Camilla, frightened, hurried back to Demetrio's side.



X


The men camped in a meadow, near three small
lone houses standing in a row, their white walls cutting
the purple fringe of the horizon. Demetrio and Camilla
rode toward them. Inside the corral a man, clad in shirt
and trousers of cheap white cloth, sat greedily puffing at
a cornhusk cigarette. Another man sitting beside him
on a flat cut stone was shelling corn. Kicking the air
with one dry, withered leg, the extremity of which was
like a goat's hoof, he frightened the chickens away.

"Hurry up, 'Pifanio," said the man who was smoking,
"the sun has gone down already and you haven't taken
the animals to water."


A horse neighed outside the corral; both men glanced
up in amazement. Demetrio and Camilla were looking
over the corral wall at them.

"I just want a place to sleep for my woman and me,"
Demetrio said reassuringly.

As he explained that he was the chief of a small