It was the southern spring, and flowers were beginning to bloom, but Felisa looked in vain for the tropical varieties which one ever associates with that region. The bull almost brushed his great sides against the tree trunks which outlined the sendica. When she was close enough Felisa stretched out her hand and plucked the blackened remains of a flower from the center of a tall plant. It had been scorched and dried by the sun of the summer that was passed. She thrust the withered stems into the bull's coarse hair, turned to Beltran, and laughed.
"If I remain long enough, there will be flowers of all colors, will there not, cousin? Flowers of blue and red and orange."
"You will remain, I hope, long after they have bloomed and died again," answered Beltran, gallantly.
They had not been riding long before Felisa sent forth from her lips an apprehensive scream. Beltran spurred his horse nearer.
"What is it, cousin? Is the silla slipping?"
Felisa looked up from under her cloud of spun silk, and answered:
"No, I am wondering how I am to get round that great tree."
Beltran, to whom the path was as well known as his own veranda at San Isidro, had no cause to turn his eyes from the charming face at his side.
"Oh! the trunk of the old mahogany? That has lain across the path for years. Do not be afraid, little cousin. Roncador has surmounted that difficulty more times than I can remember."
They were now close upon the fallen trunk. Felisa closed her eyes and clutched at the bull's shaggy neck. She screamed faintly.