Presently a negro boy hove into view on the road. He carried in his hand the body of a dead rooster. As he came closer, Dick saw that the fowl had steel spurs attached to his legs.
"A dead gamecock," he muttered. "I'll wager there has been cock-fighting somewhere, and Señor Maguel is going to dish us up the defeated fowl."
Dick hurried back to the others and told them of what he had seen. At once old Jacob grew indignant and rushed to the rear of the inn, where the servant was in the act of decapitating the dead fowl with an axe.
"We won't eat thet, consarn ye!" he cried, pointing his long, bony finger at the fowl. "We want chicken—good barnyard fowls—an' don't ye forgit it!"
The girl did not understand a word of what was said, but she understood his actions and stepped back, dropping the gamecock as she did so. At once old Jacob secured the fowl, and marched into the inn with it, and up to where Jose Maguel still sat snoring in the chair. A shake of the shoulder aroused the innkeeper, and he gazed in bewilderment when the old Yankee tar held up the gamecock before his nose.
"Do ye suppose civilized Americans air a-goin' to eat thet?" came from old Jacob, wrathfully. "I'd jest as lief eat crow. We want real chicken, killed fer the purpose o' eating, understand?"
"Un Americano no like dis?" queried Jose Maguel, mildly.
"No, we don't like it, not by a jugful. You give us real chicken."
"Dis chicken—good chicken."
"It's a slaughtered fowl from one o' yer cockfights," roared old Jacob. "Like ez not, he's pizened from the other bird's cuts. Oh, I know all on ye do nothing but look at cock-fighting day in an' day out, much to yer discredit. We want good chicken, understand?"