"Manuel" was a slim half-breed and ex-convert of the Mission of San
Carmel, and "Miguel" a recent butcher of Monterey. Under the benign
influences of Concho that suspicion with which the ignorant regard
strangers died away, and the whole party escorted the stranger--who had
given his name as Mr. Joseph Wiles--to their camp-fire. So anxious were
they to begin their experiments that even the instincts of hospitality
were forgotten, and it was not until Mr. Wiles--now known as "Don
Jose"--sharply reminded them that he wanted some "grub," that they came
to their senses. When the frugal meal of tortillas, frijoles, salt pork,
and chocolate was over, an oven was built of the dark-red rock brought
from the ledge before them, and an earthenware jar, glazed by some
peculiar local process, tightly fitted over it, and packed with clay and
sods. A fire was speedily built of pine boughs continually brought from
a wooded ravine below, and in a few moments the furnace was in full
blast. Mr. Wiles did not participate in these active preparations,
except to give occasional directions between his teeth, which were
contemplatively fixed over a clay pipe as he lay comfortably on his
back on the ground. Whatever enjoyment the rascal may have had in their
useless labors he did not show it, but it was observed that his left
eye often followed the broad figure of the ex-vaquero, Pedro, and often
dwelt on that worthy's beetling brows and half-savage face. Meeting that
baleful glance once, Pedro growled out an oath, but could not resist a
hideous fascination that caused him again and again to seek it.
The scene was weird enough without Wiles's eye to add to its wild
picturesqueness. The mountain towered above,--a heavy Rembrandtish
mass of black shadow,--sharply cut here and there against a sky so
inconceivably remote that the world-sick soul must have despaired of
ever reaching so far, or of climbing its steel-blue walls. The stars
were large, keen, and brilliant, but cold and steadfast. They did not
dance nor twinkle in their adamantine setting. The furnace fire painted
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