Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/50

38 Cazadero was rather stout with tufted side whiskers and a clean-shaven chin. He was of course swarthy, but possessed a transparent skin and haughty eyes. His dress differed in no way from that of the Americans except that in its small details it went to a refinement, a precious meticularity that found its ultimate expression in his small, tight, exquisite varnished boots. As he was a little below the average height, and a little above the average weight he carried himself with the utmost dignity. His wife was also stout. She was placid, unruffled, a little stupid, but evidently of noble race. The daughter was pretty and amiable but rather insipid, with soft eyes and long lashes. Both women were, as was the custom of their people, over-powdered. Their gowns were of wonderful heavy China silk, and their jewels of the first water. This family paid its devoirs to the Colonel in most punctilious style, greeted sundry acquaintances, and then drew aside. Don Vincente was the owner of Las Flores rancho, which bounded Del Monte on the north.

But by now the people began rising here and there from the tables. The girls ceased to flit to and fro, and seated themselves at a side table. This was the chance for which some of the young men had waited; and they hastened to supply the damsels with food and drink. Many of the diners straggled down from the knoll in the direction of the whitewashed corrals where the vaqueros were already beginning the sports. Some of the younger couples were trying to dance to the music of the guitars. Couples strayed away up the cañon.

Kenneth was one of the first at the corrals. He had never seen cowboy games, and proved most eager. The idea did not at all meet with the approval of his companions. The girls had no liking to expose their fresh toilettes to the dust, nor their fresh complexions to the burning sun and heat; the two young men pretended to be bored with such things. They preferred to remain in the shade with the guitar, so they trailed along back to the lawn under the Cathedral Oaks with the rest of the Colonel's "quality" guests. The Colonel himself went to the corrals. It was part of his hospitable duty to show there, he told Mrs. Judge Crosby with apparent regret; and then he