"Friends! Friends!" shouted the Trinidadian. "They are not Strawbridge's friends! We Anglo-Saxons trade with these natives; we talk with 'em, live among 'em, and occasionally marry 'em, but we never really get acquainted with any of 'em, and we never make a friend."
There was a certain verity in the rancher's appraisal, and the Tollivers themselves proved it. During this brief lunch hour the drummer and his English hosts were talking intimately and understandingly in a fashion which Strawbridge perhaps would never achieve with the colonel, Lubito, Father Benicio, or even with the señora....
The drummer wondered about the señora....
A few minutes later the little party was interrupted by the appearance of the native boy in the doorway, who said that Coronel Saturnino was waiting outside. Tolliver arose, and Strawbridge followed, saying that perhaps the troops were ready to march.
On the porch they found Coronel Saturnino standing at attention, with a very affable air, holding in his hand a sheet of paper.
He made a slight bow and tendered the paper.
"Here is a receipt, Señor Tolliver, for twenty horses, three cows, fifty chickens, and eleven ducks," he explained blandly. "As we come back by here General Fombombo would greatly appreciate one of your thoroughbred Hereford bulls, to be used on his ranch for breeding-purposes, and I have just included the bull in this receipt."
The Trinidadian burst out into another paroxysm of profane anger. The officer shrugged mildly.
"You need not take it, mi amigo, unless you want it, but it will be valuable to you some day."
"What day? How? I've heard that before!"