Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/187

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A QUEER SEAT.—THE MELLADO MINERS.
185

might have saved his life by stopping the hand of your friend of that Don Tomas who had been paid to kill him, you told me."

"Did I say that?" cried Florencio; "then, by the life of my mother, I lied. I am a terrible liar when in drink; and you know, Señor Cavalier, I had drunk a great deal that day."

Florencio paused, visibly embarrassed. Fuentes thereupon asked him why he was in such a state of grief when we came up, and why he persisted in taking the carcass of a mule for a seat.

"This mule is the cause of my sorrow," replied Planillas. "Although I was tenderly attached to her, I had sold her in my misery to the hacienda de platas you see in the valley below. I got employment in the work-shops to be near her; but, alas! the poor beast died this morning, and I have dragged her to this lonely place in order to mourn over her undisturbed."

Planillas again plunged his head between his hands with the air of a man who will not be consoled; then, doubtless, to turn the conversation, "Ah! Señor Cavalier," he said, "that is not my only misfortune. Yesterday a fight took place between the miners of Rayas and those of Mellado, and I was not there."

"I see nothing so unfortunate in that."

"Nothing unfortunate!" vociferated Planillas. "Ah! it was not one of those vulgar encounters that one sees every day; and you would never guess how it—terminated by a shower of piastres which the miners of Mellado poured upon their adversaries to prove the superiority of their mine. Ah! the beautiful eagle piastres!" he added, with a broken-hearted air; "and I was too late in the field."

I could better understand Planillas's grief for this