“Don’t go, gringuito, listen don Ricardo! Don’t be angry.... Look! What I said was just for fun, like the other times....”
But he pretended not to hear; and as he continued riding away from her, she gathered up the lassoo that hung on the front of the saddle and swung it, catching the fugitive in the noose, and shouting out with forced merriment,
“See, disobedient one, now you must come here!”
The thong had fallen over his head with the same precision as always. As on so many other occasions she drew in the loops, tugging gently at her prey. But this time Richard took out his knife and angrily cut through the rope. So quickly did he free himself that Celinda, absorbed in pulling in the lassoo, nearly fell off her horse when her tugging suddenly ceased to find any resistance.
Watson rode rapidly away, unwinding from about his shoulders the piece of rope that had caught him there. He threw the fragment from him and never once looked back. Celinda meanwhile wound up her lassoo that still trailed weakly on the ground.
When finally the lacerated end of the rope reached her hands she looked at it sadly. Tears blurred her sight. But suddenly the rancher’s daughter looked out towards the dunes where Elena and Richard were riding, and turned white with anger.
“May the devil carry you away with him, miserable gringo! I don’t want to see you, ever again.... I’ll never throw the noose over you any more! and if, some day, you want to see me, you’ll have to catch me the way I used to catch you ... if you can!”
And then, no longer able to conceal from herself the fact that she had been cruelly treated, the Rojas girl covered her face with her hands. The sand dunes and the solitary river had so many times seen her laugh—she did not want them now to see her weep....
CHAPTER XII
THE day set for Canterac’s great surprise party to the marquesa had arrived. Under Moreno’s direction the workmen set up the last trees in the level space near the river.