"Oh, be ye? Well, if them Indians had caught you fryin' your supper, you'd have got as well acquainted with the next world in just about three quarters of an hour. Well, we've all got to foot it now; but it ain't far. I'm powerful anxious to know what's goin' on over to Sanchez'! Mebbe two tribes met and them's the victors offerin' up the tail end of that there valiant army. Golly Moroo, but they did look scared."
They walked on rapidly, but without further conversation; they were all hungry, and the boys were still very fagged. As they approached the blazing mass, the figure seemed to leap more wildly still among the flames, the cries to grow hoarser and more grotesque. All about was heavy blackness. The slender branches of the burning pine writhed and hissed; they might have been a pyramid of rattlesnakes caught in spouting flame. Overhead the stars had disappeared beyond a heavy cloud of smoke. It was a sight to strike terror to the heart of civilised man; small wonder that the superstitious children of the mountain and desert had fled in panic.
They had advanced a few yards farther when suddenly Hill flung himself on the ground and gave vent to a series of hysterical yells, at the same time rolling over and over, clutching at the grass. Roldan, seriously alarmed, and wondering if any other boys in the history of the Californias had ever had so much to try their nerves, ran to his assistance; he caught him by his lean shoulders, and shook him soundly.
"Don Jim! Don Jim!" he exclaimed. "Are you ill, my friend? You have some whisky in your flask, no?"
At this Hill burst into a loud guffaw. Roldan and Adan looked at each other helplessly. The Spanish do not laugh often, and although the boys dimly realised that Hill's explosion resembled—remotely—the dignified concession of their race to the ridiculous, yet they feared that this was a diseased and possibly fatal variety.
But in a moment Hill sat up. He wiped his eyes, and with some difficulty controlled his voice.
"No, I ain't ill, young 'uns," he said. "But them Indians 'ud be pretty sick if they knowed what they run from. That there object cavortin' round that there bonfire is old Sanchez, and he's drunk. Oh, Lord!" And once more Hill gave way to mirth.
"He did more good than harm to get drunk this time," said Roldan, smiling sympathetically.
"You're right, Rolly. You've got a long head. If old Sanchez had set down to supper sober to-night, there'd be a war-dance round another bonfire this minute, and his scalp 'ud be bobbin' bravely. I don't approve of liquor," he added cautiously, remembering the young ideas shooting before him. "I only said that there be exceptions to all rules, and this is one of them."
"I understand," said Roldan, drily. "I am not thinking of following the Senor Sanchez' example. But do you suppose that was really what frightened the Indians?"