Roy carefully unrolled the husk. Within was the steaming tamale. It was a little cake of meal and minced meat, cooked in the husk. Roy took a bite. There were tears in his eyes before he got it down.
“Great Cæsar!” he cried, “what’s in that?”
“Corn-meal, minced meat, cayenne pepper, and perhaps some other things,” said Mr. Young.
“Principally pepper, I think,” said Roy, sucking in fresh air to cool his burning mouth. Then, after a moment, he laughed. “I certainly do know what that slang term means,” he said. “Whoever invented that dish, anyway?”
“The Mexicans,” said Mr. Young. “There are a lot more Mexican dishes you may want to try while you’re down here—enchiladas and chili con carne, for instance.”
“Not for mine,” said Roy ruefully. “At least not if they are anything like hot tamales.”
“They are,” laughed the first officer, “only more so. That’s one thing I never could understand—why people in a country as hot as Mexico should want to eat food as hot and greasy as the Mexicans like it, for they use about as much lard as they do pepper.”
“I’m glad I’m not a Mexican,” laughed Roy.
They walked through the oil field to the headquarters of a drilling company. Mr. Young transacted the business on which he had come. Roy, meantime, wandered about, watching operations. He was particularly interested in the digging of a great, round hollow near by. Hundreds of men were at work in it, and scores of mules. With scrapers the men were hollowing out a great circle and dragging the scooped-out earth up in a mound that ran around it.
“What are they doing?” asked Roy when Mr. Young rejoined him.