"If I do say it, this here beats the deuce!"
The man was of type the doña had never met before. However, the humor of the situation came to her and she laughed.
"The scamp is a fool, but that's nothing so unusual as to amuse you so," snapped the dueña. "I'm going to try and sleep. I'll let his master know of this. I'd have this fellow shut up on bread and water for ten days, with several whippings for good measure. Ah—h! these wet clothes. I'm glad we're safe, and the horses too."
She covered her eyes with the blanket to shut out the firelight.
"Does the old lady ketch my talk? I rather thought she saw the joke."
"She understands no English."
"Mebbe not, but I speak plain United States. It's wonderful to meet one of you folks who knows how to talk straight language."
The strangeness of the place and time did not prevent Señorita Mendoza from again being amused. "We certainly speak language—the Spanish language."
"That's what I call 'lingo,' plain 'lingo.' But that's neither here nor there. You talk American fine. Of course not as good as I do. You couldn't expect that; but I understand every word you say.
"My employer, I take it, is English," Brown went on, "but he talks my talk all right—not as I do of course. I'm glad he's wise as he is that way, for 'ceptin' him, yourself included, I haven't conversed with nobody for months. A man naturally gets just stale, homesick for folks and talking."