y. I did
not look at Medina, for I had need to keep a cool head. After so many
months my fingers bent stiffly to the strings. But I had not forgotten
my lady's lessons, and as the refrain of the first song had enabled me
to test my voice, I was able to render a Spanish love ditty with some
little success.

"Bravo!" exclaimed our host as I handed him the guitar. "I did not know
that you _Americanos_ were singers."

"We are not, as a rule," said Pike. "For the most part, our people have
been too intent upon hewing their way through the wilderness and
fighting for life and freedom to find time for skilled voice-training.
Yet we have our singing-schools even on the outer frontiers."

"It is quite evident that Senor Robinson has found time to cultivate
his fine voice," remarked one of the crowd.

"There will soon be a baritone beneath the balconies," added Medina.
"Beware, all you who have wives and daughters!"

Senor Zuloaga handed the guitar back to me. "Pray accept this little
gift from a friend, Don Juan," he said. "The senoritas of Chihuahua will
be deprived of a great pleasure if you lack the means to serenade them."

"Senor," I replied, accepting the guitar, "it would be most ungallant to
refuse a gift presented in such terms. Though I lack the skill and voice
of Lieutenant Medina, I will do my best. May I ask if His Excellency,
the Governor-General, is the father of one of your charming senoritas?"

A sudden hush fell upon the company at the mere mention of their master.
The silence was broken by Pike.

"Better sheer off from that shore, John. Should your ditties fail to
please His Excellency, you are apt to land in the _calabozo_."

"And the other fathers are apt to drop tiles upon my head," I sighed.

"Not they," reassured Zuloaga. "Keep in the shadow, and it will not be
known but that you are the suitor favored by the parents."

"Yet what if I am discovered to be a stranger?" I inquired, with feigned
concern.

A dozen voices hastened to reassure me that a serenade from one of the
gallant _Americanos_ would be taken in good part by the most
hard-hearted of parents.

"But how do you find the window of the fair one?" I asked.

"That is to be seen, senor doctor," put in Medina. "My way is to station
myself across the street and sing the first verse. That never fails to
lure the coyest of coquettes from her secrecy."

"But, then, you have the voice," I mocked.

"It is true," he replied, taking me ser