comes moochin' around unfriendly.
I'm the peaceablest man you ever seen, but when I make up my mind to
a thing, I'm firm! Pur-ty tol'able firm!" he added with complacent
emphasis.

He waited expectantly while Dade put a revised version of this speech
into Spanish, and placidly smoked his little black pipe while the don
made answer.

"Already I find that I have done well to choose an Americano for my
majordomo," Don Andres observed, a smile in his eyes. "With a few more
such as this great hombre, who is firm and peaceful together, I should
find my days full of trouble with a hot-blooded Manuel to deal with
them. But with you, Senor, I have no fear. Something there is in the
face of this Senor Seem'son which pleases me; we shall be friends,
and he shall stay and plant his garden and build his house where it
pleases him to do. You may tell him that I say so, and that I shall
rely upon his honor to pay me for the land a reasonable price when the
American government places its seal beside the seal on his Majesty's
grant. For that it will be done I am very sure. The land is mine, even
though I have no tablet of stone to proclaim from the Creator my right
to call it so. But he shall have his home if he is honest, without
swimming across the ocean to find it."

"Wall, now, that's fair enough fer anybody. Hey, Mary! Come on out and
git acquainted with yer neighbor's girl. Likely-lookin' young woman,"
he passed judgment, nodding towards Teresita. "Skittish, mebby--young
blood most gen'rally is, when there's any ginger in it. What's yer
name, mister? I want yuh all to meet the finest little woman in the
world--Mrs. Jerry Simpson. We've pulled in the harness together fer
twelve year, now, so I guess I know! Come out, Mary."

She came shyly from the makeshift tent, her dingy brown sunbonnet
in her hand, and the redoubtable Tige walking close to her shapeless
brown skirt. And although her face was tanned nearly as brown as
her bonnet, with the desert sun and desert winds of that long, weary
journey in search of a home, it was as delicately modeled as that of
the girl who rode forward to greet her; and sweet with the sweetness
of soul which made that big man worship her. Her hair was a soft gold
such as one sees sometimes upon the head of a child or in the pictures
of angels, and it was cut short and curled in distracting little rings
about her head, and framed softly her smooth forehead. Her eyes
were brown and soft and wistful