A man who comes in from an all day's run in the brush does not care
whether the cook gives him boiled beans, watermelon, or crackers and
jam; so how is he to know what a bird's taste is when served to a tame
appetite?

At intervals we ran into the wild cattle which threaded their way to
water, and it makes one nervous. It is of no use to say "Soo-bossy," or
to give him a charge of No. 6; neither is it well to run. If the
_matadores_ had any of the sensations which I have experienced, the gate
receipts at the bull-rings would have to go up. When a big long-horn
fastens a quail-shooter with his great open brown eye in a chaparral
thicket, you are not inclined to "call his hand." If he will call it a
misdeal, you are with him.

We were banging away, the Quartermaster and I, when a human voice began
yelling like mad from the brush ahead. We advanced, to find a
Mexican--rather well gotten up--who proceeded to wave his arms like a
parson who had reached "sixthly" in his sermon, and who proceeded
thereat to overwhelm us with his eloquence. The Quartermaster and I
"_buenos dias-ed_" and "_si, senor-ed_" him in our helpless Spanish, and
asked each other, nervously, "What de'll." After a long time he seemed
to be getting through with his subject, his sentences became separated,
he finally emitted monosyllables only along with his scowls, and we
tramped off into the brush. It was a pity he spent so much energy, since
it could only arouse our curiosity without satisfying it.

In camp that night we told the Captain of our excited Mexican friend out
in the brush, and our cook had seen sinister men on ponies passing near
our camp. The Captain became solicitous, and stationed a night-guard
over his precious government mules. It would never do to have a bandit