“Seein' anything?” remarked the man on the bench, who had sleepily regarded him.
“No,” said the colonel, “that is—it's only Dick Ruggles crossin' the road.”
“Thought you looked a little startled, ez if you'd seen that ar wanderin' stranger.”
“When I see that wandering stranger, sah,” said the colonel decisively, “I won't be sittin' long in this yer chyar. I'll let him know in about ten seconds that I don't harbor any vagrants prowlin' about like poor whites or free niggers on my propahty, sah!”
“All the same, I kinder wish ye did see him, for you'd be settled in YOUR mind and I'd be easier in MINE, ef you found out what he was doin' round yer, or ye had to admit that it wasn't no LIVIN' man.”
“What do you mean?” said the colonel, testily facing around in his chair.
His companion also altered his attitude by dropping his other foot to the floor, sitting up, and leaning lazily forward with his hands clasped.
“Look yer, colonel. When you took this place, I felt I didn't have no call to tell ye all I know about it, nor to pizen yer mind by any darned fool yarns I mout hev heard. Ye know it was one o' them old Spanish haciendas?”
“I know,” said the colonel loftily, “that it was held by a grant from Charles the Fifth of Spain, just as my propahty on the James River was given to my people by King James of England, sah!”
“That ez as may be,” returned his companion, in lazy indifference; “though I reckon that Charles the Fifth of Spain and King James of England ain't got much to do with what I'm goin' to tell ye. Ye see, I was here long afore YOUR time, or any of the boys that hev now cleared out; and at that time the hacienda belonged to a man named Juan Sobriente. He was that kind o' fool that he took no stock in mining. When the boys were whoopin' up the place and finding the color everywhere, and there was a hundred men working down there in the gulch, he was either ridin' round lookin' up the wild horses he owned, or sittin' with two or three lazy peons and Injins that was fed and looked arter by the priests. Gosh! now I think of it, it was mighty like YOU when you first kem here with your niggers. That's curious, too, ain't it?”