tre in his hand.

[Illustration: "Almost immediately the foliage was pushed aside."]

The Indian took off his straw hat, scratched his forehead, and then,
placing two fingers in his mouth, whistled a prolonged note. Almost
immediately the foliage was pushed aside, and a boy about fifteen years
old, wearing nothing but a pair of drawers, made his appearance, and
halted, as if terrified at the sight of us.

"Run to the hut, and ask for cakes and some capsicums, and bring them
here," said the wood-cutter, in the Aztec language.

"It's quite needless," I replied, in the same idiom; "we can breakfast
much more comfortably in the hut."

The wood-cutter looked at me in artless admiration, then taking my hand,
placed it on his breast. I spoke his language, and I was therefore his
friend. This is a feeling common to all men, whatever may be their
nationality or social position.

Following the young Indian, in five minutes we reached a very primitive
dwelling; being but four stakes supporting a roof made of branches with
their leaves on. The wood-men in Mexico construct such temporary places
of shelter, for at the commencement of the rainy season they cease to
dwell in the forests.

An Indian girl warmed us a dozen of those maize-flour fritters, which
are called _tortillas_, and are eaten by the natives instead of bread.
She also brought us a calabash full of cooked beans, which hunger
rendered delicious.

"Why don't they serve the meat first?" asked Lucien.

"Because they have none," replied Sumichrast.

"Haven't these Indians any meat? Poor fellows! How will they dine,
then?"

"Don't you know that the Indians never eat meat more than three or four
times a year; and that their usual food is composed of nothing but black
beans, rice, capsicums, and maize flour? Have you forgotten our dinner
yesterday?"

"I fancied that we had arrived too late for the first course, and that
all the meat had been used. But shall we live on beans the whole of our
journey?"

"No; our meals will not be quite so regular as you seem to think. Yet we
shall have plenty of meat when we have been lucky in shooting, a little
rice when we have been unfortunate, and fried beans whenever chance
throws in our way any inhabited hut."

"And we shall have to go without dessert?" said the child, making up his
face into a comical pout.

"Oh no, Chanito, there will be dessert to-day," replied l'Encuerado.
"Perhaps as good as the cook would provide