“Pues, understood! We will go over presently and give the old hag a shower of St. Peter’s tears! And thou”—turning to Alonzo, who was rising to go—“the less tongue, the less sore bones, eh?”
Candelária lived across the arroyo in a miserable little jacal of piñon[37] trunks chinked with mud, right up against the side of the great lava flow. She was a sorry-looking hag; and, on seeing her, the first thought of much better educated people than Pedro would very likely have been: “What an old witch!” She was tall and gaunt and incredibly wrinkled, but with such keen black eyes that almost every one shrank at her gaze.
Alonzo himself was certainly not fond of her, and probably it would not be too much to say that he was secretly a bit afraid of this grim, dark figure in greasy tatters, despite his year of school in the little mission at San Rafael. But at thought of her being stoned to death he felt a sudden revulsion.
“But what to do?” he muttered to himself as he slouched away from the camp-fire. “Pedro is bad to meddle with, and no one here will help me; even Don Roman is afraid of the witches, and hates them. Ea! I will go warn her, so she can hide till the shearers have gone.”
It was already very dark as he stumbled over the rocky ground and turned west along the bank of the arroyo. This was a deep ravine plowed through the meadow by the intermittent brook from the snows of the Zuñi mountains. In summer there was no stream, but here and there were pools enough for the thirsty sheep and cattle. Now there had been rains, and a narrow rill connected the brimming pools. He found the white, peeled log which served as a footbridge from bank to bank, and started to walk cautiously across it. Midway he stopped suddenly with an audible chuckle, turned, came back and shambled toward the corrals. Something seemed to amuse him mightily, for at every few steps he paused to laugh softly. Camp-fires burned all about the corral, and even far up the rocky mesa, where the sheep were being herded for the night; but Alonzo had eyes for but one. Near an angle of the enclosure stood a stout post, and not far from its foot was a bed of embers surrounded with sooty kettles and frying pans. It was Telango’s slaughter house and kitchen, where that greasy gentleman turned twenty sheep a day into soups and joints for the shearers.
Telango was at the moment absent, and when he returned to his post a kettle of mutton tallow that had been trying out over the embers was missing. That should have made a pretty row, for the cook was a touchy autocrat; but, supper being over, Telango was so sleepy that he would scarce have noticed it had his whole kitchen been carried off.
“Well, are we ready?” asked Pedro in a low tone of his allies a little after 8 o’clock. Every one else was asleep, apparently. The camp-fires had all died down and no one was moving. Pedro rose quietly and stole off into the darkness, followed by Pepe and ’Lipe. “Close behind me,” he whispered, “and with care, for if she hears us she can hide in the malpaís, where no one could find her.”
“But perhaps she would not run,” broke out ’Lipe uneasily, as they neared the arroyo. “Since she is a witch she might rather throw a spell on us.”
“Quiet you the mouth, stupid! We have only to take care that she does not hear us.”
“But I have heard that they need not the ears, for the evil spirits tell them.”