u are well
advised. Now keep your mouth shut, and get off your coat."

Again I smiled, and again he obeyed. We Western men have a reputation on
the seaboard. It may have been this, or it may have been the fact that
my buckskin shirt draped a pair of lean shoulders quite a bit broader
than the average. At the least, the fellow kept his mouth closed and
started to strip off his coat.

I rode over to the nearest fence and borrowed two of the top rails.
Returning, I found the fellow in his shirt-sleeves. Yet he seemed not
over-willing to jump down into the mud. One more smile fetched him. He
took his rail and descended on the far side, muttering, while I swung
off at the head of his lathered team and stroked them. Once they had
been soothed and quieted, I dropped back, took the reins in hand, and
thrust my rail beneath the hub of the wheel. I heard the driver do the
same on his side.

"Ready?" I called.

"Ready, sir!" he answered.

A voice came from over my shoulder "_Por Dios!_ It is not possible,
senor, to lift. First I will descend."

The knowledge that I had put my shoulder to the wheel for a Spaniard
caused my tightening muscles to relax in disgust. But the don had spoken
courteously, his one thought being to relieve us of his weight, at the
risk of ruining his aristocratic boots.

"Sit still. _Quien sabe?_" I replied, without looking about, and bore up
on the rail. "Heave away!"

The rails bowed under the strain, but the clay held tenaciously to the
embedded wheels. I drew the reins well in and called to the willing
team. They put their weight against the breast bands steadily and
gallantly. The wheels rose a little, the coach gave forward.

"Heave!" I called. The wheels drew up and forward. "Steady! steady,
boys! Pull away!"

Out came the forewheels; in went the rear. We caught them on the turn.
One last gallant tug, and all was clear. The driver plodded around by
the rear, a hand at his forelock.

"Return the rails," I said. "I'll hold them."

He took my rail with his own and toiled over to the roadside. I called
up my horse and swung into the saddle, little the worse for my descent
into the midst of the redoubtable avenue, for my legs had already been
smeared and spattered to the thigh before I entered the bounds of the
city.

Again I heard the voice at the coach window: "_Muchas gracias_, senor! A
thousand thanks--and this."

He proved to be what I had surmised,--a long-faced Spanish don. What I