"No."

"Not for a good price?"

"Not for any price."

"I would give five hundred dollars for him."

"I would not part with him for twice the amount."

"I will give twice the amount."

"I have become attached to him: money is no object."

"I am sorry to hear it. I have travelled two hundred miles to buy that
horse."

I looked at my new acquaintance with astonishment, involuntarily
repeating his last words.

"You must have followed us from the Arkansas, then?"

"No, I came from the Rio Abajo."

"The Rio Abajo! You mean from down the Del Norte?"

"Yes."

"Then, my dear sir, it is a mistake. You think you are talking to
somebody else, and bidding for some other horse."

"Oh, no! He is yours. A black stallion with red nose and long full
tail, half-bred Arabian. There is a small mark over the left eye."

This was certainly the description of Moro; and I began to feel a sort
of superstitious awe in regard to my mysterious neighbour.

"True," replied I; "that is all correct; but I bought that stallion many
months ago from a Louisiana planter. If you have just arrived from two
hundred miles down the Rio Grande, how, may I ask, could you have known
anything about me or my horse?"

"Dispensadme, caballero! I did not mean that. I came from below to
meet the caravan, for the purpose of buying an American horse. Yours is
the only one in the caballada I would buy, and, it seems, the only one
that is not for sale!"

"I am sorry for that; but I have tested the qualities of this animal.
We have become friends. No common motive would induce me to part with
him."

"Ah, senor! it is not a common motive that makes me so eager to purchase
him. If you knew that, perhaps--" he hesitated a moment; "but no, no,
no!" and after muttering some half-coherent words, among which I could
recognise the "Buenos noches, caballero!" the stranger rose up with the
same mysterious air that had all along characterised him, and left me.
I could hear the tinkling of the small bells upon the rowels of his
spurs, as he slowly warped himself through the gay crowd, and
disappeared into the night.

The vacated seat was soon occupied by a dusky manola, whose bright
nagua, embroidered chemisette, brown ankles, and small blue slippers,
drew my attention. This was all I could see of her, except the
occasional flash of a very black eye through the loophole of the rebozo
tapado. By degrees, the rebozo became more generous, the loo