The man behind the cactus arose stealthily and stretched his arms as the hoof-beats grew more faint.
"Señor Bryton—eh?" and he shrugged his shoulders contentedly. "The clever Bryton who put us off the track last year and took the stock by the north! This time he will not be so clever. Still, he gives a man ideas in the head,—may he have an easy death for that! Rafael's good friend who picks the good horses for the good government!"
Corre muchacho a la yglesia,
Dile al sacristan mayor,
Que repique las campanas, tan! tan!
CHAPTER II
"Men make plans, and the devil makes other plans—and the devil's plan has always the luck with it."
Don Antonio had expressed himself thus to the army men, who fumed and fretted at delays incident to the funeral ceremonies of Miguel Arteaga, for whom the Mission bells clanged in the gray of a morning, and the word went out that he lay trampled into the dust of the Santa Ana ranch. A thousand head of stampeding cattle had gone over him, and the younger brother—the handsome Rafael—was now the head of the Arteaga family. And with half the horses selected for the government, the work had stopped short. There was no head to anything now until Rafael arrived. In vain the army men swore, and went farther south to secure mounts for the regiment. They had to come back to San Juan, and then it was that Keith Bryton, with his knowledge of the people and of the country, came to their aid.
He heard that the debonair Rafael had landed at San Pedro the day of the death, and had quietly lost himself from the dismal ceremonies awaiting him in his own province. Miguel could not be seen; what use was it to witness the howling mob of Indian retainers?