gave to the men that had accompanied me. They drank and threw themselves
before the fire in the larger room. The repose of the building was
intensified that night, and I even fancied that the footsteps on the
corridor were lighter and softer. The old Spaniard's habitual gravity
was deeper; we might have been shut out from the world as well as
the whistling storm, behind those ancient walls with their time-worn
inheritor.

Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired. In a few minutes two
smoking dishes of CHUPA with coffee were placed before us, and my men
ate ravenously. I drank the coffee, but my excitement and weariness kept
down the instincts of hunger.

I was sitting sadly by the fire when he reentered.

"You have eat?"

I said, "Yes," to please him.

"BUENO, eat when you can--food and appetite are not always."

He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his
countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than
a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it almost tenderly
before him.

"It was made by me, senor."

"I kept it as a clue to him, Don Altascar," I said. "If I could find
him--"