way home.
He had whipped and crowded his horses since midnight to just this end.
Yet was he not stalled now till morning? And would not this delay set
him back the one day he had gained over his fellow-townsmen? And would
not these same fellow-townsmen rejoice in this opportunity to overtake
him--worse, to leave him behind? They would!

"Oh, well," he concluded, philosophically, stretching out upon his back
and drawing his worn and ragged sombrero over his eyes, "soon is comin'
a _potrillo_." With this he deliberately courted slumber.

Out of the stillness rattled a wagon. Like Felipe's, it was a lumber
rigging, and the driver, a fat Mexican with beady eyes, pulled up his
horses and gazed at the disorder. It was but a perfunctory gaze,
however, and revealed to him nothing of the true situation. All he saw
was that Felipe was drunk and asleep, and that before dropping beside
the trail he had had time, and perhaps just enough wit, to unhitch one
horse. The other, true to instinct and the law of her underfed and
overworked kind, had lain down. With this conclusion, and out of sheer
exuberance of alcoholic spirits, he decided to awaken Felipe. And this
he did--in true Mexican fashion. With a curse of but five words--words
of great scope and finest selection, however--he mercilessly raked
Felipe's ancestors for five generations back; he objurgated Felipe's
holdings--chickens, adobe house, money, burro, horses, pigs. He closed,
snarling not obscurely at Felipe the man and at any progeny of his which
might appear in the future. Then he dropped his reins and sprang off the
reach of his rigging.

Felipe was duly awakened. He gained his feet slowly.

"You know me, eh?" he retorted, advancing toward the other. "All
right--_gracios_!" And by way of coals of fire he proffered the
fellow-townsman papers and tobacco.

The new-comer revealed surprise, not alone at Felipe's sobriety, though
this was startling in view of the disorder in the trail, but also at the
proffer of cigarette material. And he was about to speak when Felipe
interrupted him.

"You haf t'ink I'm drunk, eh, Franke?" he said. "Sure! Why not?" And he
waved his hand in the direction of the trail. Then, after the other had
rolled a cigarette and returned the sack and papers, he laid a firm hand
upon the man's shoulder. "You coom look," he invited. "You tell me what
you t'ink thees!"

They walked to the mare, and Franke gazed a long moment in silence.
Felipe stoo