After a little reconnoitering, Mrs. Tellamantez declared that it was time for lunch, and Ray took his hatchet and began to cut greasewood, which burns fiercely in its green state. The little boys dragged the bushes to the spot that Mrs. Tellamantez had chosen for her fire. Mexican women like to cook out of doors.
After lunch Thea sent Gunner and Axel to hunt for agates. “If you see a rattlesnake, run. Don’t try to kill it,” she enjoined.
Gunner hesitated. “If Ray would let me take the hatchet, I could kill one all right.”
Mrs. Tellamantez smiled and said something to Johnny in Spanish.
“Yes,” her husband replied, translating, “they say in Mexico, kill a snake but never hurt his feelings. Down in the hot country, muchacha,” turning to Thea, “people keep a pet snake in the house to kill rats and mice. They call him the house snake. They keep a little mat for him by the fire, and at night he curl up there and sit with the family, just as friendly!”
Gunner sniffed with disgust. “Well, I think that’s a dirty Mexican way to keep house; so there!”
Johnny shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he muttered. A Mexican learns to dive below insults or soar above them, after he crosses the border.
By this time the south wall of the amphitheater cast a narrow shelf of shadow, and the party withdrew to this refuge. Ray and Johnny began to talk about the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, two places much shrouded in mystery in those days, and Thea listened intently. Mrs. Tellamantez took out her drawn-work and pinned it to her knee. Ray could talk well about the large part of the continent over which he had been knocked about, and Johnny was appreciative.
“You been all over, pretty near. Like a Spanish boy,” he commented respectfully.
Ray, who had taken off his coat, whetted his pocketknife thoughtfully on the sole of his shoe. “I began to browse around early. I had a mind to see something of this world, and I ran away from home before I was twelve. Rustled for myself ever since.”