"Nuther item: we have twice crossed a warm, broad trail of Apaches, I calc'late, over a hundred strong, smelling like p'ison of war paint, and I go into cover when thar air so heavy odds. Yes, this child do. Yonder hacienda is called that of the Ojo Agotado, the exhausted spring, or we plainsmen and mountain men say: 'the Gi'n-out.' We shall not be received frien'ly thar. I say agen. Here, though, I can rely on being taken in cheerily, for the host would have lost his ears only I came along by the oak tree where he had been nailed up by them—little friskiness on the part of the ragamuffin warriors of One-leg Pedrillo's gang. Don't you fret; the Rancho Verde will house us, and you pertickler, first-chop, as the Chinee says."
"I do not understand, but I am wholly in your hands."
"That's the best place to put yourself. You kin offer me a testimonial in a gold frame hereafter."
They moved on once more at a good pace. As they approached their goal the light of guidance seemed to spread out. Soon they could make out that an immense glare flamed from the open portals as from a crater, and they heard singing, whistling on war whistles, shouts, wild laughter, all jumbled up with the shrill twang of a guitar, of which the far from harmonious notes blended more or less satisfactorily with the rumble of a tambourine.
"Having a jamboree," said the hunter, drawing rein at the blazing doorway.
"Some unfort'nat' has lost his ducats. Uncle's swarming with robbers tonight."
The ground was hard as flint, and the clatter of the horses' hoofs had attracted to the mudsill (for the doorstep was embedded in the earth of the floor) a stout knave of some forty years, with a sullen eye, a ferocious mien, and cars as tattered as a fighting dog's. His peculiar complexion, yellowish, and muddy, and oily hair, denoted him to be no regular blooded white. This burly rogue, stiffly standing in the entrance, eyed the strangers sullenly without speaking.
The American uttered the religious greeting customary among the Mexicans, to which the regular counter speech was grumblingly accorded, and, alighting, he subjoined:
"Well, Tío Camote (Uncle Sweet-potato), hosquillo as ever! Ay, even more gloomy! But how much longer air you going to keep an old companyero at the head of his nag? Don't you see with half an eye that my pard. an' me have rattled along as if your granddad Old Horny was at our hosses' tails, and that we want food and sleep as much as they do to bury their muzzles in oats?"
"Why!" ejaculated the individual, who, by the rule of contrary which pervades the popular idea of fun, had been nicknamed "Sweet Potato," "Heaven forgive me, but, as true as I am a sinner, we have here Señor Don Olivero. Just overlook my not having recognised your señory at the first peep."