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Burros blinked sleepily on three legs and a hoof-tip. Cowponies switched their tails indolently to brush away flies. An occasional half-garbed Mexican lounged against a door jamb or squatted in the shade of a wall. A squaw from the reservation crouched on the curb beside her display of pottery. Not a sound disturbed the siesta of Battle Butte. Into this peace broke an irruption of riot.
It was a heterogeneous array, where every unit, instead of being one of an army mobilized against a common foe, was the enemy of all the others, lined up beside him. There were men on foot, men on horses, mules, and burros, men in wagons, buckboards, and buggies, and men in automobiles. At half-past five the pressure of greed became too great to bear.
I'll have ye know I kin lead burros with you or any other dang man, heat er no heat Ef yuh ain't got no more heart'n to AST it of me, I'll haul this here burro up 'n' down this dang gulch till there ain't nothin' left of 'im but the lead-rope, and the rocks is all wore down to cobble-stone! Ole grandpa parts, hey?
The Major decided to go, to "look after our Patsy;" so the three joined the long line of daring tourists and being mounted on docile, sure-footed burros, followed the guide down the trail. Myrtle and Uncle John spent the morning on the porch of the hotel.
He passed a train of fagot-laden burros in charge of two Mexican boys from Tesuque, the sides and back of each diminished mule so packed with firewood that it was a comical caricature of a beruffed Elizabethan dame. Into the plaza narrow, twisted streets of adobe rambled carelessly. One of these led to the San Miguel Mission, said to be the oldest church in the United States.
It must be remembered that the wheat, which in some well-irrigated districts is the principal product, is threshed by means of piling it up on the hard clay soil, and driving goats, sheep, and burros over it.
The people seem to be very kind to pet animals, though they do abuse the burros, cats especially being of a plump, handsome species, quite at home, always sleeping lazily in the sunshine. If they do purr in Spanish, it is so very like the genuine English article that its purport is quite unmistakable.
The sheep-dog gazed up into Pete's face with bright, unblinking eyes that questioned, "Why was Pete leaving camp early in the morning and without the burros?" "I'm quittin' for good," said Pete. The dog's waving tail grew still. "That's right honest!" and Pete rose. The sheep-dog's quivering joy ceased at the word. His alertness vanished.
We'll make 'em pay heavy fer what they gits from us, anyhow." The surrounding group watched them with silent interest, but at the end of a half hour during which nothing happened more exciting than the relighting of Stubbs' pipe, they appeared uneasy. They found the strangers as stoical as the burros.
There were Irishmen, pushin' wheelbarrows; an' Mexicans with burros; an' German miners, an' French, an' English, an' Swedes, ploddin' through the mud across the Sierras with their tools upon their backs; there were organ-grinders an' Jew pedlars, an' women dressed as men, all comin' to Virginia City to claim the gold which I 'ad lost.
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