"A foreigner in some things, friend, for you were doubtless born under
other skies; but in that chief quality, which we think was given by
the Creator to us and not to the people of other lands--the ability
to be one in heart with the men you meet, whether they are clothed in
velvet or in sheep-skins--in that you are one of us, a pure Oriental."

I smiled at his subtle flattery; possibly it was only meant in payment
of the rum I had treated him to, but it pleased me none the less, and
to his other mental traits I was now inclined to add a marvellous skill
in reading character.

After a while he invited me to spend the night under his roof. "Your
horse is fat and lazy," he said with truth, "and, unless you are a
relation of the owl family, you cannot go much farther before to-morrow.
My house is a humble one, but the mutton is juicy, the fire warm, and
the water cool there, the same as in another place."

I readily accepted his invitation, wishing to see as much as I could
of so original a character, and before starting I purchased a bottle
of rum, which made his eyes sparkle so that I thought his
name--Lucero--rather an appropriate one. His _rancho_ was about
two miles from the store, and our ride thither was about as strange
a gallop as I ever took. Lucero was a _domador_, or horse-tamer,
and the beast he rode was quite unbroken and vicious as it could be.
Between horse and man a fierce struggle for mastery raged the whole
time, the horse rearing, plunging, buck-jumping, and putting into
practice every conceivable trick to rid itself of its burden; while
Lucero plied whip and spur with tremendous energy and poured out
torrents of strange adjectives. At one moment he would come into violent