"Where are they?" asked Delmonte and Montfort in one breath.
The boy pointed down the road; raised his hand to salute, and fell back, dead.
"NOW AGAIN IT WAS A RIDE FOR LIFE."
Now again it was a ride for life—not their own life this time. Rita had clean forgotten herself. The thought of her faithful friend and servant in the hands of the merciless Spaniards turned her quick blood to fire. She galloped steadily, her eyes fixed on the cloud of dust only a few hundred yards ahead of them, which told where the enemy was galloping, too.
Jim Montfort glanced at her, and nodded to himself. "She'll do!" he said in his beard. "Montfort grit's good grit, and she's got it. This would be nuts to little Peggy."
Jack Delmonte, too, looked more than once at the slender figure riding so lightly between him and the big rough rider. How beautiful she was! He had not realised half how beautiful till now. What nerve! what steadiness! It might be the Reina de Cuba, Donna Hernandez herself, riding to victory.
He felt an unreasonable jealousy of "Cousin Jim." Half—nay! a quarter of an hour ago, she was riding with him; there were only they two in the world, they and Aquila, poor Aquila,—who had given his life for theirs. She was his comrade then, his charge, his—and now she was Miss Montfort, a young lady of fortune and position, under charge of her cousin, a Yankee captain of rough riders; and he, Jack Delmonte, was—nothing in particular.
As he was thinking these thoughts, Rita chanced to turn her head, and met his gaze fixed earnestly upon her. She blushed suddenly and deeply, the lovely colour rising in a wave over cheeks and forehead; then turned her head sharply away.