LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 241 



diente. Now, as the guages are oft refilled and as often 

 drained, and as night advances, so do the spirits of the 

 mountaineers become more boisterous, while their 

 attentions to their partners become warmer the 

 jealousy of the natives waxes hotter thereat and they 

 begin to show symptoms of resenting the endearments 

 which the mountaineers bestow upon their wives and 

 sweethearts. And now, when the room is filled to 

 crowding, with two hundred people, swearing, drink- 

 ing, dancing, and shouting the half-dozen Americans 

 monopolising the fair, to the evident disadvantage of at 

 least threescore scowling Pelados, it happens that one 

 of these, maddened by whisky and the green-eyed 

 monster, suddenly seizes a fair one from the waist-en- 

 circling arm of a mountaineer, and pulls her from her 

 partner. Wagh ! La Bonte it is he stands erect as 

 a pillar for a moment, then raises his hand to his mouth, 

 and gives a ringing war-whoop jumps upon the rash 

 Pel&do, seizes him by the body as if he were a child, 

 lifts him over his head, and dashes him with the force 

 of a giant against the wall. 



The war, long, threatened, has commenced ; twenty 

 Mexicans draw their knives and rush upon La Bonte, 

 who stands his ground, and sweeps them down with his 

 ponderous fist, one after another, as they throng around 

 him. " Howgh-owgh-owgh-owgh-h ! " the well-known 

 war-whoop, bursts from the throats of his companions, 

 and on they rush to the rescue. The women scream, 

 and block the door in their eagerness to escape ; and 

 thus the Mexicans are compelled to stand their ground 

 Q 



