exican "outfit,"
prospecting for gold; had taken mountain fever, become a burden to
them, and was left to look out for himself at a tank in Dead Man's
Canon. He paid for his keep in cooking and chores, said Bennett, and
picked up enough English to enable him to get along about the ranch. He
presently showed desire to care for the horses and mules and to ride
them, and one day he disappeared with Bennett's best saddle mule and
was gone forty-eight hours, and on his return gravely tendered Bennett
a five-dollar gold piece in payment for his time and mule while away.
He said he won it at monte, and it was proved that he had found his way
to the card room, as a mule does to water, and, without knowledge of
English, displayed consummate skill in the game; had played only two
hours, had won twenty dollars and departed at dusk. But his winnings
were in greenbacks and silver. Whence had come the gold? The trader's
people said he stabled his mule; introduced himself as "Bennett's
_mozo_--me," and "sat into" the game then in progress as though long
accustomed; showing silver, mainly Mexican, the only credentials the
players required. At sunset he quit, easy winner, and went without
taking so much as a "snifter." Once having found the way, and the
means, the dago came again and yet again, neither giving nor having
trouble until he ran foul of Munoz, the Mexican, whom he seemed to hate
at sight. Whatever his lingo, or that employed by the polyglot Mexican,
they understood each other, and the misunderstanding that followed was
purely personal.

Now, in spite of his craze for gambling the dago had points that
appealed to Bennett. He found him valuable in many a way. He was almost
doglike in his devotion to Bennett's wife and children. He was a
"bang-up" cook, barring a heavy hand at first with _chile_ and onions.
He patched up an old guitar of Mrs. Bennett's and strummed delightfully
all manner of strange Mexican and Mediterranean melodies, and,
encouraged by her, had even been betrayed into song. He was kind to the
stock, and the mules took to him from the very start, which the two
horses did not do. The dogs tolerated at first and then "tied" to him.
So, too, the cat adored him. He got along smoothly with the one negro
and two Maricopa Indian boys Bennett had brought with him from the
Gila. He did not drink even when at the post, and in the course of six
months had come to be a feature, almost a fixture of the ranch, yet
"Dago" wa