these was "Adios," while the better-to-do class on horse or mule back
used the customary "Buenas tardes!" Thirst grew, but though the country
was broken, with many wash-outs cutting deep across the trail, the
streams were all muddy. Now and then a tuna on the cactus hedges was
red ripe enough to be worth picking and, though full of seeds, was at
least wet. It was harder to handle than a porcupine, and commonly left
the fingers full of spines. Two men passed, offering _dulces_, a
species of native candy, for sale. I declined. "Muy bien, give us a
cigarette." I declined again, being low in stock. "Very well, adios,
senor," they replied in the apathetic way of their race, as if it were
quite as satisfactory to them to get nothing as what they asked.

The Rancho del Capulin, where night overtook me, was a hamlet of eight
or ten houses, some mere stacks of thatch, out of the smoky doorway of
which, three feet high, peered the half-naked inmates; others of adobe,
large bricks of mud and chopped straw, which could be picked to pieces
with the fingers.

From one of the kennels a woman called out to know if I would eat. I
asked if she could give lodging also and she referred me to her husband
inside. I stopped to peer in through the doorway and he answered there
was not room enough as it was, which was evident to the slowest-witted,
for the family of six or eight of all ages, more or less dressed, lying
and squatted about the earth floor dipping their fingers into bowls of
steaming food, left not a square foot unoccupied. He advised me to go
"beg license" of the "senora" of the house farther on, a low adobe
building with wooden doors.

"There is nothing but the place opposite," she answered.