The fright which the girls had unsuccessfully attempted to produce in the heart of their escort had passed him to become a panic elsewhere.

Judge Peyton, riding near the gateway of his rancho, was suddenly confronted by the spectacle of one of his vacqueros driving on before him the two lassoed and dusty ponies, with a face that broke into violent gesticulating at his master's quick interrogation.
"Ah! Mother of God! It was an evil day! For the bronchos had run away, upset the buggy, and had only been stopped by a brave Americano of an ox-team, whose lasso was even now around their necks, to prove it, and who had been dragged a matter of a hundred varas, like a calf, at their heels.

The senoritas,--ah! had he not already said they were safe, by the mercy of Jesus!--picked up by the coach, and would be here at this moment." "But where was Pedro all the time?
What was he doing ?" demanded Peyton, with a darkened face and gathering anger.
The vacquero looked at his master, and shrugged his shoulders significantly.

At any other time Peyton would have remembered that Pedro, as the reputed scion of a decayed Spanish family, and claiming superiority, was not a favorite with his fellow-retainers.

But the gesture, half of suggestion, half of depreciation, irritated Peyton still more.
"Well, where is this American who DID something when there wasn't a man among you all able to stop a child's runaway ponies ?" he said sarcastically.