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Givens, feeling aggrieved, and suspicious of fouls, shook his fist at the lion, and shouted: "I'll rastle you again for twenty " and then he got back to himself. Josefa was standing in her tracks, quietly reloading her silver-mounted .38. It had not been a difficult shot. The lion's head made an easier mark than a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string.
He stooped ignominiously and dragged his best Stetson hat from under the beast. It was crushed and wrinkled to a fine comedy effect. Then he knelt down and softly stroked the fierce, open-jawed head of the dead lion. "Poor old Bill!" he exclaimed mournfully. "What's that?" asked Josefa, sharply.
Of course Miss Josefa could not be allowed to ride on to the ranch-house alone. Givens resaddled his pony in spite of that animal's reproachful glances, and rode with her. Side by side they galloped across the smooth grass, the princess and the man who was kind to animals. The prairie odours of fruitful earth and delicate bloom were thick and sweet around them.
An hour later, when the lights were out, Josefa, in her night-robe, came to her door and called to the king in his own room across the brick-paved hallway: "Say, pop, you know that old Mexican lion they call the 'Gotch-eared Devil' the one that killed Gonzales, Mr. Martin's sheep herder, and about fifty calves on the Salado range?
Doña Josefa, who lived in a hut near the river, was driving two ducks and two white geese, only she had dyed the geese a bright purple, and José's wife had painted stripes of red clear around her pig.
As there was not very much room in the anchorage for manoeuvring, we got under way in succession, the Josefa taking the lead, followed by Don Miguel, after which went La Belle Estelle, while El Caiman, with her canvas set, strained at the cable which secured her to the buoy, as though she were afraid of being left behind.
Givens, feeling aggrieved, and suspicious of fouls, shook his fist at the lion, and shouted: "I'll rastle you again for twenty " and then he got back to himself. Josefa was standing in her tracks, quietly reloading her silver- mounted .38. It had not been a difficult shot. The lion's head made an easier mark than a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string.
Lady Cochrane immediately proceeded to Haura, and effected the object; after which she remained for a month at head-quarters, residing at the house of a Peruvian lady, Donna Josefa Monteblanco. A passage was also, by Lady Cochrane's influence, procured for the lady in the Andromache, on board which ship Captain Sherriff politely invited me to meet her.
Scorning a pencil, she could tell you out of her head what 1545 two-year-olds would bring on the hoof, at $8.50 per head. Roughly speaking, the Espinosa Ranch is forty miles long and thirty broad but mostly leased land. Josefa, on her pony, had prospected over every mile of it. Every cow-puncher on the range knew her by sight and was a loyal vassal.
There had been something like vaudeville say Signor Givens and his funny knockabout act with the stuffed lion. "Is that you, Mr. Givens?" said Josefa, in her deliberate, saccharine contralto. "You nearly spoilt my shot when you yelled. Did you hurt your head when you fell?" "Oh, no," said Givens, quietly; "that didn't hurt."
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