the Gila. Big Waco Bill was a thorough Texan outlaw, who had joined our party more because none of us cared to insist on denying him permission to do so than because any of us really wanted him along. He despised everything Mexican, and frequently alluded in no friendly manner to 'that d—— little Greaser' whom I had picked up on the road and was taking with me to California. Butcher, who had taken so kindly to Manuel, had hated Bill from the start, and this fact served still more to awaken his enmity to the boy. However, we got on pretty well for several days. Manuel—though, curiously enough for a Mexican boy, a poor rider, and not at all skilled in packing horses, lassoing mules, or similar accomplishments, on which his countrymen generally pride themselves—showed a genuine anxiety to make himself useful: he was a capital cook, ingeniously adding a number of dishes hitherto unknown to our bill of fare in camp, and with a needle he was as good as any woman, cheerfully setting himself to work to sew on buttons, or patch and repair our tattered clothing, whenever he had a moment's leisure. To me he was completely devoted, and there was nothing he would not try to do, if I asked him. On the other hand, he seemed to shrink instinctively from the presence of Bill, and repaid all the hatred and contempt of that worthy with interest, in his own quiet way. His complexion, though his skin was scorched and burned by exposure to the savage desert sun, was much lighter than that of most Mexicans of the lower class, and his features indicated pure or nearly pure
