CHAPTER XXI GOOD-BY TO THE HORSES
Returning from Grand Cañon we discussed plans for the coming year. Ewart had his Scots Guards history, which he ought to finish by the summer, and then he was going North to the Canadian Line, and proposed to make a study of the relationship of the two peoples, Canadian and American, for a book to be called "The Unguarded Line." I had in mind to go to Mexico, continuing this study of the quest of El Dorado along the traces of Cortes' conquest. The severity of the Santa Fe winter decided Ewart against staying there any longer, and he yearned to go with me to Mexico. Against the latter I dissuaded him. He had the weight of the history on his mind, as something which must be done, must be got over, for he had contracted to do it. He said he would take the history with him and do it there. But I felt Mexico too unsafe a place for him to be in by himself. He did not know any Spanish and therefore would be taken for a "Gringo" and treated accordingly by a people who had the reputation of being extremely disobliging. Ewart, however, was about equally drawn to New Orleans, which for long had been a city of romance to him, a place he certainly wanted to know. There he could live very well till the spring and then, if he wished, return to Santa Fe. We would all return to Santa Fe in the spring and have some last gallops over the desert before the summer. Ewart decided to go to New Orleans.
The immediate problem was the bestowal of our horses. Ewart referred the matter to Cowboy Pete, a near neighbor, asking him if he would like the use of a horse for the rest of the winter, or if he would like to buy a horse.
The cowboy was abusive and amusing.
"Do I want your powny? I tell yer the on-y way I'd take that thar broom-tail o' yourn would be with a twenty-dollar bill tied round his neck. The best thing you can do is put a brand on him, then take him up the mountains and leave him there. Turn him loose, I tell yar! Then if you come back in the spring and find him, why, you've got a horse, see; but if not, why, you've saved the price of his feed. If he's a sturdy powny he'll last out the winter or-right. But I tell you, right now, I can buy pownies like that o' yourn by the carload at five dollars apiece just now. No one has any use for pownies in the winter, cost more'n they're worth in feed. Tell yar straight I wouldn't give him hell room on the ranch. But put a brand on him—a new brand—and take him up the mountains."
Cowboy Pete spoke very loudly, evidently under the impression that Ewart was deaf, for the Englishman had a habit of asking questions twice. I stood by and interpreted the one to the other.
Ewart, however, did not trust to the idea of abandoning George among the snows, though it is a customary way of keeping horses in the winter in New Mexico. He had paid twenty-five dollars for him, and he thought he ought eventually to get some of it back. He therefore sedulously sought buyers. At length he struck a deal with a Mexican hauler of wood. George was to be delivered up for twelve and a half dollars.
"If only you could have been there," said Ewart afterwards. "I led old George down the street and was about to hand him over when the Mexican's brother came flying out of a cottage and started to abuse George in Spanish, finding every imaginable fault in him. I said he had carried the poet hundreds of miles without misadventure before I bought him but other Mexicans joined in the dispute and I was obliged to let George go for ten. The last I saw of him he was hauling wood on Palace Avenue."