"Any vaqueros ride by here this morning?" queried Andy.
The herder shook his head.
"Well, I guess I got time to eat," said Andy.
A faint twinkle touched the old Indian's eyes, but his face was as expressionless as a dried apple.
"Si," he said.
"But not a whole lot of time," asserted Andy.
The Indian rose and fetched a pail of goat's milk and some tortillas from the shack. He shuffled back to his hermitage and reappeared with a tin cup. Andy, who meanwhile had consumed one leathery tortilla, shook his head. "Never mind the cup, amigo." He tilted the pail and drank—paused for breath, and drank again. He set the pail down empty. "I was some dry," he said, smiling. "Got any more of these rawhide flapjacks?"
The herder nodded, stooped to enter the shack, and came out with a half-dozen of the tortillas, which Andy rolled and stuffed in his saddle-pocket. "Mighty good trail bread!" he said enthusiastically. "You can't wear 'em out."
Again the herder nodded, covertly studying this young rider who did not look like an outlaw, whose eye was clear and untroubled. Well, what did it matter?—a man must eat.
The old Indian had given unquestioningly from his poverty, with the simple dignity of true hospitality. As for who this stranger was, of what he had done—that was none of his affair. A man must eat.