cried suddenly, quite forgetting the hospitable
thing he had meant to say about his supper. "You are hurt, Senor! The
blood is on your sleeve and your hand."

Dade looked down at his hand and laughed. "I did get a scratch. I'll
let you see what it's like."

"You never told me you got shot!" accused Jack sharply, from where he
had thrown himself down on a bundle of blankets covered over with a
bullock hide dressed soft as chamois.

"Never thought of it," retorted Dade in Spanish, out of regard for his
host.

"We had some trouble with the gringos," he explained to Manuel. "There
was a little shooting, and a bullet grazed my arm. It doesn't amount
to much, but I'll let you look at it."

"Ah, the gringos!" Manuel spat after the hated name. "The patron is
too good, too generous! They steal the cattle of the patron, though
they might have all they need for the asking. Like the green worms
upon the live oaks, they would strip the patron's herds to the last,
lean old bull that is too tough even for their wolf teeth! Me, I
should like to lasso and drag to the death every gringo who comes
sneaking in the night for the meat which tastes sweeter when it is
stolen. To-day Valencia rode down to the bayou--"

While he told indignantly the tale of the latest pillage, he bared the
wounded arm. Jack got stiffly upon his swollen feet to look. It was
not a serious wound, as wounds go; a deep gash in the bicep, where a
bullet meant for Dade's heart had plowed under his upraised arm four
inches wide of its mark. It must have been painful, though he had
not once mentioned it; and a shamed flush stung Jack's cheeks when he
remembered his own complaints because of his feet.

"You never told me!" he accused again, this time in the language of
his host.

"The Senor Hunter has the brave heart of a Spaniard, though his blood
is light," said Manuel rebukingly. "The Senor Hunter would not cry
over a bigger hurt than this!"

Jack sat down again upon the bull-hide seat and dropped his face
between his palms. Old Manuel spoke truer than he knew. Dade Hunter
was made of the stuff that will suffer much for a friend and say
nothing about it, and to-day was not the first time when Jack had all
unwittingly given that friendship the test supreme.

Manuel carefully inspected the wound and murmured his sympathy. He
pulled a bouquet of dry herbs from where it hung in a corner, under
the low ceiling, and set a handful brewing in water, where the coal