LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 243 



The field being won, the whites, too, beat a quick 

 retreat to the house where they were domiciled, and 

 where they had left their rifles. Without their trusty 

 weapons they felt, indeed, unarmed ; and not knowing 

 how the affair just over would be followed up, lost no 

 time in making preparations for defence. However, 

 after great blustering on the part of the prefecto, who, 

 accompanied by a posse comitatus of " Greasers," pro- 

 ceeded to the house, and demanded the surrender of all 

 concerned in the affair which proposition was received 

 with a yell of derision the business was compounded 

 by the mountaineers promising to give sundry dollars 

 to the friends of two of the Mexicans who died during 

 the night of their wounds, and to pay for a certain 

 amount of masses to be sung for the repose of their 

 souls in purgatory. Thus the affair blew over ; but for 

 several days the mountaineers never showed themselves 

 in the streets of Fernandez without their rifles on their 

 shoulders, and refrained from attending fandangos 

 for the present, and until the excitement had cooled 

 down. 



A bitter feeling, however, existed on the part of the 

 men ; and one or two offers of a matrimonial nature 

 were rejected by the papas of certain ladies who had 

 been wooed by some of the white hunters, and their 

 hands formally demanded from the respective padres. 



La Bonte had been rather smitten with the charms 

 of one Dolores Salazar a buxom lass, more than three 

 parts Indian in her blood, but confessedly the " beauty" 

 of the Vale of Taos. She, by dint of eye, and of name- 



