At earliest dawn the army men, with promises and gold pieces to the girls, and an extra glass to Rafael and his bride, mounted their horses and rode north to catch up with the herd before it reached Los Angeles. One of the girls wept lest the one who had made her favorite might never ride that way again, and the wilder spirits marched around her with lighted candles, singing a funeral dirge, ending in a wild fandango.
Don Antonio was there, and old Ricardo Ruiz, and they sat through the night playing with the dice, and emptying each other's pockets in turn, and comparing the old entertainment with the new, between the drinks.
The fandango ended by Concha, the weeping one, doing the maddest dancing of all, and Fernando Mendez poured out goblets of wine to drink luck to her next lover.
"It is good luck for himself he wants, Concha!" called Rafael across the room. "Fernando is a coyote, always awake for young chickens!"
"Concha mia, he is jealous; never heed him, but drink wine with me to the next lover!"
"He offers her a glass of wine, Antonio," grunted old Don Ricardo. "Huh!--that is the love-making of California to-day!"
"True, Ricardo; at his age you or I would have been at her feet and our jewels on her breast."
"I should say not. His father made love after our fashion, hence--"
"The deluge of poverty and Americanos," assented Antonio. "A plague on them both! They have changed the land!"
A burst of laughter from Rafael's end of the table drowned the grumblings of the old men. Rafael had told a story so very funny that the girls had shrieked and giggled and protested behind their fans.
"Fie, Don Rafael! and you to be a married man in a week!"
"But a week is seven nights away, and all of them your own, Merced mia!"
"Merced!" called another man from a game of _malia_ at an old table once used for altar service--"Merced, darling, never listen to a word he says! A paltry seven nights! My heart is at your feet for a lifetime!"
"Of nights or days, señor?" asked the girl, laughingly.
"She caught you there, Señor Gonzales," observed Bryton, who was dealing the cards. "Don Rafael, after all, makes the only definite offer."
"You are right, Don Keith," returned the other. "With the help of the Americanos, Don Rafael is learning to be a good maker of bargains."