"What of?" the other sharply interrupted him. "Are we not friends?"
"That is true. I accept."
The horse sprang up somewhat actively, and the two men who had met so strangely started at once, mounted on one horse. Twenty minutes later they reached the first buildings of the Rancho. At the entrance of the village the owner of the horse stopped, and turning to his companion, said,—
"Where will you get down?"
"That is all the same to me; let us go first where you are going."
"Ah!" the horseman said, scratching his head, "the fact is, I am going nowhere in particular."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh! You will understand me in two words. I landed today at Guaymas; the Rancho is only the first station of a journey I meditate in the desert, and which will probably last a long time."
By the moonlight, a ray of which now played on the stranger's face, his companion attentively regarded his noble and pensive countenance, on which grief had already cut deep furrows.
"So that," he at length said, "any lodging will suit you?"