“Why not?”
“I don’t like the story of this sweetheart—this ranchero. The fellow possesses money—a spirit, too, that may be troublesome. He’s not the man one would be called upon to fight—at least not one in my position; but he is one of these people—what the cibolero is not—and has their sympathies with him. It would be a very different thing to get involved with him in an affair. Bah! what need I care? I never yet failed. Good night, camarado!”
“Buenos noches!” replied Roblado; and both, rising simultaneously from the table, retired to their respective sleeping-rooms.
Chapter Twenty.
The “ranchos” and “haciendas” of the valley extended nearly ten miles along the stream below San Ildefonso. Near the town they were studded more thickly; but, as you descended the stream, fewer were met with, and those of a poorer class. The fear of the “Indios bravos” prevented those who were well off from building their establishments at any great distance from the Presidio. Poverty, however, induced others to risk themselves nearer the frontier; and, as for several years the settlement had not been disturbed, a number of small farmers and graziers had established themselves as far as eight or ten miles distance below the town.
Half-a-mile beyond all these stood an isolated dwelling—the last to be seen in going down the valley. It seemed beyond the pale of protection—so far as the garrison was concerned—for no patrol ever extended its rounds to so distant a point. Its owner evidently trusted to fate, or to the clemency of the Apaches—the Indians who usually troubled the settlement,—for the house in question was in no other way fortified against them. Perhaps its obscure and retired situation contributed to its security.
It stood somewhat off the road, not near the stream, but back under the shadow of the bluff; in fact, almost built against the cliff.
It was but a poor rancho, like all the others in the valley, and, indeed, throughout most parts of Mexico, built of large blocks of mud, squared in a mould and sun-dried. Many of the better class of such buildings showed white fronts, because near at hand gypsum was to be had for the digging. Some of greater pretension had windows that looked as though they were glazed. So they were, but not with glass. The shining plates that resembled it were but laminae of the aforesaid gypsum, which is used for that purpose in several districts of New Mexico.