"All right," he said, handing it over, "and here is a panoche of sugar for your little girl—the one in La Fortuna. It is nothing," he added, as Mendez began his thanks.
"But oh, you marrying Mexican," he continued, relapsing into his mother tongue as El Tuerto disappeared; "you certainly have dished us right!"
IX
Not the least of the causes which have brought Mexico to the brink of the abyss is the endless quarrel between church and state, which has almost destroyed the sanctity of marriage and left, besides, a pitiful heritage of deserted women and fatherless children as its toll.
Many an honest laborer has peoned himself to pay the priest for his marriage, only to be told that it is not legal in the eyes of the law; and many another, married by the judge, has been gravely informed by the padre that the woman is only his mistress, and the children born out of wedlock.
So that now, to be sure that she is wedded, a woman must be married twice, and many a couple, on account of the prohibitive fees, are never married at all.
Cruz Mendez was no different from the men of his class, and he believed honestly that he was married to the comely Maria; but Hooker could have enlightened him on that point if he had cared to do it.
Bud was playing a game, with the Eagle Tail mine for a stake; and, being experienced at poker, he stood pat and studied his hand. Without doubt Mendez had lost his usefulness as a locator of the mine, since Maria was not his legal wife and could not sign the transfer papers as such. According to the law of the land, the woman now living with Aragon's mayordomo was the "legitimate" wife of the contract, and she alone could release the title to the mine once Mendez denounced the claim.
But Mendez had not yet denounced the claim—though for a period of some thirty days yet he had the exclusive privilege of doing so—and Bud did not intend that he should.