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He looks as if he had been bred in hell. He will not stand the quirto; and El Rayo is more lightly built. We shall beat by a dozen lengths." The two vaqueros who were to ride the horses had stripped to their soft linen shirts and black velvet trousers, cast aside their sombreros, and bound their heads with tightly knotted handkerchiefs.
The alforjas, or saddle-bags, of the guide were strengthened by a stock of cold provisions, the leathern bota hanging beside it was filled with ripe Granada wine; and now behold me ambling over the Vega, accoutred in a gay Andalusian jacket, a sash woven by Mateo Ximenes, and one of those bandboxy sombreros, which I at first thought so ungainly, but now consider quite picturesque and elegant.
For there were times, oddly enough, when any sound would carry a great distance through the crashing of the rain. A wind now sprung up and at once veered the rain from its perpendicular fall. It slashed them in the face under the drooping brims of their sombreros, so they drew into the shelter of the highest part of the standing wall.
The convoy skirting a little wood, along the mine trail, between the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased its pace on the camino real, mules urged to speed, escort galloping, Don Carlos riding alone ahead of a dust storm affording a vague vision of long ears of mules, of fluttering little green and white flags stuck upon each cart; of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly visible in the rear of that rattling dust trail, with a stiff seat and impassive face, rising and falling rhythmically on an ewe-necked silver-bitted black brute with a hammer head.
All but to the ground swept twenty sombreros as out over the prairies, out where no human ear could hear, rolled a cheer, and repeated, and again; tribute of Fort Yankton to those who went. At the rear of the column one rider alone did not respond, apparently did not hear. Implacable as Landor himself, he looked straight before him, awaited the silence that would bring with it renewed activity.
With rattle of harness and creak of complaining axle-tree the coach toiled over the endless trail, drawn by four raw-boned mules. As it drew near, the boys waved their sombreros to the driver, who returned the salute with a flourish of his long snakeskin whip. At last it reached them and the driver rumbled a hoarse greeting. "How goes it, pards," he said, "an' what's the good word?"
THE following morning, making our toilets carefully, we donned our sombreros, and sallied out on a tour. Without meaning to reveal our designs upon the court, our principal object was, to learn what chances there were for white men to obtain employment under the queen.
Careers more varied than Mexican sombreros one might hear in any Z. P. squad-room were not the Z. P. so much more given to action than to autobiography. They bore little resemblance to what I had expected.
But a rebuff to him was in the nature of an appetizer, a fillip to press the acquaintance. He encroached a bit farther on the narrow limits of the table and continued, "Nice weather we’re having." Miss Carmichael gave her undivided attention to her coffee. The spurs and sombreros, that had not relaxed a muscle in their strained observation of the little drama, breathed reflectively.
He leaped to the saddle at the same time that the blood-bay came to his four feet. The chorus in full cry was around the horse, four or five excited cow- punchers waving their sombreros and yelling for horse or rider, according to the gallantry of the fight.
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