The personnel of the ranch often used to comment on the resemblance of
certain youths laboring here the same as the others, galloping from the
first streak of dawn over the fields, attending to the various duties
of pasturing. The overseer, Celedonio, a half-breed thirty years old,
generally detested for his hard and avaricious character, also bore a
distant resemblance to the patron.

Almost every year, some woman from a great distance, dirty and
bad-faced, presented herself at the ranch, leading by the hand a little
mongrel with eyes like live coals. She would ask to speak with the
proprietor alone, and upon being confronted with her, he usually
recalled a trip made ten or twelve years before in order to buy a herd
of cattle.

"You remember, Patron, that you passed the night on my ranch because the
river had risen?"

The Patron did not remember anything about it. But a vague instinct
warned him that the woman was probably telling the truth. "Well, what of
it?"

"Patron, here he is. . . . It is better for him to grow to manhood by
your side than in any other place."

And she presented him with the little hybrid. One more, and offered with
such simplicity! . . . "Lack of religion and good habits!" Then with
sudden modesty, he doubted the woman's veracity. Why must it necessarily
be his? . . . But his wavering was generally short-lived.

"If it's mine, put it with the others."