WHO SOUGHT IT


It was a steep trail leading over the Monterey Coast Range. Concho was
very tired, Concho was very dusty, Concho was very much disgusted.
To Concho's mind there was but one relief for these insurmountable
difficulties, and that lay in a leathern bottle slung over the machillas
of his saddle. Concho raised the bottle to his lips, took a long
draught, made a wry face, and ejaculated:

"Carajo!"

It appeared that the bottle did not contain aguardiente, but had lately
been filled in a tavern near Tres Pinos by an Irishman who sold had
American whisky under that pleasing Castilian title. Nevertheless Concho
had already nearly emptied the bottle, and it fell back against the
saddle as yellow and flaccid as his own cheeks. Thus reinforced Concho
turned to look at the valley behind him, from which he had climbed since
noon. It was a sterile waste bordered here and there by arable fringes
and valdas of meadow land, but in the main, dusty, dry, and forbidding.
His eye rested for a moment on a low white cloud line on the eastern
horizon, but so mocking and unsubstantial that it seemed to come and go
as he gazed. Concho struck his forehead and winked his hot eyelids. Was
it the Sierras or the cursed American whisky?

Again he recommenced the ascent. At times the half-worn, half-visible
trail became utterly lost in the bare black outcrop of the ridge, but
his sagacious mule soon found it again, until, stepping upon a loose
boulder, she slipped and fell. In vain Concho tried to lift her from