Murphy paid, also all the others, big and little, when the Blackguard went about smiling grimly upon his customers. But if he was ruthless in exacting cash or black eyes, La Mancha was punctilious as to the payment of his own debts—in cigars. He became wholesale dealer to the sergeants' mess and the canteen, imported pipes, dealt in shot-guns, ornamental revolvers, books, and musical instruments. His mouth organs, tin whistles, and concertinas became a far worse nuisance in the valley than ever the Indians had been, but even these had comparatively little to say compared with La Mancha's pigs. Possibly the story of Daniel led to the cornet, concertina, Jews' harp, mouth organ, penny whistle, oboe, and all kinds of music; by La Mancha's own confession, the matter of the Gadarene swine suggested a litter of pigs, bought cheap from a rancher, raised on the cook's hitherto misapplied slops, and ultimately sold at a handsome profit to the Quartermaster. All this was a matter of time, but under enormous disadvantages, despite the delay and inconvenience caused by almost incessant travelling on duty, the Blackguard was reputed long before autumn to be the richest man in D Troop.
But to return to a much earlier date. When the Tenderfoot's luggage was brought over from Windermere, Dandy Irvine, who was then at headquarters, volunteered its safe delivery at the Throne Mine in consideration of leave for hunting between Saturday and Monday. It was then that the Blackguard wrote his first letter to Miss Violet Burrows. Letter-writing in camp is always a serious matter, because the needful materials must be borrowed or improvised. When a recruit first joins, he is apt to write mainly to frighten his mother with the assumption of mythical surroundings borrowed from inexpensive fiction, thus:—
"DEAR MOTHER,—
"I write in the saddle, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by hostile Indians, a sword in one hand and a revolver in the other." [Then the young imagination flags.] "There is no news, but please write soon,—and send some money, as washing is awfully expensive.
"YOUR LOVING SON."
But a hardened sinner like the Blackguard writes seldom or never, finding the pen awkward after shovel, axe, and gun; so the epistle to Miss Burrows, of course a strictly private communication, was delivered painfully, tongue in cheek, head askew, with a perhaps too copious discharge of ink.
Miss Violet read it with such a disdainful tilt of her little pert nose that the blotted characters were well-nigh out of range. She was sitting during the Sunday rest at the cliff edge, with Dandy Irvine on one side and Mr. Ramsay, jealously observant, on the other. "Humph," she looked sideways at the glowing scarlet of Dandy's serge jacket, then at his shining boots and glittering spurs, "he came up here," she said, "in an undershirt and one of those flappy hats. Besides, he was all dusty."
"But then, you see," explained the Blackguard's champion, "he can afford to please himself as to appearances. If I were a great aristocrat I might do the same."
"A great what?"
"Don't you know? His brother is a Duke, Ambassador from Spain to the Court of St. James'; La Mancha's cousins are mostly emperors, kings, and grand dukes; the Cid was one of his ancestors, not to mention Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. Of course, he's only a Don, which means 'My lord,' but"—