of the ridge, along which trends the road belonging to everybody.

She reins up; though not to give her horse an opportunity of resting.

She has halted, because of having reached the point where her excursion is to terminate.

There is an opening on one side of the road, of circular shape, and having a superficies of some two or three acres. It is gra.s.s-covered and treeless--a prairie in _petto_. It is surrounded by the chapparal forest--very different from the bottom timber out of which she has just emerged. On all sides is the enclosing thicket of spinous plants, broken only by the embouchures of three paths, their triple openings scarce perceptible from the middle of the glade.

Near its centre she has pulled up, patting her horse upon the neck to keep him quiet. It is not much needed. The scaling of the "cuesta" has done that for him. He has no inclination either to go on, or tramp impatiently in his place.

"I am before the hour of appointment," mutters she, drawing a gold watch from under her serape, "if, indeed, I should expect him at all. He may not come? G.o.d grant that he be able!

"I am trembling! Or is it the breathing of the horse? _Valga me Dios_, no! 'Tis my own poor nerves!

"I never felt so before! Is it fear? I suppose it is.

"'Tis strange though--to fear the man I love--the only one I over have loved: for it could not have been love I had for Don Miguel. A girl's fancy. Fortunate for me to have got cured of it! Fortunate my discovering him to be a coward. That disenchanted me--quite dispelled the romantic dream in which he was the foremost figure. Thank my good stars, for the disenchantment; for now I hate him, now that I hear he has grown--_Santissima_! can it be true that he has become--a--a _salteador_?

"And yet I should have no fear of meeting him--not even in this lone spot!

"_Ay de mi_! Fearing the man I love, whom I believe to be of kind, n.o.ble nature--and having no dread of him I hate, and know to be cruel and remorseless! 'Tis strange--incomprehensible!

"No--there is nothing strange in it. I tremble not from any thought of danger--only the danger of not being beloved. That is why I now shiver in my saddle--why I have not had one night of tranquil sleep since my deliverance from those drunken savages.

"I have never told _him_ of this; nor do I know how he may receive the confession. It must, and shall be made. I can endure the uncertainty no longer. In preference I choose despair--death, if my hopes deceive me!

"Ha! There is a hoof stroke! A horse comes down the road! It is his?

Yes. I see glancing through the trees the bright hues of our national costume. He delights to wear it. No wonder; it so becomes him!

"_Santa Virgin_! I'm under a serape, with a sombrero on my head. He'll mistake me for a man! Off, ye ugly disguises, and let me seem what I am--a woman."

Scarce quicker could be the transformation in a pantomime. The casting off the serape reveals a form that Hebe might have envied; the removal of the hat, a head that would have inspired the chisel of Canova!

A splendid picture is exhibited in that solitary glade; worthy of being framed, by its bordering of spinous trees, whose hirsute arms seem stretched out to protect it.

A horse of symmetrical shape, half backed upon his haunches, with nostrils spread to the sky, and tail sweeping the ground; on his back one whose aspect and att.i.tude suggest a commingling of grand, though somewhat incongruous ideas, uniting to form a picture, statuesque as beautiful.

The _pose_ of the rider is perfect. Half sitting in the saddle, half standing upon the stirrup, every undulation of her form is displayed-- the limbs just enough relaxed to show that she is a woman.

Notwithstanding what she has said, on her face there is no fear--at least no sign to betray it. There is no quivering lip--no blanching of the cheeks.

The expression is altogether different. It is a look of love--couched under a proud confidence, such as that with which the she-eagle awaits the wooing of her mate.

You may deem the picture overdrawn--perhaps p.r.o.nounce it unfeminine.

And yet it is a copy from real life--true as I can remember it; and more than once had I the opportunity to fix it in my memory.

The att.i.tude is altered, and with the suddenness of a _coup d'eclair_; the change being caused by recognition of the horseman who comes galloping into the glade. The shine of the gold-laced vestments had misled her. They are worn not by Maurice Gerald, but by Miguel Diaz!

Bright looks become black. From her firm seat in the saddle she subsides into an att.i.tude of listlessness--despairing rather than indifferent; and the sound that escapes her lips, as for an instant they part over her pearl-like teeth, is less a sigh than an exclamation of chagrin.

There is no sign of fear in the altered att.i.tude--only disappointment, dashed with defiance.

El Coyote speaks first.

"_H'la! S'norita_, who'd have expected to find your ladyship in this lonely place--wasting your sweetness on the th.o.r.n.y chapparal?"

"In what way can it concern you, Don Miguel Diaz?"

"Absurd question, S'norita! You know it can, and does; and the reason why. You well know how madly I love you. Fool was I to confess it, and acknowledge myself your slave. 'Twas that that cooled you so quickly."

"You are mistaken, Senor. I never told you I loved you. If I did admire your feats of horsemanship, and said so, you had no right to construe it as you've done. I meant no more than that I admired _them_--not you. 'Tis three years ago. I was a girl then, of an age when such things have a fascination for our s.e.x--when we are foolish enough to be caught by personal accomplishments rather than moral attributes. I am now a woman. All that is changed, as--it ought to be."

"_Carrai_! Why did you fill me with false hopes? On the day of the _herradero_, when I conquered the fiercest bull and tamed the wildest horse in your father's herds--a horse not one of his _vaqueros_ dared so much as lay hands upon--on that day you smiled--ay, looked love upon me.

You need not deny it, Dona Isidora! I had experience, and could read the expression--could tell your thoughts, as they were then. They are changed, and why? Because I was conquered by your charms, or rather because I was the silly fool to acknowledge it; and you, like all women, once you had won and knew it, no longer cared for your conquest. It is true, S'norita; it is true."

"It is not, Don Miguel Diaz. I never gave you word or sign to say that I loved, or thought of you otherwise than as an accomplished cavalier.

You appeared so then--perhaps were so. What are you now? You know what's said of you, both here and on the Rio Grande!"

"I scorn to reply to calumny--whether it proceeds from false friends or lying enemies. I have come here to seek explanations, not to give them."

"Prom whom?"

"Prom your sweet self, Dona Isidora."

"You are presumptive, Don Miguel Diaz! Think, Senor, to whom you are addressing yourself. Remember, I am the daughter of--"

"One of the proudest _Haciendados_ in Tamaulipas, and niece to one of the proudest in Texas. I have thought of all that; and thought too that I was once a haciendado myself and am now only a hunter of horses.