"Well," Don Aurelio observed, "have I unwittingly offended you by that qualification?"
"Not at all, señor; still I will inform you that I do not at all belong to this cuadrilla, as you call it; I am simply a buffalo hunter and beaver trapper. I do not say that when the opportunity offers to draw a bead on a redskin I refuse to do so; far from it—it is, in fact, an amusement in which I frequently indulge; but soldiering is not at all in my line."
"I thought you an intimate friend of your countryman," the Mexican remarked.
"You were not mistaken," the hunter answered, "we are indeed very old friends, though our avocations are diametrically opposed."
"And on the present occasion, would you refuse the support of your arm in defending the good cause?"
"I do not know what you call the good cause," the Canadian replied, simply, "and, as a foreigner, I care very little to learn what it is. Thanks to heaven your disputes do not concern me the least in the world; but I should consider myself a coward if I abandoned a man with whom I have eaten and drunk, and by whose side I have slept, when a serious danger seems to threaten him. Hence you can safely reckon on me."
"Thanks, caballero," the Mexican said, warmly; "you are a man whose heart is in the right place."
"I believe it is; but I do not see why you should take the trouble to thank me for so natural a thing as this."
Don Aurelio regarded him for a moment with repressed admiration.
"Let me shake your hand," he said to him.