co to take up the
position of stableman on that ranche, I had little notion of the full
extent of my duties. What these were is perhaps irrelevant in the
present connection. And yet it was because I had to work so incredibly
hard, being often at it from six in the morning to eight or nine
o'clock at night, that I made particular friends with El Toro, to give
him his Spanish name. In all that western and south-western part of the
United States there are remnants of Spanish or Mexican in the common
talk. For California was once part of Mexico. El Toro became my friend
and my refuge: when I was driven half-desperate by having ten important
things to do at once he often came in and helped me to preserve an equal
mind. I have little doubt that I should have discovered how to work this
by myself, but as a matter of fact I was put up to some of his uses by
the man whose place I took. He showed me all I had to do, and lectured
me on the character of the hard-working lady who owned the place; and
when I was dazed and stood wondering how one man could do all the
stableman was supposed to accomplish between sunrise and sundown, Jack
said, "And besides all this there is a bull!" He said it so oddly and so
significantly that my heart sank. I imagined a very fierce and ferocious
animal fit for a Spanish bull-ring, a sharp-horned Murcian good enough
to try the nerve of the best matador who ever faced horns and a vicious
charge. Then he took me round the barn and opened a stable. In it El
Toro was tied to a manger by a rope and ring through his nose: he
greeted us with a strangled whistle as he still lay down. "When you are
hard driven good old El Toro will help you," said Jack, as he sat down
on the bull's big shoulders and started to scratch his curl with a
little piece of wood which had a blunt nail in it. As I stood El Toro
chewed the cud and was obviously delighted at having his curl combed.

The departing Jack delivered me another lecture on the uses of a mild
and amiable but fighting bull on a ranche where a man was likely to be
worried to death by a lady who had no notion of how much a man ought to
do in a day. When he had finished he invited me to make friends with El
Toro by also sitting on his back and scratching him with the blunt nail.
I did as I was told, and though El Toro twisted his huge head round to
inspect me he lay otherwise perfectly calm while I went on with his
toilet. He evidently felt that I was an amiable char