"A real is plenty."
A real is worth in American money about seven cents.
"Oh, take it," urged Donald in Spanish, "although I think a real is all it"s worth," he added in English, which the peon could not understand.
Thus urged the man took the coin and bowed low with many expressions of thanks. The coin also seemed to have loosened his tongue, and he urged the boys to make themselves perfectly at home.
"My poor house is yours," he declared, "as long as you will honor it with your presence. I will go and give your horses some straw."
Suiting the action to the word, he hastily left the hut, and, looking through the door, the boys saw him leading the animals to a little corral a short distance from the kitchen.
The rain continued to descend almost in sheets.
"This must be the way it rained in the days of Noah," Billie suggested.
"Yes," replied Adrian, "and it looks as though it might continue for forty days. I"ve never seen anything like it."
"What had we better do?" asked Billie, thinking about the ride back to Presidio.
"What can we do?" echoed Donald. "We never could find our way back to the Rio Grande in this rain, and, if we did, we would find it so full of water we couldn"t get across. The only thing we can do is to stay right here till it stops raining."
And stay they did.
The afternoon pa.s.sed and darkness fell. The peon brought in a candle stuck into a most unique candlestick, which must have been the property of some ancient Don. The boys wondered where he got it, but did not think it wise to inquire. They knew too little Spanish to engage in anything like a general conversation with the man, but they did manage to get enough out of him to discover that he was much dissatisfied. Why, they could not make out.
Along about nine o"clock, the peon and his wife betook themselves off to the other hut, which served as their main house, and the boys, piling their saddles in the doorway, to keep out any stray dog that might be prowling about, rolled themselves up in their blankets, stretched themselves out on the floor, and were soon asleep.
How long he had slept, Billie could not tell, when he was awakened by a most unusual noise. The rain was still falling, although not in such torrents. At first Billie thought that the noise was caused by the rain on the thatched roof; but he soon became convinced that such was not the case. Finally he reached over and shook the sleeper nearest to him. It happened to be Adrian.
"What"s the matter?" queried that young gentleman, sitting up and peering into the darkness.
"I don"t know," whispered Billie, "but it sounds as though some one were trying to get in."
"Where?"
"That"s what I can"t make out."
Adrian pulled his saddle-bag toward him and took out his electric torch.
Slowly he pointed it in every direction, but he could see nothing unusual, although the strange noise continued.
"Funny, isn"t it?" he said, and then he arose to his feet.
As he did so, Billie glanced up at the speaker, and what he saw caused a broad grin to overspread his rotund countenance.
"Look!" he exclaimed, and pointed toward the roof.
Adrian did as he was told, and burst into a hearty laugh, which aroused Donald.
"What is it?" he exclaimed, also springing to his feet.
"Goats," laughed Billy. "They"re climbing all over the roof."
And sure enough they were, for what Billie had seen was the hoof of one of them sticking through the roof.
"They"ll all be coming through, first thing you know," said Billie.
"I"m not so much afraid of that as that they will make holes for the rain to come through," declared Adrian. "We must scare them off. Shoo!"
But he might as well have cried shoo at the moon.
"Wait a minute," exclaimed Billie, "I"ll fix them."
He crawled over to the other side of the kitchen, where a great dry cactus stem was leaned up against the side of the wall. It was as thick as a man"s leg, about six or eight feet long, and almost as light as cork. Waiting until he was satisfied by the sound that a goat was directly over his head, he gave a great thrust with the cactus log.
His aim was a good one. With a loud bleat, that was almost a wail, the goat went tumbling off the roof, and in a minute the boys heard it pattering away as fast as it could scamper. Twice during the night was the feat repeated, the only inconvenience it caused being that the boys did not sleep as soundly as they otherwise would.
After the last interruption Billie did not return to sleep, but lay awake thinking about the strange experiences of the past two days. As a result he saw daylight slowly breaking, and finding himself so wide awake, he determined to go and tend to the horses.
Removing the saddles from the doorway, he went out. The rain had ceased and there was every indication of a fine day. After taking a critical survey of the landscape, he went to the corral and examined the horses, to see that they were all right, after which he led them to a pool some distance away to water.
The whole proceeding consumed some fifteen or twenty minutes, so that, by the time he was ready to return to the hut, the sun was just rising above the horizon.
Giving the horses an armful of straw, which he found under a little shed, he started back to awaken his companions, when, to his surprise, he found himself confronted by the whole pack of wolfish dogs, who not only refused to let him advance, but threatened to attack him.
He uttered a loud "Halloo," but no one seemed to hear him.
"Get out of my way," he shouted, but his words only seemed to make the animals more furious.
Again he uttered a loud "Halloo," and again no one replied.
By this time the dogs had become more courageous, and it began to look like a very serious situation, so that Billie, in order to defend himself, drew his six-shooter, determined to use it on the first of the dogs who should make up his mind to attack him.
Once more, however, he called aloud, and in response to the shout Donald appeared at the door, just as Billie was taking aim at a big gaunt hound which seemed determined to spring upon him.
"Don"t do it," called Donald. "Don"t shoot unless you want to get us into all sorts of trouble."
"Why not?" asked Billie. "I"m not going to be made dog meat."
"You"ll be made worse than that if you kill one of the peon"s dogs."
Just what might have been the outcome of the situation is hard to tell, had not a voice of authority suddenly rang out from the direction of the house:
"_Vaya te, perros! Vaya te!_"[1]
The dogs ceased their angry barking, and slunk hastily away, while Billie, looking in the direction from which the voice proceeded, saw Pedro riding around the kitchen.
Footnote:
[1]: "Go away, dogs! Go away!"