long
as we live at all--has taken issue with me concerning what I have
written of his steadfast faithfulness and courage; and this on the
ground that he could not possibly be anything but faithful to those whom
he loved, and that it is only natural for a man to fight for his own
life, and for the lives of his friends. In thus applying the word
_hombre_ to himself Pablo spoke a little doubtfully, as though he feared
that I might question his right to it; yet did he roll it so relishingly
under his tongue, and so well had he proved his manliness, that I
suffered it to pass.

In point of fact, the only member of our party who has accepted my just
tribute of praise with entire equanimity has been El Sabio. It was
Pablo's notion, of course, that El Sabio should hear what I had written
about him. "Not the whole of it, you know, senor," the boy said,
earnestly; "for some of what you have written--while I know that it is
true, and therefore must be told--would hurt his tender heart. It was
not his fault--the angel!--that he gave us so much trouble when we swung
him across the canon; and to tell him that there was even a thought of
eating him, while we were in that dreadful valley where every one was
dead, assuredly would turn him gray before his time. No; we will hide
all such unpleasant parts of the book from him; but we will read to him
what you have said concerning his beauty and his wisdom--and, surely,
you might have said of those a great deal more; and also about his
gallant fight with the priests, when, all alone, he slew so many of them
with his heels. And it would have been fairer to El Sabio, senor," Pablo
added, a little reproachfully, as we walked out together to the paddock
in which the ass, grown to be very fat, was living a life of most royal
ease, "had you told in the book how well he served us in bringing all
the treasure, in many weary journeys, out through that dismal cave; and
also how carefully he carried the Senor Rayburn down that steep
mountain-side, and so to the little town beside the railway, and never
hurt his wound."

However, El Sabio did not seem to notice these omissions from my
narrative, though he certainly did exhibit a most curious air of
interest and understanding as I read to him those laudatory portions of
it which Pablo desired that he should hear. According to Pablo's
understanding of his language, he even thanked me for speaking well of
him; for when the reading was ended he thrust hi