I'm going to put some gringo over a veteran like Tiburcio.
Why, that old boy used to drive for Santa Anna during the invasion
in '36. Besides, I'm sending Theodore and Glenn on horseback as a
bodyguard. Las Palomas is putting her best foot forward this morning in
giving you a stylish turnout, with outriders in their Sunday livery. And
those two boys are the best ropers on the ranch, so if the mules run off
just give one of your long, keen screams, and the boys will rope and
hog-tie every mule in the team. Get in now and don't make any faces
about it."

It was pettishness and not timidity that ailed Jean Lovelace, for a
pioneer woman like herself had of course no fear of horse-flesh. But
the team was acting in a manner to unnerve an ordinary woman. With
me clinging to the bits of the leaders, and a man each holding the
wheelers, as they pawed the ground and surged about in their creaking
harness, they were anything but gentle; but Miss Jean proudly took her
seat; Tiburcio fingered the reins in placid contentment; there was a
parting volley of admonitions from brother and sister--the latter was
telling us where we would find our white shirts--when Uncle Lance
signaled to us; and we sprang away from the team. The ambulance gave a
lurch, forward, as the mules started on a run, but Tiburcio dexterously
threw them on to a heavy bed of sand, poured the whip into them as they
labored through it; they crossed the sand bed, Glenn Gallup and Theodore
Quayle, riding, at their heads, pointed the team into the road, and they
were off.

The rest of us busied ourselves getting up saddle horses and dressing
for the occasion. In the latter we had no little trouble, for dress
occasions like this were rare with us. Miss Jean had been thoughtful
enough to lay our clothes out, but there was a busy borrowing of collars
and collar buttons, and a blacking of boots which made the sweat stand
out on our foreheads in beads. After we were dressed and ready to start,
Uncle Lance could not be induced to depart from his usual custom, and
wear his trousers outside his boots. Then we had to pull the boots off
and polish them clear up to the ears in order to make him presentable.
But we were in no particular hurry about starting, as we expected to out
across the country and would overtake the ambulance at the mouth of the
Arroyo Seco in time for the noonday lunch. There were six in our party,
consisting of Dan Happersett, Aaron Scales, John Cotton, Jun