The about the large cedar-post corral was oddly . Some of the vaqueros had dragged the blue bull over to the cooking fire for Jacinto to spit, but the gross cook had left the carcass lying on the ground. He stood with the middle bar of the fence making a deep indentation in the incredible protuberance of his stomach as the crowding vaqueros pressed in from behind.  
"Madre de Dios, Crawford, why do you let him do this thing?" the cook, running his fat hands up and down the rail. "I don't want to see a man die."
 
"Then why watch?" said Crawford.
 
"Please, Crawford, you take such a attitude. Don't you know this is the way Oro Peso died down in Mexico? He was the greatest roper in the world, Quartel's boasting to the contrary. Oro Peso used to go around making this same bet. Then somebody took him up on it. The third bull pulled him from his horse. His neck was broken like you'd snap a switch of mesquite. Please—"
 
"Hola, compadres!" shouted Quartel, from outside the corral, and they saw that he had stripped his trigueño of its saddle. Indita dropped the bar and Quartel the animal in, laughing as the bulls bunched up on the other side, . "You see, already they are afraid of me. Who is going to put the on? Merida, will you honor me?"
 
"Why not?" The woman's voice held a undertone that surprised Crawford. She caught his eyes on her and turned toward Crawford. When she saw the look on his face, she threw her head back that way, to laugh. It held a rich, wild mockery. "What's the matter, Crawford? Don't you like that in a woman? Maybe you haven't known the right women."
 
Still laughing, she reached through the bars to tie the behind Quartet's head as the man slipped off the trigueño and turned his back to her. Then he swung aboard again, and tied one end of the rope he was carrying about his thick neck in a , too small to slip over his head. Merida's face was flushed excitedly as she watched him the trigueño away, and her eyes flashed in frank . Huerta pulled out his cigarette case and put a smoke into his . His motions were as languid as ever, but Crawford thought his fingers pinched the holder more tightly than was necessary.
 
"Hola!" shouted Quartel, wheeling his trigueño in the middle of the corral and kicking its flanks with his heels. The horse charged toward the bulls, and the animals strung out along the fence. Quartel was an uncanny judge of distance; when his horse was but half a length from the fence, he made a quarter turn and raced along the bars after the last bull in the running bunch.
 
"Andale!" yelled the man, and made his toss.
 
The loop snaked about the forefeet of that last bull as it turned at the corner of the corral, and as Quartel felt the rope snap , he let go completely with his hands, pulling his thick neck down into his shoulders to set it and jerking back with his torso at the last moment. The bull turned a , its shoulder striking the rump of the running animal in front, and as the falling bull struck, Quartel shoved his hard against the trigueño's neck to wheel inward and give himself slack on the rope. He clutched for the slackening and sent a down the rope that lifted the loop off the bull's forelegs, and when he turned away, he was pulling the line in.
 
"Viva Quartel, viva!" shouted the vaqueros, shoving Crawford up against the fence with their shifting press and him with their cheers. Grinning, Quartel kicked the trigueño after the bulls again. It started them off once more, bawling and running. Quartel's hearing was as uncanny as his of distance; he rode with his head lifted, and when a scarred brindle bull broke from the others, running along the fence and cutting across the middle of the corral, Crawford could see Quartel's head turn after the animal. The Mexican his trigueño over that way, kicking it into a dead run that closed the space between himself and the bull in a swift instant.
 
"Ahora," he shouted, "now," and tossed. His rope caught the bull's feet instead of its forefeet, and as a strange sighing sound rose from the crowd, Quartel must have sensed something was wrong, for he spurred the trigueño , and its leap into a headlong run gave him slack enough in the rope for that last moment to send a flirt down its length that carried the loop off the bull's hind feet before it could draw closed. The bull stumbled into the other animals as they turned the corner and milled down this side of the corral. By that time Quartel had his rope coiled, and he the bawling, excited animals so that they strung out down the fence once more, and then ran his horse up behind the last one. This time it was the forefeet, and he dropped the animal, breaking its neck as before. The end of the rope about Quartel's neck was not a slip noose, but Crawford could see the rawhide dig into the thick brown flesh of Quartel's neck as he jerked back, till the skin showed a white above and below the lasso. He watched in undeniable as the Mexican in the rope and turned his horse after them once more. Shouting, Quartel closed the gap between himself and another bull and made his toss. He released the lasso with his hand as soon as it was in the air. The instant that loop caught on the running bull's forefeet, Quartel reined his trigueño in a quarter turn that wheeled it away from the running bull. The bull's own forward motion would draw the noose tight about its legs, and the turning of the horse would stretch the rope taut between them as soon as that noose was completely closed. In that instant, with the bull hitting the end of the rope and , Quartel had to wheel his horse back or be pulled off. He had already turned the trigueño away from the bull, and the noose was making its singing sound closing on those churning forefeet, when a big hosco golondrino cut away from the other animals running along the fence and turned out into the corral, directly across the head of the trigueño. Quartel's huge neck sank into his shoulders, and he put the reins against the trigueño's neck to it back as he felt the rope snapping taut. But the turn would have run the horse head-on into the hosco golondrino. It was the first time Crawford had seen that trigueño fight the bit; its head turned in and its neck arched, it lurched in the opposite direction from Quartel's .
 
"Crawford," screamed Merida, and then the full weight of the falling bull hit the end of that rope with Quartel going in the wrong direction to take the shock. He made a small, choked sound as he was snapped off the trigueño's rump. Crawford was not conscious of going through the bars. He found himself on the inside of the corral, with someone climbing through the rails on his left. He did not realize who it was till he had started running toward Quartel where he was rolling across the ground. Then from the corner of his eye, Crawford caught the white flutter of Merida's fichu.
 
"Get back, you crazy fool," he screamed at her, diving headlong at her as a couple of crazed bulls charged by. He struck her with his arms around her waist and carried her back against the bars as a third animal crashed past where she had been . He rolled to his feet, leaving her there up against the fence, and through another pair of the bawling, frenzied animals, coughing in the dust.
 
The bull Quartel had thrown was to its feet, the reata still caught around one foreleg. Crawford saw the slack rope taut as the animal broke into a stumbling , and knew he could never reach it in time. If Quartel's neck were not already broken, his head would be pulled from his body now. Another bull went past behind Crawford, its shoulder sending him spinning, and he threw himself bodily toward the rope where it lay tautening across the ground, in a last desperate effort to try and get it before the bull had stretched it completely.
 
But even as he did so, he saw Quartel had risen to his hands and knees. Still , the man must have heard the sing of the rope and known what was occurring. He gave his head one dazed shake and jumped to his feet, sinking his neck in that way and throwing himself backward. His body was at a three-quarter angle when the rope snapped taut; he would have fallen completely if the line had not caught him. The of his jerking back that way and the weight of his body combined to upset the bull once more. The ground to the falling animal. Crawford heard the crack of its broken neck.
 
"How's that, Huerta?" laughed Quartel, running forward to slacken the rope so he could flirt the loop free. "I told you I wouldn't pull on it by hand. Did you see that? I didn't touch it with my hands, did I? I'll bet you never saw a roper could do that down around Mexico City. Even Oro Peso. Did you think I was finished? Not with a neck like that. I could throw ten bulls all at once. Where's my horse? Bring me that trigueño. I'm not through yet. Not with a neck like that."
 
In a , Crawford picked himself off the ground, seeing Indita run out to corner the trigueño and lead him over to the sweating, roaring Quartel. Stumbling back to the fence, Crawford watched the whole crazy performance begin once more. It was a nightmare of shouting vaqueros and bawling bulls and singing ropes and clouds of russet dust obscuring the whole pattern every time the animals broke into a run. Quartel took three casts to nail the seventh bull, and it was obvious he was tiring.
 
"Three more," Crawford heard Jacinto beside him. "Three more. Oh, madre de Dios, let him get over with this, will you, and I'll never forget to say my rosary again. Three more, three more—"
 
Two more. One more. "Hola!" shouted the Mexican, "ahora," and the rope , and caught, and tautened, and the ground shook as the last bull broke its neck. Coiling in the rope, Quartel spurred the trigueño to the gate, ripping off his blindfold. They were all running that way, Aforismo the man as he slid off the , quivering horse, pounding him on the back. Even Merida had lifted her skirts to run that way, by the excitement. Quartel came through the crowd, sweating and grinning and pounding himself on the chest with his hairy fist. "I told you. The best roper in the world. What do you think of it, Huerta? Have you ever seen better? Was Oro Peso better?" Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he sobered, looking around at the vaqueros. "When I was pulled off the horse. Someone was in the corral. I heard them."
 
The sank until there was only the sound of stirring bodies, and Quartel saw the direction their glances had taken, one after another. He stared at Crawford in disbelief.
 
"You—"
 
Crawford , . "It was automatic, I guess. I didn't think."
 
"Yes." Huerta allowed twin streamers of gray smoke to escape his . "I wonder what would have happened if you had stopped to think."
 
Crawford flushed, turning toward him, but Quartel came forward, clapping his hand on Crawford's shoulder. "Huerta, I'm surprised at you. After all, he saved my life. And how about you. A talega of pesos."
 
"I made no ," said Huerta, tapping ash from his cigarette.
 
The blood swept into Quartel's face, and he stepped forward to grab the lapels of Huerta's coat with one huge hand, jerking the man toward............