With a quick, impatient gesture he threw his cigarette into the coals, kicked viciously a lazily smoking brand which sent up a little blaze and a spurt of sparks that died almost immediately to dull coals again.
"Love's like that," he muttered pessimistically, standing up and stretching his arms mechanically. "And the winner loses in the end; maybe not always, but he will in this case. Poor old Jack! After all, she ain't worth it. If she was—" His chin went down for a minute or two, while he stared again at the fire. "If she was, I'd—But she ain't. Love's worth—what is love worth, anyway?"
He did not answer the question with any degree of positiveness, and he went to bed wishing that he had never seen the valley of Santa Clara.
CHAPTER XIX
ANTICIPATION
To give a clear picture of the preparations for that fiesta, one should be able to draw with strokes as swift as the horses that galloped up and down the valley at the behest of riders whose minds titillated with whatever phase of the fiesta appealed to them most; and paint with colors as vivid as were the dreams of the women, from the peonas in the huts to the señoritas and señoras murmuring behind the shelter of their vines.
One would need tell of those who went boldly into the mountains to find a grizzly bear and bring it alive and unhurt to the pen, which the peons, with feverish zeal and much chattering amongst themselves, were building close beside the smallest corral.
A great story it would make—the tale of that hunt! A man came back from it with a forearm torn sickeningly, to show how brave he had been. And the bear came also—a great, gaunt she-bear with two cubs whimpering beside her in the cage, and in her eyes a sullen hunger for the giant redwoods that stood so straight and strong together upon the steep slopes while they sang crooningly the songs she knew of old, and a glowing hatred for her captors.
A story that would make! A story in which Jerry Simpson and Tige played valiant part and bore more than their share of the danger, and became heroes to those who went with them.