n half-way up, a mule and driver came suddenly
around a sharp turn and so startled my hitherto gentle animal that, with
a snort of rage, she jumped from the path and bounded from rock to rock
of the cliff above, I meanwhile clinging to her like a burr, and
momentarily expecting to roll with her into the ragged gully hundreds of
feet below.

But again I was doomed to happy disappointment, for a final effort
carried us over a particularly dangerous projection, and the next
instant we were on a plain and only a few rods from _La Breita_, our
stopping-place.

I scarcely remember how I dismounted. I know it was with great
difficulty that I got myself straightened from a sitting posture, and
entered a house so cool and clean that I thought I must have unwittingly
stumbled into Paradise. It goes without saying that I was soon in a
hammock, trying amid those comfortable surroundings to forget how every
bone and muscle ached, how a combination of sleeplessness, continued
fasting, and the glaring roadway was tending to bring on a fearful
headache, and that there were still three days of the journey ahead of
me.

However, by the time I had eaten some lunch I felt better, and began to
take an interest in my surroundings.

The house, of course, was one of the class Bret Harte describes as
"those queer little adobe buildings, with tiled roofs like longitudinal
slips of cinnamon," and belonged to a well-to-do family, the head of
which was a large mule owner, who had amassed his wealth in carrying
cargoes from the coast to the interior.

He was not at home, so his wife, two daughters, a servant, and a
half-foolish boy of eighteen or nineteen, were the only inmates of the
house.

On this particular afternoon they were entertaining three girl
friends--the two younger ones being pretty, and naturally clad in the
costume of their race, while the older one had unfortunately become
imbued with some so-called civilized ideas regarding her toilet.

A calico dress of the most painfully intense pink was made with a full,
plain skirt and an ill-fitting basque, which failed to accomplish a
meeting with the skirt at the usual trysting-place. Over this she had a
shawl of the most royal shade of purple imaginable, and instead of
looking like a pretty, graceful Indian girl, she appeared to be a
variegated monstrosity.

I feel self-reproached at criticising her thus, for she, with the other
two visitors, admired me intensely, and when suffic