appears to me Señor Cuchillo,” said he, “that you are well provided here. Carramba!—tortillas, of wheaten meal! tasajo!—it is a repast for a prince!”
“Oh, yes,” replied Cuchillo, with a certain air of foppishness, “I treat myself well. It makes me happy to know that the dish is to your liking; I beg to assure you, it is quite at your service.”
“You are very good, and I accept your offer without ceremony. The morning air has sharpened my appetite.”
And saying this, Baraja proceeded to the mastication of the tassajo and tortillas. After being thus engaged for some time, he once more addressed himself to his host.
“Dare I tell you, Señor Cuchillo, the favourable impression I had of you at first sight?”
“Oh! you shock my modesty, señor. I would rather state the good opinion your first appearance gave me of you!”
The two new friends here exchanged a salute, full of affability, and then continued to eat, Baraja harpooning upon the point of his long knife another piece of meat out of the ashes.
“If it please you, Señor Baraja,” said Cuchillo, “we may talk over our business while we are eating. You will find me a host sans cérémonie.”
“Just what pleases me.”
“Don Estevan, then, has received the message which I sent him?”
“He has, but what that message was is only known to you and him.”
“No doubt of that,” muttered Cuchillo to himself.
“The Señor Arechiza,” continued the envoy, “started for Tubac shortly after receiving your letter. It was my duty to accompany him, but he ordered me to proceed in advance of him with these commands: ‘In the little village of Huerfano you will find a man, by name Cuchillo; you shall say to him that the proposal he makes to me deserves serious attention; and that since the place he has designated as a rendezvous is on the way to Tubac, I will see him on my journey.’ This instruction was given by Don Estevan an hour or so before his departure, but although I have ridden a little faster to execute his orders, he cannot be far behind me.”
“Good! Señor Baraja, good!” exclaimed Cuchillo, evidently pleased with the communication just made, “and if the business which I have with Don Estevan be satisfactorily concluded—which I am in hopes it will be—you are likely to have me for a comrade in this distant expedition. But,” continued he, suddenly changing the subject, “you will, no doubt, be astonished that I have given Don Estevan a rendezvous in such a singular place as this?”
“No,” coolly replied Baraja, “you may have reasons for being partial to solitude. Who does not love it at times?”
A most gracious smile playing upon the countenance of Cuchillo, denoted that his new acquaintance had correctly divined the truth.
“Precisely,” he replied, “the ill-behaviour of a friend towards me, and the malevolent hostility of the alcalde of Arispe have caused me to seek this tranquil retreat. That is just why I have established my headquarters in an abandoned village, where there is not a soul to keep company with.”
“Señor Don Pedro,” replied Baraja, “I have already formed too good an opinion of you not to believe that the fault is entirely upon the side of the alcalde, and especially on the part of your friend.”
“I thank you, Señor Baraja, for you good opinion,” returned Cuchillo, at the same time taking from the cinders a piece of the meat, half burnt, half raw, and munching it down with the most perfect indifference; “I thank you sincerely, and when I tell you the circumstances you may judge for yourself.”
“I shall be glad to hear them,” said the other, easing himself down into a horizontal position; “after a good repast, there is nothing I so much enjoy as a good story.”
After saying this, and lighting his cigarette, Baraja turned upon the broad of his back, and with his eyes fixed upon the blue sky, appeared to enjoy a perfect beatitude.
“The story is neither long nor interesting,” responded Cuchillo; “what happened to me might happen to all the world. I was engaged with this friend in a quiet game of cards, when he pretended that I had tricked him. The affair came to words—”
Here the narrator paused for an instant, to take a drink from his leathern bottle, and then continued—
“My friend had the indelicacy to permit himself to drop down dead in my presence.”
“What at your words?”
“No, with the stab of a knife which I gave him,” coolly replied the outlaw.
“Ah! no doubt your friend was in the wrong, and you received great provocation?”
“The alcalde did not think so. He pestered me in the most absurd manner. I could have forgiven the bitterness of his persecution of me, had it not been that I was myself bitterly roused at the ill-behaviour of my friend, whom up to that time I had highly esteemed.”
“Ah! one has always to suffer from one’s friends,” rejoined Baraja, sending up a puff of smoke from his corn-husk cigarette.
“Well—one thing,” said Cuchillo, “the result of it all is that I have made a vow never to play another card; for the cards, as you see, were the original cause of this ugly affair.”
“A good resolution,” said Baraja, “and just such as I have come to myself. I have promised never to touch another card; they have cost me a fortune—in fact, altogether ruined me.”
“Ruined you? you have been rich then?”
“Alas! I had a splendid estate—a hacienda de ganados (cattle farm) with a numerous flock upon it. I had a lawyer for my intendant, who took care of the estate while I spent my time in town. But when I came to settle accounts with this fellow I found I had let them run too long. I discovered that half my estate belonged to him!”
“What did you do then?”
“The only thing I could do,” answered Baraja, with the air of a cavalier, “was to stake my remaining half against his on a game, and let the winner take the whole.”
“Did he accept this proposal?”
“After a fashion.”
“What fashion?”
“Why, you see I am too timid when I play in presence of company, and certain to lose. I prefer, therefore, to play in the open air, and in some quiet corner of the woods. There I feel more at my ease; and if I should lose—considering that it was my whole fortune that was at stake—I should not expose my chagrin to the whole world. These were the considerations that prompted me to propose the conditions of our playing alone.”
“And did the lawyer agree to your conditions?”
“Not a bit of it.”
“What a droll fellow he must have been!”
“He would only play in
