"No, but he knows Capitan does not forget—there was a girl between them once. Rafael is the handsomer, so he got her. Oh, that is long ago. But Rafael was foolish and laughed too loud, and so he has to pay!"
"But I think that is a mistake. I heard all about the trouble; his mother told me. Capitan fights the government only, and takes horses from the Arteagas because they go with the Americanos as friends; that is all. We heard it all at San Luis Rey as we drove north—you remember?"
"Oh, yes, I am not forgetting that," and Ana laughed. "I listen all the time to what his mother thinks she knows about that; and it is true, too, but not all the truth. I could tell you—"
She stopped suddenly, not certain it was wise to tell the girl the thing causing her amusement, for, after all, it was not really funny; it was serious enough in itself, it might frighten the girl very much. No other in her place would live one hour in the valley, or ride at night with only one man and an old Indian woman as guard.
"If you know that I have been told lies, you had better tell me the truth," said Raquel. "It may cost me more to find it out alone than to hear it from a friend."
"That is true," agreed Ana, after a moment of thought. She went to the door and looked in the outer room to be sure no curious ears were there. She could hear ecstatic cries from the girls, who were giving old Polonia good things to eat, and plying her with endless questions. She was recounting the brilliant worldly scenes her old eyes had lately witnessed, and pitying herself a little that she could not remain; for each day had been finer than the day before. And the horse-races, and the fine cavaliers, and Doña Raquel always in the finest carriage—Holy Mary! but it was a thing to see!
Ana closed the door tightly and came back and sat down beside Raquel and took her hand.
"My aunt and the girls are over their heads in delight out there," she remarked, dryly; "and I will tell you a thing no one has been told concerning that ride from San Luis Rey. Rafael lost some fine horses that night—do you remember?"
Raquel did not; she might have heard—but Doña Luisa's death, all that sorrow, all the many and quick changes, had blotted out the fainter records of that day.
"Well, when we stopped for coffee at the camp the cook told us; you may not have heard. However, they were taken after you went into the river. You have not forgotten that?"