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412 Don Pedro did not speak as he re-entered the house with Isabella. He knew that if he did so, he should ruin any chance that he might have of winning her by fair means. A feeling of passionate jealousy had seized him as he saw the girl standing by the side of this stranger and heard her chatting pleasantly with him, and the changed manner and tone as she had addressed him added to his anger. By the time that they entered the room where Don Garcia was sitting, he had mastered himself.

"Look at this lovely lion's skin that Don Henry has brought me," she said, going over to her father and showing him the skin, that she had got over her arm.

"Yes, it is a beautiful skin," he said, examining it closely; "there is not a blemish in it. He shot it himself, I suppose?"

"Yes, in that ravine that runs from the valley half a mile from this house. Fortunately the shot struck it in the centre of the throat, and so you see it did not hurt the skin."

"Who is this gentleman?" Don Pedro asked quietly of the haciendorer. "My father heard from you on your return that you had got into some trouble with some rough men, and that there was a skirmish between them and some young fellow—I think you said an English cowboy—who intervened in the matter."

"I did not put it at all in that way, Don Pedro, nor was the affair so trifling as you represent. Two of my servants were killed, and the other two bound. I myself had alighted from the coach, and was handing my daughter out under the pistols of these five ruffians, when this gentleman arrived. He shot four of them, and himself received wounds that for some time seemed likely to be fatal. I may at that time have written of him as a cowboy; but I had not at that time learned, as I have since done, that he is a gentleman of an honourable family in