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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Look yer," said the stranger, with a grim smile, "she won't stray far, I'll be bound. I've an extra pack mule above here; you can ride on her, and lead me into camp, and to-morrow come back for your beast." Poor honest Concho's heart sickened at the prospect of leaving behind the tired servant he had objurgated so strongly a moment before, but the love of gold was uppermost.
I've felt, lately, that Eastern airs don't agree with my constitution." Miss Whitmore grew red as to cheeks and bright as to eyes. "I think a few small doses of Eastern manners would improve you very much," she said, pointedly. "Y e-s? They'd have to be small, because the supply is very limited." The Little Doctor grew white around the mouth. She held Concho's rein so tight he almost stopped.
A quick glance at the faces of the others satisfied him that while they lacked Concho's good humor, they certainly did not surpass him in intellect. "Pedro" was a stout vaquero. "Manuel" was a slim half-breed and ex-convert of the Mission of San Carmel, and "Miguel" a recent butcher of Monterey.
The fact that, after a ride like the one we were near finishing, every man of us was saturated with fine alkaline dust, made the latter question ludicrous. For this final ride we changed horses for the last time on the trip, and after a three hours' ride under a mid-day torrid sun, the shade of Concho's timber and the companionship of running water were ours.
"It is chloride of silver, you darned fool." Not content with this cheap experiment, the stranger then took Concho's breath away by reddening some litmus paper with the nitrate, and then completely knocked over the simple Mexican by restoring its color by dipping it in the salt water.
But Concho's head ached, and his back ached, and he was so generally distressed that he bethought him of a medico, an American doctor, lately come into the town, who had once treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine, and after the same heroic fashion. Concho reasoned, not illogically, that if he were to be physicked at all he ought to get the worth of his money.
"Concho's mule is saddled and ready for you at the foot of the garden. You will follow the beach a league beyond the Indians' cross. In the boat will await you the trusty messenger of the Church. You will say to him, 'Guadalajara, and give him these letters. One is to the captain. You will require no other introduction."
And then poor Concho bowed his head to the ground, and falling on his face, cried as if his honest heart would break. The tempest passed in a moment; it was not Concho's nature to suffer long nor brood over an injury. As he raised his head again his eye caught the shimmer of the quicksilver, that pool of merry antic metal that had so delighted him an hour before.
He drew a match sharply along his stamped saddle-skirt and applied it to the cigarette, pinched out the blaze with extreme care, and tossed the match-end facetiously against Concho's nose. He did not seem particularly alarmed at her threat or, perhaps, he did not care.
Scamp as he was, there was something in the simple credulity of poor Concho that made him uneasy. Not that his moral consciousness was touched, but he feared that Concho's companions might, knowing Concho's simplicity, instantly suspect him of trading upon it. He rode on in a deep study. Was he reviewing his past life?
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