\ug. 7 , I 9 ° 9-1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
209 
y were of a different breed from the Injuns. 
One time I was goin’ by this here Casa 
inde ruin with a Chinaman, an’ as soon as 
saw it he stared an’ stared an’ stared, an" 
,cn we got to it he walked around and around 
|| buildin’, went in an’ out of the rooms, as 
erested an’ excited as could be. ‘Well, John, 
it's a fine big house for Injuns to have built,’ 
; 1 I, as we drove on. 
‘Injuns no make ’em,’ said he. ‘Chinamans 
make ’em. Over in China lots of houses 
,t like him. Same thick walls, same doors 
i windows.’ An’ maybe he was right. 
There wasn’t more than four or five hundred 
t pie in Casa Grande then, countin’ in those 
o had flocked to it for protection from the 
aches. But it was sure lively enough for 
ione, what with mescal drinkin’, Spanish 
nte, cock fights, an’ fandangos every night. 
Iro, you bet, was strictly in it, makin’ love 
all the pretty senoritas until it came to that 
a he wan’t safe to go out alone after dark, 
many jealous young bucks were layin’ for 
i. However, he didn’t worry any, for some 
f js were always with him after the sun went 
an, an’ you bet the Mexicans were dead 
aid of the guns we packed. So the days 
■ weeks went by, an’ with the meltin’ pf the 
iv in the high sierras we made preparations 
' Dull out. From this one an’ that one we 
i got what information we could about the 
ntry an’ finally decided to try our luck about 
indred miles south, in the region where some 
: mines called Guanopa were said to be 
t en. The story was that they had first been 
:ked by the Aztecs, then by the Spanish con- 
i ors, who in turn had been massacred by the 
[,ches. No one livin’, so ’twas said, knew 
where they were located. The ruins of 
(■smelters were still to be seen, but the mines 
m hidden back of them in the wildest an’ 
i;hest part of the Sierra Madres. Some said 
(Apaches still ranged as far south as that; 
frs that they didn’t. We concluded to chance 
nyway. 
% couple of days before we was to start 
v^s lyin’ out by the side of our shack smokin’ 
takin’ it easy. The Senorita Cipriana, as 
tl, was settin’ in the veranda around the 
ter an’ a spinnin’ a great yarn to No Talk 
(t ghosts. I could hear him grunt ‘Si,’ every 
• in a while. Along came Pedro an’ when 
tyarn was finished I heard him say: ‘Seno- 
■ Cipriana del Valle, .my comrade here, the 
:e senor who, because of his exceeding quiet- 
■ we have named No Talk—but indeed, what 
her of great thoughts, what philosopher 
M to questions of import to mankind ever 
talker—this dear friend of mine, beautiful 
irita, has given me a most pleasing commis- 
>i He bids me tell you that your loveliness, 
charming manners and vivacious speech 
captured his heart and he lays it at your 
f He begs you to do him the honor of 
citing it.’ 
'Oh!’ cried the senorita, an’ then she giggled. 
’I—I was sure surprised. ‘To think,’ said 
myself, ‘that this old bachelor No Talk 
cld have gone an’ fell in love, an’ be thinkin’ 
larryin’; an’ to this here sawed-off round- 
ball Mexican.’ 
You may tell him,’ she said to Pedro, ‘that 
l.eciate the honor he does me. I esteem him. 
lik forward with happy anticipation to the 
day when the good padre will unite us.’ 
“ ‘Gosh!’ said I, ‘that settles it.’ 
“An’ then I heard Pedro again. ‘No Talk,’ 
said he, as easy an’ smooth as you please, ‘the 
Senorita Cipriana here says she hears you are 
goin’ away and wants me to say that she will 
miss you very much. She asks you to be sure 
an’ visit here a while when we come back from 
the south.’ 
“ ‘Tell her that’ll depend on the route we 
take,’ said No Talk. ‘Maybe we'll come back 
this way—an’ maybe we won’t.’ 
“ ‘Senorita,’ Pedro goes on, ‘the senor is 
pleased beyond words that you accept him an’ 
begs to know if you will become his adored 
senora on the day after tomorrow?’ 
“ ‘Yes,’ said she, an’ with that I heard her 
wheeze across the veranda an’ go into the house, 
no doubt to tell her folks the news. ‘Here’s a 
pretty howdy do,’ thinks I, an’ just then Pedro 
came around the corner an’ I up an’ collared 
him. ‘Dog-gone you,’ said I, ‘do you realize 
MAGPIES. 
what kind of a scrape you're gettin’ us into? 
There’s liable to be blood spilt over this.’ 
“He just laughed. ‘Truly, now that I have 
done it, it does look dangerous,’ said he, ‘but 
seeing them there together I couldn’t help makin’ 
the proposal that I know the senorita has been 
wantin’ to hear for all these weeks.’ 
“ ‘Well, it’s up to you now to straighten things 
out,’ said I. ‘Right here I give you fair warnin’ 
that I won’t mix up in any row whatever. 
You’ll pull yourself out of the scrape as best 
you can.’ 
“But Pedro only laughed again, an’ went away 
hummin’ a tune, as lighthearted an’ careless as 
ever. Well he knew that I would be on hand 
if it came to a show-down. ‘Well, it ain’t any 
of my funeral,’ I kept sayin’ to myself, but all 
the same I was worried. What would happen 
on the day after tomorrow? I kept wonderin’. 
Finally, I told Irish an’ the others about it, 
an’ asked their advice. They allowed that 
’twouldn’t do to let No Talk know the job that 
Pedro had put up on him, because he had a 
fearful temper, an’ had no use for jokes, espec¬ 
ially for one on him. There was nothin' to 
do but let things take their course, an’ that’s 
what we did, trustin’ to luck for things to 
straighten out all right. Nevertheless, we put in 
some pretty anxious hours for a couple of days. 
There was lots doin’ in the quarters of Senor 
Fernandez Enrico del Valle; such housecleanin’, 
an’ roastin’, an’ bakin’ as never happened there 
before. 
“Well, the day came. I could see that Pedro, 
even, was uneasy, restless, an’ as for the rest 
of us we was so anxious, so terribly at sea as 
to what we better do, that we couldn’t set still 
a minute. We couldn’t help watchin’ old No 
Talk, so ca’m an’ quiet, an’ silent as usual, as 
he smoked his after-breakfast pipe, an’ then got 
out his razor an’ shaved himself slick. While 
he was doin’ that I made a sneak an’ got his 
gun, emptied the cartridges out of it, an’ shoved 
it back into the holster. 
“About nine o’clock folks began to gather 
for the weddin’, an’ in half an’ hour the house 
was chuck full an’ more’n a hundred was a 
herdin’ out in the yard. Pretty soon I saw the 
padre come, an’ then as the Senor Fernandez 
Enrico del Valle, all dressed up in velveteen an’ 
silver, came to our door, we all stiffened up, 
ready to fight if we had to, but to make peace 
if we could. 
“ ‘Senor, I have the honor to tell you that 
the padre has come,’ said he, lookin’ p’intedly 
at our partner. An’ then to me: ‘You will in¬ 
terpret, please?’ 
“I had been expectin’ that, but I hadn’t no 
wise made up my mind what to say. I hesi¬ 
tated. I tried to make up a lie, an’ failed. But 
something had to be said, an’ quick, too, so I 
just blurted out: ‘No Talk, there’s a weddin’ on 
in the senor’s house an’ you’re wanted as a 
pardner in it.’ 
“I stopped there, tryin’ to think what else to 
say, but you could have knocked us all down 
with a feather when without a single word No 
Talk got up an’ followed the Spaniard out. We 
stared at him, an’ then at one another, too sur¬ 
prised to speak, an’ then we trailed out, too, 
an’ across the remada, an’ to the next room, 
just in time to see our pardner an’ the fat senor¬ 
ita kneel down before the priest an’ get married. 
“It was some little time before we could get 
close to him, an’ then says I, speakin’ for us 
all: ‘No Talk, what does this all mean? Explain 
yourself.’ 
“ ‘Why, I’d been wantin’ for some little time 
to ask the senorita to marry me,’ said he, ‘but 
I can’t speak the lingo, an’ I was some bashful 
about askin’ you to do it for me. So, the other 
day, when Pedro up an’ done it for me, I was 
sure grateful, an’ I thank you all for keepin’ 
quiet an’ not ringin’ in any joshes, as you might 
have done.’ 
“ ‘I thought,’ said Pedro, with a sort of gasp, 
‘that you didn’t understand Spanish?’ 
“No Talk grinned an’ drawed a little red book 
out of his pocket an’ showed it to us. ’Twas a 
Spanish-English grammar an’ dictionary. ‘I 
think,’ said he, ‘that the josh this time is on 
Pedro. What ?’ 
“An’ then we all laughed an’ turned loose to 
have a good time. We pulled out the next day, 
an’ I must say, that for a new married man No 
Talk looked some wishful as we bid him good 
bye. Pedro had found a man to go with us who 
knew the country, one Juan, a sleepy-eyed, 
weak-voiced, skin-an’-bone cholo. We soon 
changed his name to Frijole, for he could eat 
more beans at a settin’ than all the rest of us 
put together. 
“We went straight south to a little settlement 
called San Diego, an’ still followin’ the rivei, 
