The lateness of the hour, perhaps some other reason, seemed to startle her, and she half rose.
The next moment the figure of Miguel appeared at the doorway, and with a quick, hurried look around him, and at the open window, he approached her.

He was evidently under great excitement, his hollow shaven cheek looked like a waxen effigy in the mission church; his yellow, tobacco-stained eye glittered like phosphorescent amber, his lank gray hair was damp and perspiring; but more striking than this was the evident restraint he had put upon himself, pressing his broad-brimmed sombrero with both of his trembling yellow hands against his breast.

The young girl cast a hurried glance at the open window and at the gun which stood in the corner, and then confronted him with clear and steady eyes, but a paler cheek.
Ah, he began in Spanish, which he himself had taught her as a child, it was a strange thing, his coming there to-night; but, then, mother of God! it was a strange, a terrible thing that she had done to him--old Miguel, her uncle's servant: he that had known her as a muchacha; he that had lived all his life at the ranch--ay, and whose fathers before him had lived there all THEIR lives and driven the cattle over the very spot where she now stood, before the thieving Americans came here! But he would be calm; yes, the senora should find him calm, even as she was when she told him to go.

He would not speak.

No, he--Miguel--would contain himself; yes, he HAD mastered himself, but could he restrain others?
Ah, yes, OTHERS--that was it.