“Why didn’t you gather it, then, like the peones do?” asked the patroncito placidly.
“It was stole,” muttered the host; but he checked himself, and added in a softer tone, “by b’ars and other varmints, I reckon.”
And with this compromise between anger and truth, Cherokee Sam reached up and took down a small sack hanging to the great centre roof-log. It contained a few nubbins found on the harried field, his seed for next spring.
“Patroncito,” he remarked in a tone of conciliating confidence, as he shelled an ear in the frying-pan, “thar’s nothing like deer meat, and running water, and the free air of heaven, and maybe parched corn oncet in a while, to make a man a man.”
Under this encomium the parched corn was partaken of with gravity. And supper being over, the host cleaned up, a simple process, performed by dashing cold water in the red-hot frying-pan, and hanging it on a nail.
“San Nicolas, you said you’d show him to me,” then politely hinted the patroncito.
“It’s early yet for him,” said Cherokee Sam. “He’s jist about taking the trail in the Sierra, and the drifts is mighty deep, too. But he’ll be here.”
“My stockings, Don—they should be ready; and they’re wet. Will you oblige me by holding them to the fire?” said the princely patroncito.
Cherokee Sam held the damp stockings to the blaze. The patroncito watched him sleepily.
“He’s a long time coming, Don Cherokee Sam,” he murmured, as he nodded—nodded yet again, and slipped down upon the deerskin, fast asleep.