A few days after this he was taking his ice on the Alameda of Mendoza,
and a week or two later sailed from Valparaiso for New York, carrying with
him the horse with which he had scampered over the Plains, a trunk or two
with his newly purchased outfit of clothing and other conveniences, and a
belt heavy with gold and with a few Brazilian diamonds sewed in it, enough
in value to serve him for a long journey.
Dick Venner had seen life enough to wear out the earlier sensibilities of
adolescence. He was tired of worshipping or tyrannizing over the bistred or
umbered beauties of mingled blood among whom he had been living. Even that
piquant exhibition which the Rio de Mendoza presents to the amateur of
breathing sculpture failed to interest him. He was thinking of a far-off
village on the other side of the equator, and of the wild girl with whom he
used to play and quarrel, a creature of a different race from these
degenerate mongrels.
"A game little devil she was, sure enough!"--and as Dick spoke, he bared
his wrist to look for the marks she had left on it: two small white scars,
where the two small sharp upper teeth had struck when she flashed at him
with her eyes sparkling as bright as those glittering stones sewed up in
the belt he wore.--"That's a filly worth noosing!" said Dick to himself, as
he looked in admiration at the sign of her spirit and passion. "I wonder if
she will bite at eighteen as she did at eight! She shall have a chance to
try, at any rate!"
Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with which Richard Venner, Esq.
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