"You will both come too," replied the Colonel calmly.
"To Mexico?"
"Yes."
"Well, we don't want to know your business, of course—we're not asking who your letter is from, or what it's about—we don't want to know how little you gave, or how much you got, but we should just like to know where we're going to in Mexico, and what we're going for? Are we going to 'make a killing,' or to buy a ranch, or only to steal some cattle? And what's the matter with our stopping here, and living comfortably, until you get back?"
"You won't stop here, you'll come right along with me, both of you; and I don't want you to give me any trouble about it, now! Travel improves the mind, and enlarges the ideas. You shall come and study the sister republic, and Navajo and I will introduce you into society down there. If you're smart, you may catch a señorita with a big ranch before we get back."
"Where are we going to?"
"The Corralitos ranch. The agreement has just come back from El Paso, accepting the final offer that I made for between two and three thousand yearling and two-year-old Corralitos steers, and I must go down and receive them."
The restaurant at the Depôt was the rendezvous, at meal-times, of all the high-toned people in Deming. When we left the hotel after the mid-day dinner, therefore, to mount the light waggon in which Navajo sat, curbing the impetuosity of our corn-inspired plugs, with a magnificent assumption of conscious importance, the habitués of this frontier Bignon's, armed with tooth-picks and unlit cigars, assembled on the platform to bid farewell to the Colonel. Many a good-humoured sally ensued at his expense, but in no wise disconcerted, he returned shot for shot, as he walked round the waggon and inspected it, expressed his usual surprise that he should be the only man in New Mexico capable of packing a waggon properly, had the blankets, grain, provisions, cooking utensils, Winchesters, and other baggage taken out, replaced it all with his own hands, and finally mounting the box seat, gathered up the whip and reins.
Joe was taking a light for his cigar from one of the bystanders. "Joe isn't ready yet," observed Don Cabeza in a pleasantly ironic way, glancing at the mammoth shoulders that were rounded over the cigar-light. Joe vouchsafed no response. "But give him time," pursued his tormentor more cheerfully, "give him time and he'll get there. Joe will never die suddenly."
The old "forty-niner" approached the waggon with a withering glance at the repacked cargo.