Read Online Suzanna by Harry Sinclair Drago - Free Book Online

those who really knew. Monterey was too far away, so the boy had turned to the south where a large force of Mexican peons were constructing a crude bridge across the Rio Salinas. From them he hoped to purchase a bird that would tear Suzanna’s presumptuous contender to ribbons.
    Timoteo was a small, blue-black, vicious-eyed gamecock. Miguel came back from his quest bearing a bird three times the size of Suzanna’s pet. The peon, from whom the boy had purchased him, had assured Miguel that the rooster had no peer with the steel spurs. The man, seeing that he dealt with a child, had pointed to the bird’s size as further proof of his ability, and Miguel, not knowing that the very size of the rooster proclaimed him a cross-breed, had paid his money, and headed for the north well satisfied with himself.
    Moving with caution, he had smuggled the bird into his room to await the coming bout. No word of it reached the members of Don Fernando’s household or Miguel’s father; but the news spread quickly among those employed on the hacienda.
    The bout was scheduled to take place at sundown. Miguel waited until the bell announced the evening meal, and then, his bird in a bag, he stole out of the casa and made for the corral in back of the peons’ quarters. He found the audience already assembled, with Suzanna standing impatiently in the center of the ring, holding Timoteo in the crook of her arm.
    The gamecock struggled and uttered his battle-cry the instant that Miguel brought forth his rooster. Suzanna laughed as she saw the size of Miguel’s contender. The pit-wise onlookers grinned also. The boy interpreted this greeting correctly, and his assurance left him as he saw that his rooster made no attempt to answer Timoteo’s cry. With a savage pinch he rang a protesting squawk from the bird.
    â€œHa, ha!” Suzanna cried. “That bird is neither fit for pot or pit. Wait, Timoteo,” she cooed to her pet, “we shall laugh soon enough.”
    â€œWe shall see,” Miguel retorted acidly. “Make your precious bird ready.
    The steel spurs were quickly attached, and with a movement of the referee’s hand Miguel and Suzanna tossed their fowls into the ring.
    As though shot out of a gun, Timoteo leaped for the big rooster, ripping him with his spurs. Miguel’s bird lost all interest immediately. With a frightened cry he sailed into the air and over the heads of the watchers, Timoteo after him. The audience shrieked. Suzanna uttered a wild cry and pursued the fowls. Miguel, thoroughly crestfallen, followed her.
    It had been no fight at all, and now, all but the boy, held their sides as the farce proceeded. The rooster and the gamecock darted round and round the corral fence and in and out beneath the farm implements and wagons parked beside it.
    â€œTurn them back!” Suzanna cried to Miguel as the fowls headed in his direction, and Miguel, in a white rage at the rooster who had let him in for this ridicule, leaped forward, but he fell short of turning them. The open kitchen door lay beyond, and risking all on a wild dash, the rooster lined straight for it.
    A cry of dismay rose from the crowd at this. This cock fight had been held witbout the sanction of Don Fernando, a trivial enough matter, but the peons knew that the evening meal was still in progress within the casa, and that the dining room lay just beyond the kitchen. Should Timoteo chase the fleeing rooster into that holy of holies,— cuidado! —trouble would follow.
    Miguel added his groans to the peons’ cries when he got up from the dust. If the calamity, which the servants feared, came to pass, he was in for a very embarrassing hour.
    Suzanna’s nimble brain grasped the situation, too, but unlike the others, she rushed after her pet. She called to Timoeto as she ran, but Timoteo was a bird of one purpose at present. Another second, and Miguel’s rooster darted into the kitchen; in his immediate