into the store laughing. What about? Oh, he had had a little _monte_
over-night, and horse, saddle, rifle, revolver, all were gone. He had
been shorn of half a year's growth. But there was still a large deposit
at his bank,--the bank of Momus.

The herder has, of course, his "consolatory interstices and sprinklings
of freedom;" he undoubtedly mitigates his solitary life by frequent
derelictions, nightly visits to the farm--settlements (or the _jacal_)
which a few possess, and where he keeps, possibly, a wife and family.
But, on the whole, his life, and not unfrequently his death, is lonely,
Just before shearing-time Juan Lucio and his flock were lost. The flock
was found, but not Juan. It was impossible to say what had become of
him: he had a reputation for steadiness, and it seemed unlikely that he
had taken French leave. When shearing was in full swing, a couple of
freighters came for a load of wood. After some talk, they drove off to
camp, a little way up the creek, proposing to return in the morning.
About sunset they were seen slowly approaching the shearing-shed, It
seemed that in watering their horses they had seen a man in the creek.
The small freighter imparted this information in a low voice, with some
hesitation and a deprecatory half-smile. The young and large freighter
stood aloof, with a half-smile too, but he had evidently found the
sensation disagreeably strong. This, it seemed certain, must be the lost
Juan Lucio. The next day, which was Sunday, the ranchmen and a county
officer proceeded toward the scene of the discovery. The shearers heard
of the affair, and paused in the arrangement of a horse-race. They went
in a body to the store and purchased candles, and then the motley
cavalry coursed over the prairie after the rest. They lifted Juan Lucio
from the river and bore him to a live-oak tree, where the coroner and
his jurymen debated his situation. They inclined to think that he had
come to his death by drowning. Then the Mexicans dug a grave for him,