'If you want work, begin and clear away those bushes. You will know where there are tools. Here is money, if you will begin at once. If you do not want money, say what you do want. But if you want nothing, go, or I shall shoot you.'
He suddenly had a big army revolver in one hand, and he pulled out a loose bank note with the other.
'But I prefer that we should be good friends,' he concluded, 'for I have much work for everybody, and plenty of money to pay for it.'
The men were not cowards, but they were taken unawares by San Giacinto's singular speech. They looked at each other, and at the bushes. One of them threw his head back a little, thrusting out his chin, which signifies a negation. The shortest of the four, a broad-shouldered, tough-looking fellow stepped before the rest.
'We will work for you, but we will not cut down the bushes. We will do any other work than that. You will not find anybody here who will cut down the bushes.'
'Why not?' asked San Giacinto.
'Eh—it is so,' said the man, with a peculiar expression.
The other three shrugged their shoulders and nodded silently, but kept their eyes on San Giacinto's revolver.
'We are good people,' continued the man. 'We wish to be friends with every one, and since you have bought the estate, and own the land on which we live, we shall pay our rent, when we have anything wherewith to pay, and when we have not, God will provide. But as for the bushes, we cannot cut them down. We wish to be friends with every one. But as for that, signore, if you have no axes nor hedging knives, we have them. We will bring them, and then we will go away and do any other work for you. Thus we shall not cut down the bushes, but perhaps the bushes will be cut down.'
San Giacinto laughed a little, and the big revolver went back into his pocket.