Mariposa made no reply, and the meal progressed in silence. Presently her vis-à-vis held out his cup for a second filling.
“What beautiful cups,” she said. “It would be a pity to break them.”
“They’re grandma’s. They’re the only two left. Grandma had some stunning things, brought round The Horn by her husband in the early days, before the Gringo came. He was a great man in his day, Don Manuel Garcia.”
“Is she your grandmother, too?” Mariposa asked. It seemed natural to put pointblank questions to this man, who so completely swept aside the smaller conventions.
“Mine? Oh, Lord, no. My poor old granny died crossing the plains in ’49. I was there, but I don’t remember it. I call old lady Garcia grandma, because I’m here so much, and because I look upon them as my family.”
“Do you live here always?” asked Mariposa, looking with extinguished eyes over the piece of bread she was nibbling.
“No, I live at the mines. I’m a miner. My stamping-ground’s the whole Sierra from Siskiyou to Tuolumne.”
He looked at her with a queer, whimsical smile. His strong white teeth gleamed for a moment from between his bearded lips.
“I’m up at the Sierra a lot of the time,” he continued, “and then I’m down here a lot more of the time. I come here to find my victims. I locate a good prospect in the Sierra, and I come down here to sell it. That’s my business.”
“What’s your name?” asked Mariposa suddenly, hearing herself ask this last and most pertinent question with the dry glibness of an interviewer.