water-proof) and wide-brimmed "ten-dollar" hats, and at one end two
tiers of bunks, with leather cases for six-shooters nailed to their
sides. This room served for the abode of the storekeeper, for the
transaction of business, and for the accommodation of the perennial
casual guest. It was rude, but, especially of evenings about the lamp,
it had a marked air of pipe-and-tobacco comfort.

The little store was patronized by the cow-boy, so much abused with
sensational or picturesque intentions, and by the small farmers with
irrigation patches in the vicinity. It was likewise the resort of
Encarnacion and Tomas, and others their brethren, from the Mexican
village a few miles up the creek, or from isolated abiding-places round
about. Here they would come, and, rolling cigarettes of the brown paper
they affect and the eleemosynary tobacco open on the counter, to which
all were welcome (such were the amenities of shopping on the ranch),
they would lounge about, ever smiling and chattering in soft voices,
finally to say '_uenos dias_ with two bits' worth of bacon, or
corn-meal, or pink candy for the _chiquitas_. Here, too, would come
Tomasa, and, with even more than usual feminine zeal in matters of
dress, at once try on the ready-made calico gown she purchased, while
the store-keeper smoked his pipe and stroked his beard.

Excepting the cow-boys, the people composing the clientage of the store
were for the most part resident in one of two farm-settlements located
on the creek, about ten miles apart, one exclusively Mexican, the other
almost entirely "white." Besides these, the families of many of the
Mexican hands lived close by. These last were constantly assisting
conversation at the cottages with such incidents as the following:

The cook--a tall, gaunt negro of a mediaevally "intense" nature--came