y at one another. Big Medicine
was quite as unsafe as he looked, at that moment, and they wondered if
the offender realized his precarious situation.

Miguel smoked with the infinite leisure which is a fine art when it is
not born of genuine abstraction, and none could decide whether he was
aware of the unfriendly proximity of Big Medicine. Weary was just on the
point of saying something to relieve the tension, when Miguel blew the
ash gently from his cigarette and spoke lazily.

"Parrots are so common, out on the Coast, that they use them in cheap
restaurants for stew. I've often heard them gabbling together in the
kettle."

The statement was so ambiguous that the Happy Family glanced at him
doubtfully. Big Medicine's stare became more curious than hostile,
and he permitted his horse to lag a length. It is difficult to fight
absolute passivity. Then Slim, who ever tramped solidly over the flowers
of sarcasm, blurted one of his unexpected retorts.

"I was just wonderin', by golly, where yuh learnt to talk!"

Miguel turned his velvet eyes sleepily toward the speaker. "From the
boarders who ate those parrots, amigo," he smiled serenely.

At this, Slim--once justly accused by Irish of being a "single-shot"
when it came to repartee--turned purple and dumb. The Happy Family,
forswearing loyalty in their enjoyment of his discomfiture, grinned and
left to Miguel the barren triumph of the last word.

He did not gain in popularity as the days passed. They tilted noses at
his beautiful riding gear, and would have died rather than speak of it
in his presence. They never gossiped with him of horses or men or the
lands he knew. They were ready to snub him at a moment's notice--and
it did not lessen their dislike of him that he failed to yield them an
opportunity. It is to be hoped that he found his thoughts sufficient
entertainment, since he was left to them as much as is humanly possible
when half a dozen men eat and sleep and work together. It annoyed them
exceedingly that Miguel did not seem to know that they held him at a
distance; they objected to his manner of smoking cigarettes and staring
off at the skyline as if he were alone and content with his dreams. When
he did talk they listened with an air of weary tolerance. When he
did not talk they ignored his presence, and when he was absent they
criticized him mercilessly.

They let him ride unwarned into an adobe patch one day--at least, Big
Medicine, Pink, Cal Emmett