“He’s rad on now to Casser Corver—maybe to git a pick o’ somethin’ to eat. He won’t stay thur long. ’Fore many hours hev passed, somebody ’ll see him out hyur on the purayra; an thet somebody air boun’ to be Zeb’lon Stump.
“Come, ye critter!” he continued, turning to the mare, “ye thort ye wur a goin’ hum, did ye? Yur mistaken ’beout that. Ye’ve got to squat hyur for another hour or two—if not the hul o’ the night. Never mind, ole gurl! The grass don’t look so had; an ye shell hev a chance to git yur snout to it. Thur now—eet your durned gut-full!”
While pronouncing this apostrophe, he drew the head-stall over the ears of his mare; and, chucking the bridle across the projecting tree of the saddle, permitted her to graze at will.
Having secured her in the chapparal where he had halted, he walked on—along the track taken by Calhoun.
Two hundred yards farther on, and the jungle terminated. Beyond stretched an open plain; and on its opposite side could be seen the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.
The figure of a horseman could be distinguished against its whitewashed façade—in another moment lost within the dark outline of the entrance.
Zeb knew who went in.
“From this place,” he muttered, “I kin see him kum out; an durn me, ef I don’t watch till he do kum out—ef it shed be till this time o’ the morrow. So hyur goes for a spell o’ patience.”
He first lowered himself to his knees. Then, “squirming” round till his back came in contact with the trunk of a honey-locust, he arranged himself into a sitting posture. This done, he drew from his capacious pocket a wallet, containing a “pone” of corn-bread, a large “hunk” of fried “hog-meat,” and a flask of liquor, whose perfume proclaimed it “Monongahela.”
Having eaten about half the bread, and a like quantity of the meat, he returned the remaining moieties to the wallet; which he suspended over head upon a branch. Then taking a satisfactory swig from the whiskey-flask, and igniting his pipe, he leant back against the locust—with arms folded over his breast, and eyes bent upon the gateway of Casa del Corvo.