Francisco was so tired and his bones began to ache so desperately that he ceased to show any interest in the things they passed. Colonel Lacevera and José exchanged knowing looks, but dared not permit Francisco to see them. When they came to one of these rude huts his uncle said:
"Niño, would you not like to see the inside of one of these _prairie palaces_?"
He admired the boy's pluck, but he feared to tax his physical endurance more.
Francisco willingly assented, and they rode up to the door around which a swarm of dirty, half naked children sat on the ground.
José called: "Ola!" and a copper-coloured woman appeared at the door, dressed only in one garment, a dun-coloured chemise.
She was an Indian, and when José spoke to her in her own tongue, asking for a drink, she pointed to the square kerosene tin filled with water, beside which hung a gourd.
She said her husband was out with the sheep; and she had no chairs to offer them, but they might alight and rest.
They stepped into the hut, the door of which was a horse's hide; the floor was the hard earth; a box stood in the middle and served as a table, while bundles of straw in the corners served as beds. Instead of chairs there were dried skulls of oxen; their wide, spreading horns serving as arms to these unique seats. Francisco was glad, however, to rest his weary body within their grewsome embrace and he sat thus for half an hour, while José watered the horses and the Colonel talked to the children.
Francisco himself proposed that they start on, but José was obliged to lift him into his saddle. One more league and they were in sight of the _estancia_, where the sale was to be held.
The house was of the usual Spanish style of architecture, and the many buildings grouped around it gave the place a resemblance to a village.
Señor Stanley met them and "gave" them his house, after the manner of all Spanish hosts, and they entered to wash and rest.
As the Señor Stanley was an Englishman, his house interested Francisco in spite of his weariness. It was fitted with every luxury of a high class English home; the baths being supplied with cool spring water which flowed through them constantly. There were handsomely furnished parlours, a well-filled library and a billiard room. The stables were commodious and sanitary; and the tennis courts and golf links, gardens and _patios_ were numerous.