Richard kept a coil of lariat that Flor de Rio Negro had given him on the front of his saddle. As he rode along he let it out and began throwing it over her head every time he came near her. But the lassoo always fell into space, while Celinda, from far away, laughed at this exhibition. However, her laughter had changed its character and was growing heartier and happier, as though expressing, not so much contempt for the man she was mocking, as genuine merriment. Watson too was laughing; so often, when they had laughed together, they had made up their quarrels!
In their circlings about they had little by little approached the ranch. Celinda jumped her horse over an obstacle of tree-trunks and rode into the corral. Watson did not dare let his horse take the height and rode around the palisade in order to get in through a gate.
He reached the main building of the ranch with calculated slowness, hoping that someone would come out to whom he could speak. Celinda remained invisible, and he did not dare go up to the front door of the house, for fear the señorita Rojas might receive him in unfriendly fashion.
Again little Cachafaz appeared quite providentially, close to the horse’s feet.
“Tell the señorita Celinda I would like to come in and say ‘how do you do’ to her!”
Cachafaz went away scratching his little fat chocolate colored belly under his loose shirt. In a few minutes he came out of the house, and in his soft Indian singsong he announced to Watson,
“Mistress says you’re to go away, and that she doesn’t want to see you, because you are ... because you are very ugly!”
Cachafaz burst out laughing at his own words; but Watson looked despondently at the house. Then he turned his horse about, and, a little consoled by a resolution he had just taken, rode homeward.
“I shall come back tomorrow,” he said to himself. “I shall come back every day until she forgives me.”
. . . . . . . . . .