"Why, to be sure, she must be," cut in Rocky, with portentous seriousness, though his eyes danced with merriment; "she wouldn't be your style no other way. You always was high-toned, Jack; I'll say that for you."
"That's all right," returned Stephens, colouring more furiously than ever; he knew he was blushing, though the experience was entirely strange to him, and he was dreadfully ashamed of not being able to help it. "But indeed I'm not joking, Rocky. Her family's not very rich, but they're kind of way-up people, I want you to understand, old Spanish blood and that sort of thing; not any of the low-down, half-caste Indian stock, you know."
"That so?" said Rocky, keenly; "wal', I'm glad to hear it. I thought Mexicans was all one quality straight through—leastways, all I ever seen were." Rocky's knowledge of the race was limited to the bull-whackers of the big waggon-trains on the freighting roads, and Mexican stock was considerably below par by his estimate.
"That's where you got off wrong," said Stephens eagerly, "for there's a few families here in New Mexico that's just as good as anybody, if it comes to that—Bacas and Armijos and—and Sanchez—" he hesitated a little.
"Say," cut in Rocky, "look at yonder! Who are them ducks a-coming up the road? They 're riding as if all blazes was loose. Some of the First Families of New Mexico, eh?" Rocky was sarcastic. He knew Indians when he saw them.
"By George!" exclaimed Stephens in considerable excitement, "it's those accursed Navajos back here again."
Out of a whirling cloud of red dust and flying horsehoofs emerged the well-known figures of Mahletonkwa, Notalinkwa, and the rest of the gang. They reined up before the shut door of the store, and most of them sprang off their horses.
"They've not gone back to their reservation," said Stephens indignantly. "We'd ought to have had the soldiers here by now, and put them right back. I'm all for doing things by law and order, me, and it's the soldiers' business anyway. But it's getting to be time something was done. It's an infamous shame they should be allowed to fly around like this and bulldoze everybody; and, what's more, I'm getting tired of it."
The Indians were talking and laughing in a loud, excited manner, and Mahletonkwa began to pound on the closed door of the store with his fist.
"That's a sockdologer," said Rocky, "him knocking at the door I mean, with the eagle-feathers in his head-dress." Mahletonkwa was a big man physically; his stature would have been remarkable even in a crowd of Western men, perhaps the tallest men, on an average, of any on the face of the globe. "Say, do you mean to tell me that these are wild Indians, and you leave 'em around here loose?"