Pablo nodded miserably, seated himself, and resumed his task of fashioning the hondo of a new rawhide riata.
"It is a very dry year," he complained. "Never before have I seen December arrive ere the grass in the San Gregorio was green with the October rains. Everything is burned; the streams and the springs have dried up, and for a month I have listened to hear the quail call on the hillside yonder. But I listen in vain. The quail have moved to another range."
"How our beloved Don Mike enjoyed the quail-shooting in the fall! Should he return now to the Palomar, there will be no quail to shoot." He wagged his gray head sorrowfully. "Don Mike will think that, with the years, laziness and ingratitude have descended upon old Pablo. Truly, Satan afflicts me." And he cursed with great depth of feeling--in English.
"Yes, poor boy," old Don Miguel agreed; "he will miss more than the quail-shooting when he returns--if he should return. They sent him to Siberia to fight the Bolsheviki."
"What sort of country is this where Don Mike slays our enemy?" Pablo queried.
"It is always winter there, Pablo. It is inhabited by a wild race of men with much whiskers."
"Ah, our poor Don Mike! And he a child of the sun!"
"He but does his duty," old Don Miguel replied proudly. "He adds to the fame of an illustrious family, noted throughout the centuries for the gallantry of its warriors."
"A small comfort, Don Miguel, if our Don Mike comes not again to those that love him."
"Pray for him," the old Don suggested piously.
"Don Miguel, yonder comes one over the trail from El Toro."
Don Miguel gazed across the valley to the crest of the hills. There, against the sky-line, a solitary horseman showed. Pablo cupped his hands over his eyes and gazed long and steadily.
"It is Tony Moreno," he said, while the man was still a mile distant. "I know that scuffling cripple of a horse he rides."
Don Miguel seated himself On the bench beside Pablo and awaited the arrival of the horseman. As he drew nearer, the Don saw that Pablo was right.
"Now, what news does that vagabond bear?" he muttered. "Assuredly he brings a telegram; otherwise the devil himself could not induce that lazy wastrel to ride twenty miles."
"Of a truth you are right, Don Miguel. Tony Moreno is the only man in El Toro who is forever out of a job, and the agent of the telegraph company calls upon him always to deliver messages of importance."