"When he plays his hand out Mace comes back over to us—no other Mexicans allowin' for to call him—an' relates how it is, an' nacheral we says it's all right, which it shorely is. I asks old Santa Anna for the details of the shake-up later, but he spreads his hands, an' shrugs his shoulders, an' whines
"'No quien sabe.'
"An', of course, as I can't tell, an' as Santa Anna don't, I gives' up askin'."
CHAPTER XX. A WOLFVILLE THANKSGIVING.
It was in the earlier days of autumn. Summer had gone, and there was already a crisp sentiment of coming cold in the air. The Old Cattleman and I had given way to a taste for pedestrianism that had lain dormant through the hot months. It was at the close of our walk, and we were slowly making our way homeward.
"An' now the year's got into what hoss-folks calls the last quarter," remarked the old gentleman musingly. "You can feel the frost in the atmosphere; you can see where it's bit the leaves a lot, an' some of 'em's pale with the pain, an' others is blood-red from the wound. "Which I don't regard winter much, say twenty years ago. Thar's many a night when I spreads my blankets in the Colorado hills, flakes of snow a-fallin' as soft an' big an' white as a woman's hand, an' never heeds 'em a little bit. But them days is gone. Thar's no roof needed in my destinies then. An' as for bed, a slicker an' a pair of hobbles is sumptuous.
"When a gent rounds up seventy years he's mighty likely to get a heap interested in weather. It's the heel of the hunt with him then, an' he's worn an' tired, and turns nacherally to rest an' fire."
We plodded forward as he talked. To his sage comments on the seasons, and as well the old age of men, I offered nothing. My silence, however, seemed always to meet with his tacit approval; nor did he allow it to impede his conversational flow.