“No, I came from the Rio Abajo.”
“The Rio Abajo! You mean from down the Del Norte?”
“Yes.”
“Then, my dear sir, it is a mistake. You think you are talking to somebody else, and bidding for some other horse.”
“Oh, no! He is yours. A black stallion with red nose and long full tail, half-bred Arabian. There is a small mark over the left eye.”
This was certainly the description of Moro; and I began to feel a sort of superstitious awe in regard to my mysterious neighbour.
“True,” replied I; “that is all correct; but I bought that stallion many months ago from a Louisiana planter. If you have just arrived from two hundred miles down the Rio Grande, how, may I ask, could you have known anything about me or my horse?”
“Dispensadme, caballero! I did not mean that. I came from below to meet the caravan, for the purpose of buying an American horse. Yours is the only one in the caballada I would buy, and, it seems, the only one that is not for sale!”
“I am sorry for that; but I have tested the qualities of this animal. We have become friends. No common motive would induce me to part with him.”
“Ah, señor! it is not a common motive that makes me so eager to purchase him. If you knew that, perhaps—” he hesitated a moment; “but no, no, no!” and after muttering some half-coherent words, among which I could recognise the “Buenos noches, caballero!” the stranger rose up with the same mysterious air that had all along characterised him, and left me. I could hear the tinkling of the small bells upon the rowels of his spurs, as he slowly warped himself through the gay crowd, and disappeared into the night.