"Caramba, hombre! And why must you interfere? No people in this part will go that way. They all know the danger as well as the birds. I live here in this part. Why not leave it to me?"
"But will you, Gremo?"
"What? Put up the sign? I most certainly shall, Señorita. Some day when I have not the air-plants to gather, or the lanterna to clean, or when I am not down with the calentura, or there is no fair at Haldez, or no cock-fight at Saltona. The Señorita does not know how long I have thought of this—I, Gremo! Why, as long ago as when the Señor Don Gil bought the sand spit I had the board prepared. That is now going on four years, if I count aright. I told the Señor Don Gil that I would get a board, and I have."
"He thinks it there now, I am sure," said Agueda.
"Well, well! He may, he may, our Don Gil! I am not disputing it, Señorita. I am only waiting for the padre to come and put the letters on it."
"Have you told him, Gremo?" said Agueda, bending forward anxiously.
"Caramba, Señorita!" said Gremo, raising up on his long leg, "where do you suppose I am to find the time to tell the padre? If I should take a half-day from my work when I am at San Isidro, and walk over to the bodega, the padre might be away at the cock-fight at Saltona, or the christening at Haldez. The Don Beltran is a gentle hombre, but he would not pay me for half a day when I did not earn it. If I could know when the padre was at home, I would go, most certainly."
"You must have seen him many times in the last three years," said Agueda.
"I will not deny that I have seen the padre," answered Gremo, rising angrily on the tips of his knotted brown toes. "But would you have me disturb a man like our padre when he was watching the shoemaker's black cock from Troja, to see if his spurs were as long as the spurs of the cock of Corndeau?—that vagamundo!"
Agueda reined Castaño round, so that his head pointed in the general direction of the bodega, as well as homeward.