se fellers had the darndest lot of fairy tales I ever did hear.
And superstitious! Great Jupiter! Any little blame thing that
happened meant something: this thing was good luck; that meant bad, and
if you tried to josh them out of it, they'd shake their heads and look
at you as if they thought you weren't truly religious. One of their
yarns was about El Diablo de Fuego, 'The Devil of Fire,' which Miguel
said ran in his family. Seems that when anything wrong was about to
happen, this blazing, ripping monster showed up as a warning. I told
Mee that I thought the monster was misfortune enough, without anything
else, but he was scandalised.

"'Psst!' says he. 'Do not spik sooch t'eeng as dthat! Ay, di mi!
Je-Maria-mi Cristo! Jesu, muy dolce y poquito! Dhat mek heem
arrrrrrive dthat eenstant, eef djoo spik weez dees-rrreespeck!'

"'All right, Mee,' says I. 'We'll let her go at that--todo el mismo
por mi, sabe? But how's the bear crop?'

"'Ay, cara! Is plenty goddam ba-are!' says Pepe. 'Keel three--four
ship las' nigh'! That mek that two mus' seet oop for watch, an' alll
ship mus' be in close-corrrrallll! I speet on the soul of that ba-are!'

"Gad! that wasn't cheerful news a little bit. If there's anything in
this world I more than don't like, it's a bear--he's so darn big and
strong and unreasonable, and unless you catch him sitting, you can pump
lead into him until you're black in the face, and it's all one to him.
Well, I thought I might as well camp with the herders until Aggy came
back.

"When he did show up he was rather under the influence of strong drink,
and from the looks of the waggon he'd brought with him, I should say
he'd bought about everything that was movable in Salmon City. I ain't
easily astonished, but I must admit that some of the truck got the best
of me. I kept asking, 'What in ---- is this, Ag?' and he always
answered, 'Ask the driver.' Well, now, if there was any choice between
the two, the driver was drunker than Aggy, so you can imagine what a
lot of satisfaction I got. There was one thing that I simply couldn't
make head nor tail of, and I stayed with him until I got an answer on
that.

"'Why, it's an alcohol cooking-stove,' said he, 'great medicine--no
trouble to cook now at all. Just light her,' says he, waving his hand,
'and whoop! away she goes! Where's that can of alcohol? Here she is!
Have a drink, Hy?'

"I took a small swig of it in a little water to please hi