luded to be impossible, but proceeded to inquire as to the
precise functions I might be expected to perform in my canine capacity.

"A mere nothing," said he, with a shrug of his shoulders; "we harness
the beasts at daybreak,--say three o'clock; by eight the water is all
up; then you can sleep or amuse yourself till four of the afternoon,
when the Commandante Salezar likes to have cool water for his
bath,--that only takes an hour; then you are free again till night
closes in."

"And what then?" asked I, impatiently.

"You have your rounds at night."

"My rounds! where, and what for?"

"Against the prairie wolves, that now and then are daring enough to come
down into the very settlement, and carry off kids and lambs,--ay, and
sometimes don't stop there."

He winked with a terrible significance at the last words.

"So, then, I am not only to bark at the asses all day, but I am to bay
the wolves by night?" said I, half indignantly.

"Lupo did it," responded he, with a nod.

"_He_ was a dog, Senhor Mijo," said I.

"Ah, that he was!" added he, in a tone very different from my remark,
accompanying it with a most disparaging glance at my ragged habiliments.
I read the whole meaning of the look at once, and hung my head, abashed
at the disparaging comparison.

He waited patiently for my reply, and, perceiving that I was still
silent, he said, "Well, is it a bargain?"

"Agreed," said I, with a sigh; and wondering if Fortune had yet any
lower depths in store for me, I followed him to his hut. Mijo proceeded
to acquaint me with all the details of my office, and also certain
peculiarities of the two beasts for whose especial misery I was engaged.
If compassion could have entered into my nature, it might have moved me
at sight of them. Their haunches and hocks were notched and scored with
the marks of teeth, while their tails were a series of round balls, like
certain old-fashioned bell-ropes, the result of days of suffering.

"I am so accustomed to the name, I must call you 'Lupo,'" said Mijo;
"you have no objection?"

"Not in the least," said I; "if a 'dog in office,' why not a dog in
name?"

That same day I was conducted to the "Tienda del Gato," the shop of
"The Cat," at the sign of which animal La Senhora Dias resided. It was a
small cottage at the very extremity of the village, in a somewhat pretty
garden; and here a kind of canteen was held, at which the settlers
procured cigars, brandy, and other like luxu