There he
was, sitting at the door of his corner house, whence he could look down
three streets at once. How like a spider, I thought.
His welcome was cordial, but he seemed to smile at my eagerness, and
told me that he never dined before eight.
"But let us sit here in the cool of the evening," said he, handing out a
chair for me to sit by him on the footpath, "and let us take some
refreshment to while away the time. But, tell me, where did you say that
the fence was cut? But did you really see signs that cattle had passed?
Preposterous! The sons of guns shall suffer for this. Eh well, I'm glad
of it in a way--glad to have a little work, and perhaps a little
excitement. It doesn't do to have a too orderly district, for the
Governor and his satellites in Santa Fe imagine I'm lazy and not looking
after my business if they hear of no commotions. That black fellow you
sent me the other day, Don Ernesto--the fellow that was molesting a mad
woman in the camp--- I've got him seventeen years in the line for that.
I wish you would send me a few more, for hardly a letter comes from
Santa Fe in which I am not asked to send in recruits, so hard up are
they for Provincial soldiers."
Just then a poor Italian colonist came up, hat in hand. He, too, and all
his class were pioneers in those days, and God knows what they suffered.
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