How came he to be crossing the prairie at this early hour of the morning—apparently sober, and acting as the leader of others—when on the same morning, but a few hours before, he was seen drunk in his jacalé—so drunk as to be unconscious of having a visitor, or, at all events, incapable of giving that visitor a civil reception?
The change of situation though sudden—and to some extent strange—is not so difficult of explanation. It will be understood after an account has been given of his movements, from the time of Calhoun’s leaving him, till the moment of meeting him in the saddle, in company with his three conpaisanos.
On riding away from his hut, Calhoun had left the door, as he had found it, ajar; and in this way did it remain until the morning—El Coyote all the time continuing his sonorous slumber.
At daybreak he was aroused by the raw air that came drifting over him in the shape of a chilly fog. This to some extent sobered him; and, springing up from his skin-covered truck, he commenced staggering over the floor—all the while uttering anathemas against the cold, and the door for letting it in.
It might be expected that he would have shut to the latter on the instant; but he did not. It was the only aperture, excepting some holes arising from dilapidation, by which light was admitted into the interior of the jacalé; and light he wanted, to enable him to carry out the design that had summoned him to his feet.
The grey dawn, just commencing to creep in through the open doorway, scarce sufficed for his purpose; and it was only after a good while spent in groping about, interspersed with a series of stumblings, and accompanied by a string of profane exclamations, that he succeeded in finding that he was searching for: a large two-headed gourd, with a strap around its middle, used as a canteen for carrying water, or more frequently mezcal.
The odour escaping from its uncorked end told that it had recently contained this potent spirit; but that it was now empty, was announced by another profane ejaculation that came from the lips of its owner, as he made the discovery.
“Sangre de Cristo!” he cried, in an accent of angry disappointment, giving the gourd a shake to assure himself of its emptiness. “Not a drop—not enough to drown a chiga! And my tongue sticking to my teeth. My throat feels as if I had bolted a brazero of red-hot charcoal. Por Dios! I can’t stand it. What’s to be done? Daylight? It is. I must up to the pueblita. It’s possible that Señor Doffer may have his trap open by this time to catch the early birds. If so, he’ll find a customer in the Coyote. Ha, ha, ha!”
Slinging the gourd strap around his neck, and thrusting his head through the slit of his serapé, he set forth for the village.
The tavern was but a few hundred yards from his hut, on the same side of the river, and approachable by a path, that he could have travelled with his eyes under “tapojos.” In twenty minutes after, he was staggering past the sign-post of the “Rough and Ready.”