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He sweated like a bull after coliar, and his cassock was gathered in his two hands, leaving his bare shanks no more sacred than an Indian's. He did not look like a priest at all, and I forgot to kneel to him, but stared with my mouth open. And what do you think he did, my friends? He turned white like the hand of a dona in her teens and and dropped his cassock. And " "Well? well?"
The bull seemed continually gathering himself for a great leap, his clumsy bulk heaving from side to side. But a quarter of the distance had been traversed when the great curves of the lasso sprang forward, and, amidst a hoarse murmur from the boys, caught the bull below the horns. But that was all. The bull would not down! There would be no coliar!
"Bravo!" said a voice from behind the horses. All turned with a start. It was the priest. "Coliar was never better done," he added graciously; and Rafael felt that the day was his. The priest had ridden up unnoted in the tense excitement of the last few moments. He sat a big powerful horse, and his bearing was as military as that of the two great generals of the Californias, Castro and Vallejo.
As they reached the first hill they saw a bull feeding on its summit. "Aha!" cried the young don of the Rancho Encarnacion. "Now I will make for you a little morning entertainment, my friends. Coliar! coliar!" "No! no!" cried the boys. "The hill is too steep. It is like the side of a house. You will break your neck, my friend." Roldan said: "It is dangerous, but it could be done."
Much of it could only be crushed out in machinery made for the purpose, but a sufficient quantity of the quartz was poor and soft. As the boys worked, they grew more and more silent, more and more absorbed. They forgot their delight in rodeo, coliar, bear-hunts, bull-fights, riding about the ranches from morning till noon, the race, the religious processions, the dulces of their mothers' cooks.
"Coliar!" the bull was ignominiously rolled in the dust, then meekly preceded Reinaldo back to the rodeo-ground. After the dinner under the trees most of the party returned to the platform, but Estenega, Adan, Chonita, Valencia, and myself strolled about the rancho. Adan walked at Chonita's side, more faithful than her shadow.
Once a bull, seeing his chance, darted from his herd and down the valley. A vaquero started after him; but Reinaldo, anxious to display his skill in horsemanship, and being still mounted, called to the vaquero to stop, dashed after the animal, caught it by its tail, spurred his horse ahead, let go the tail at the right moment, and, amidst shouts of "Coliar!"
Not to gallop at will over the rancho, or sleep in a hammock, to coliar the bulls and shout with the vaqueros at rodeo, to be the first at the games and the races, to wear his silken clothes and lace ruffles, and eat the delightful dishes his mother's cooks prepared! And then he was a very high-spirited young gentleman.
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