"How are you, Squito?—how's your health?" inquired the Colonel cheerily.

Rafaeleta silently nodded her acknowledgments of the civility manifested by the question. "Where're yer from?" she returned laconically.

"The Plyas."

"Laid over at the Sherlock boys' last night?"

"Yes." (We were engaged in unharnessing the horses by this time. Hedged round affectionately by the dogs in various positions, Squito stood watching us.) "Any Indian news?"

She shook her head, and then an after-thought evidently occurring to her, a smile lit up her face, and she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "Some of the boys down to the Lang ranch and Cloverdale have ter'ble times standing 'em off—least, that's how they talk when they get a chance at me. Piggy Farrel has killed 'bout eight, he says. But he always buries 'em—guns and all."

"Piggy's a great and a good man," said the Colonel, smiling. "And Piggy wouldn't be dishonest enough to bury an Indian if he wasn't killed first, so if he told you that, it's all right."

"If he could kill Indians shooting off his mouth at them, he'd soon clean out all there is," remarked Squito sharply.

The Colonel cast a veiled glance at her as he passed round to put some harness in the wagon. "What's the matter, then? Has Piggy been too 'fresh'?"[12]

Her sunburnt cheeks flushed redly, and a gleam of temper flashed in her eyes. But she checked herself, and only laughed scornfully.

"Where's your father?" (Old man Murray was always so termed.)

"He's over to Alamo viejo after a steer that strayed out there; he wanted to see the country, so he went himself. Joe and Jake's out on the range somewheres. 'Spect father back to supper," she observed after a pause; and after a further pause employed in a survey of our tired-out nags, she added: "Want some grain for them, don't yer?"

Don Cabeza nodded.

"Have you been feeding them grain lately?"

"Yes; they can have a full feed."

I volunteered to fetch it myself, but looking me over ungratefully, Squito lifted her eyes to mine for the first time, and said coolly: "You'd best pack those things out of the wagon into the house." And picking up a couple of empty candle-boxes, which stood on a carpenter's bench near at hand, she passed round a corner of the wall with one under each arm, and reappeared presently with the feeds of maize.

We moved our traps from the wagon into a room in the house, and lit a log fire on the wide hearth, for the sun was nearly gone, and at this time of year the nights were frosty. Major Tupper paid us a visit from the neighbouring camp with a couple of his officers.

"What news?"

"Well, the Indians had killed the marshal and another man near Wilcox. Lieut. Fountain was reported to have had a brush with them in the Dragoon Mountains. Captains Crawford and Davis were on the point of starting on separate expeditions into the Sierra Madre after them. A scout from Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, had passed through the camp yesterday on his way to General Crook, at Fort Bowie, and reported that Natchez, NanÉ, and Mangus, with a considerable following, were located in their old stronghold—the mountain on the San Diego ranch—and that small parties of them were trading daily with the Mexicans in Casas Grandes. Etc., etc."

"They'll get you one of these days, Colonel, when you are driving around in your wagon," said the Major.

Don Cabeza laughed, as he sent the cigar-box round again. "They don't want me; old Geronimo and I, we're——" (here a little horizontal motion of the hand smoothed the matter over and disposed of it completely) "we're solid. I've fixed things with him. 'That'll be all right,' as the boys say. When the Indians are out, Major, it is like having a needle in a carpet: you may tread on it first step, and you may not strike it in ten years. If you have any business to attend to, you'd best go right along and do it. Keep your eyes skinned, of course, but don't stay home."

Our visitors left; Jake and Joe, two limber, sinewy, six-foot models of health and strength, came in, and in due course, under the direction of the Colonel (a finished gourmet, who not only could give you points with regard to anything of gastronomic interest between the Poodle Dog and Delmonico's, but could post you almost equally well as to the best temples of culinary art that lay between Bignon's and the CafÉ St. PÉtersbourg, in Pera), we produced a sumptuous repast. With difficulty was our chef dissuaded from delaying supper whilst he made a venison stew—a stew of any kind being a favourite tour de force of his. Of course we all differed as to the best method of cooking what had to be prepared, and for the fun of baiting the Colonel, most of us united in deriding his decisions. But when Rafaeleta, after roundly challenging his ability, finally deserted us, and went over to his side, we had to "take water."

In such scenes as these Squito was in her happiest element. Her infectious laughter, as frivolous and light as air, ending often in the sweetest and gayest of sighs, lent a nonsensical tone to everything. She roved irresponsibly here, there, and everywhere—impeding, assisting, commanding, interfering, insisting with privileged authority—playfully executing freaks of impulse that had no motive, but were none the less exquisitely graceful, and which charmed if only because they proved that beneath her prematurely old manner the wayward spirit of childhood still lingered, and the time had not yet come in her career when every word had its billet, every gesture its design, every action its object. The movements of a child are generally graceful, awkwardness, like shyness, being only the result of false training or ill-health. Rafaeleta had had no training, and was a perfect type of all that was healthy. In moments like these, therefore, she was a beautiful study.

It was interesting to note the guard the cow-punchers kept over their tongues in her presence, and since cleansing the Augean stables had been a light task by comparison with purifying the language of a New Mexican ranch hand, the task must not be underrated.

Those were pleasant meals at the Gray Place. Rough? Naturally they were rough; but none the less they left an agreeable impression, and this is a good test. How often do the old wines and delicacies, the vapid enumeration of social events which forms the conversation, the general luxury and jaded appetites of London dinners do this? It is possible to go through life, day after day, without realising what we enjoy or do not enjoy. There are probably people who have become so thoroughly accustomed to ask, what is interesting? so entirely unused to ask themselves, what they really enjoy? that amusement is a lost art for them. They have stunted and coerced their inclinations until their natural and artificial appetites are indistinguishably confused, and they could no longer get a sure answer from their own hearts, did they ask themselves, what they enjoyed?

Jake and Squito are busy at the stove. Murray, the manager, a cheery little man, with a vieille moustache face, and a twinkle of quiet humour in his eyes, is drying his hands on the round towel. (Murray is an Irishman by birth, but the Irish element in America is so generally unpopular in the West, that he always laughingly denies the nationality which his unmistakable brogue betrays, and declares that he is an "I-talian.") The Colonel, Joe, and I are already seated at the long table at one end of the kitchen, together with a teamster from Separ, on his way to the camp at the Lang ranch, with a load of goods for the "gin mill" there. The Colonel is stroking his beard, and smiling in anticipation over a tale that he has just been reminded of and is going to tell.

"Yes," he agreed to some remark that had been made, and he smiled a little reflectively, "you're right. Andy Sullivan is a daisy—what Louis Timmer would call a 'Yoe dandy.' He's a great and a good man is Andy—'Not great like CÆsar stained with blood, but only great as he is good.' Did he ever tell you about his playing 'seven-up' with the old Scotchman?"

We had none of us heard the tale.

"Well, Andy found himself harnessed on to an old Scotchman one day, and they got to playing seven-up to pass the time. Andy could hardly be called 'anybody's fool' at seven-up, and the old Scotchman was no slouch either, it seemed—he had some talent into him, as they say. Anyhow, they were playing along pretty evenly; and the drinks were mounting up all the time. Pretty soon Andy began to notice that his opponent didn't always take his word for the score, but sorted his cards over, as well as his own. He got so particular at last that the thing became rather pointed, and Andy said finally:

"'You don't seem to be very easy in your mind, sir; you're picking the cards over a good deal. You surely don't mean to suspect me of taking any advantage of you.'

"'Not for the warld, Meester Sullivan! I wouldn't be suspecting ye under any saircumstances; but,' the old Scotchman added grimly, 'the man that would be watching ye would be attending to his own bizeness.'

"'And,' said Andy confidentially, when he told me the tale on himself, 'I was moighty hard up at the time—right down on the bed rock—and it is just possible that I may have been monkeying with the cards a little.'"

"You bet yer!" cried Jake, from the store. "He'd play his hand for all there was in it, anyhow. Come to drink with him, it's just as well to keep the handle of the jug your side."

"He's another of them I-talians, ain't he?" inquired old Murray, with a wink.

"That's what he is, sure! By the way, Colonel, did you see Sam around Deming?"

"Sam?—Sam Rider? Isn't he in the valley?"

"Not much! Sam got two months' wages ahead, so he cracked his whip, and went off on a bend."

"To blow in?"[13]

Jake laughed assent.

"I seen him," chimed in the teamster.

"Where?"

"Up at Silver."

"How was he making it?" asked Squito, with her back to us.

"About making 'a stand off,' I guess. I met him going along with his head down, like he was drunk. We'd been having 'a time,' and my keg was pretty full, too. But I seen him all the same. 'Come into the "Ranch," and have a drink, Sam,' says I. 'A drink goes,' says he. 'How do you come on?' says I. He said as he'd been gambling, and was two hundred dollars ahead of the town. He 'got there with both feet'[14] at starting, and was eight hundred ahead once. But he played it off at montÉ. 'Well,' says I, 'you're full now; you'd better go to bed, and not play again till you're sober.'

"'I believe I will,' he says.

"But later on Thin Pete told me that he was up at the 'Central,' gambling again. I went in and stood behind him, and looked on for a few minutes. There he was, sure enough, bucking at faro, and just a-sousing it to her red hot—betting only on the 'high card,' or 'high card, coppered.'

"'That's my kind,' says old Sam; 'you get "action" there every turn. No waiting for any durned cards to come up!' He's a high roller, by gum!—when he's got it."

"You bet your buttons!" murmured Squito proudly, "Sam'll 'stay with 'em' as long as he's got a check."[15]

"Bully for you, Squito!" cried Joe. "When it comes to gambling he's a thoroughbred; he puts it up[16] as if it was bad."

Squito laughed impulsively.

"They came near socking him in the cooler,[17] the other day," said the teamster.

"Is that so? What for?"

"Oh, I d'n' know!—he'd been singing the music to 'em. Sam's too broncho;[18] he gets all-fired mean[19] sometimes when he's full."

"There ain't a drop of mean blood in him," denied Squito flatly.

The teamster shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyhow, Doc Gilpen the Marshal jumped him.[20] I was right there when they met. 'Sam,' he says, 'you've made one or two bad breaks since you've been in town. Next time you ring, I'm coming for you—and going to get you, too.' 'What's the matter with your getting me now?' asked Sam. And they both stood with their hands on their six-shooters—so—watching one another like strange Indians. 'I don't want you now.' 'Well, that'll be all right! You can find me whenever you do; and you'll find me heeled,[21] too, you bet your sweet life!' says Sam. For a minute or two they stood looking at one another, and then Doc 'pulled out.'[22] Right opposite Lindauer's store it was. I thought there was going to be a shooting, sure. And it wanted powerful little to set 'em going now, and don't you forget it!"

"Doc would get away with him," said Joe.

"Would he!" ejaculated Squito hotly.

"Yes. He's got all Sam's sand,[23] and is cooler."

"That's what," coincided Jake. "I guess he's a shade quicker, too."

"There ain't a quicker than Sam this side o' Memphis," said Squito defiantly.

"Well, there'll be hell a-popping whenever they do come together, and it——"

"You bet there will!" exclaimed the girl, with blazing eyes. "And Doc Gilpen will get left right there."

The little tigress had ceased her work, and faced about to the company. She was evidently ready for anything. The boys glanced at her and "passed" good-naturedly.

"Talking about Doc, I have to laugh when I think of the last time that I was in Deming," said Joe. "One of these chaps from Texas come in there to paint the town,[24] and got his tank full, and tried to ride his horse into the 'Cabinet.' Doc and I was taking a hand at stud-poker there when we heard him shouting outside: 'I'm a roaring, raging lion, I am! I'm a hell-tearing cyclone! I'm a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-cat terror from Texas!' And just about when he had got that off, Doc, who had pocketed his chips,[25] and skinned out to get a front seat, knocked him off his horse with the butt-end of his six-shooter. 'What are you now?' he asked, as the chap picked himself up. 'I'll be —— to —— if I know,' he said. And you should have heard the boys laugh! I tell you, Deming is a bad little camp for a fellow to try and run a bluff in. You don't want to make any of those foolish plays there, or you'll be apt to find a contract on your hands that you ain't looking for."

"That's what," assented Jake again. "If Doc or the Deputy[26] ain't around, there's always some one on hand to shoot you in the belly if you need it."

Corn-meal mash and cream, antelope steaks, and bacon (known to the ranchero as "sow-belly"), baked potatoes, corn cakes, "muffins," honey, coffee, and milk. Take your choice; it is all clean, and the best, of its kind, to be had. Perhaps you find it impossible to bring yourself to eat with "aw, cow servants you know," as certain young Englishmen, but newly come from college to New Mexico, and unpurged, as yet, of their old-world prejudices, found it not long ago. Then you can take advantage of the alternative which was offered to them—you can wait until the "aw, cow servants," and others, untroubled with your scruples, have finished. The title, "cow servants," so delighted the gentle "puncher," by the way, that it has become a standing quotation in New Mexico.

I am far from advocating a style of hail-fellow-well-met familiarity betwixt master and servant. Here, as elsewhere, this naturally destroys the former's influence, and is neither necessary nor wise. But "gentlemen ranchers" are a greater mistake than even "gentlemen farmers," and the man who holds aloof from the society of his ranch hands "out West," and treats them as farm labourers are treated in Europe, commands only their begrudged service. They never have his interests at heart, but rather those of their own kin and kind on adjoining ranches. Any one who understands the full meaning of this—any one who knows how completely the option lies with the cow-puncher of working or not, of riding the range honestly or shirking the doing so, of learning to know the cattle on it and their habits, of "reading sign" in order to be acquainted with the movements of strays, of treating horses and cattle gently and well, or of failing in these duties—will appreciate the advantage of winning something more than unwilling labour from his men.

Naturally, the society of ranch hands and their kind is not very refined or attractive. But the man in search of cultivated society should not engage in the cattle business. He who does do so will find it most profitable, and in the aggregate most comfortable, to live amongst his men. It is quite possible to mix freely with them, to talk and laugh with them, to treat them with as much real civility as would be bestowed upon an equal, without ever confusing your relative positions, or degenerating into a mutual condition of absolute familiarity. The cow-punchers know and like a gentleman. Many a time have I heard them allude to "Mr. This, or Colonel That," as "an elegant gentleman—a fine gentleman, sir, that's what he was! He always treated me well. But ——! he didn't stand no monkey-business, all the same." The cow-puncher is perfectly well aware that he himself is not a gentleman, and, so far from taking a liberty with his social superior, will invariably yield him place, if treated properly. But then the gentleman must make his rank felt by self-control, not endeavour to enforce the recognition of it by self-assertion.

One thing may be noted here. A cattle-ranch is not, like a good mine or many another source of wealth, able to afford extravagant management. To a very large extent, the money made in cattle is money saved. Cattle-ranches will not always pay handsome dividends if called upon to support fancy managers, separate establishments for hands and master, tribes of servants, four-in-hands, trotters, good cellars and cooks, etc., etc. They may do this when cattle are "booming," but the fluctuations in the value of stock are enormous, and periods of depression recur at intervals, when even the economic ranchero finds difficulty in making both ends meet.

Where were we, though? At supper! My progress will be representable by some such eccentric tracing of involved curves and turns, as Sterne used to illustrate his advance in "Tristram Shandy."

"Which of you boys shot this antelope?" inquired the Colonel, helping himself to a steak.

"Her," answered Joe laconically, nodding towards Squito.

"Are you a good shot, Squito?" I asked.

"Well, I should rather say she was!" rejoined the Colonel, whilst the boys chuckled quietly. "She can knock the spots out of these boys at that game."

"That's what she can," assented Joe good-humouredly; "she can whip us the worst kind. She's liable to whip a'most any stranger that comes along, too," and he smiled significantly at me.

Rafaeleta, meanwhile, turned fresh steaks in the frying-pan, and paid no heed to the conversation.

"Where did you kill the antelope, Squito?" inquired Don Cabeza.

"Oh, pshaw!" she ejaculated indifferently.

"Well, where was it? We want to know, because——"

"In the big draw, back of Clanton's ciniky, then. Have another biscuit, Colonel?" And with her sleeves rolled up on her little muscular brown arms, she approached the table with the biscuit-tray in one hand, and a fork in the other.

"How far off were you from him?"

"Shan't answer any more questions," she said capriciously, but with hopeless decision. And seating herself at the head of the table, she appropriated Joe's muffin and Jake's teaspoon. "Joe, you can get another, and Jake, there's one in the cupboard."

Supper over, Jake "washed up," whilst Joe took a lantern and went off to milk the cows (which grazed free during the day and came in at night to their penned-up calves). The rest of us retired to the adjoining room, and gathered round the blazing logs to talk "cattle" and their prospects. On such occasions Squito would nestle down on a log by the hearth, and, taking no part in the conversation, glance keenly from speaker to speaker, or gaze dreamily into the fire, rolling herself little Mexican cigarettes, in bits of maize-leaf, from time to time. Sometimes, during a lull in the conversation, she would hazard prettily, addressing either the Colonel or me: "Won't you tell us some more about them foreign lands?" When the boys, having finished their work, rejoined us, she generally slipped off silently to her own room.