uses which they left
brought them little. The Delcasars had never been able to afford this
removal. They were deeply attached to the old house and also deeply
ashamed of it.

Ramon passed through a narrow hallway into a courtyard and across it to
his room. The light of the oil lamp which he lit showed a large oblong
chamber with a low ceiling supported by heavy timbers, whitewashed walls
and heavy old-fashioned walnut furniture. A large coloured print of Mary
and the Babe in a gilt frame hung over the wash-stand, and next to it a
college pennant was tacked over a photograph of his graduating class.
Several Navajo blankets covered most of the floor and a couple of guns
stood in a corner.

When he was in bed his overstimulated state of mind became a torment. He
rolled and tossed, beset by exciting images and ideas. Every time that a
growing confusion of these indicated the approach of sleep, he was brought
sharply back to full consciousness by the crowing of a rooster in the
backyard. Finally he threw off the covers and sat up, cursing the rooster
in two languages and resolving to eat him.

Sleep was out of the question now. Suddenly he remembered that this was
Sunday morning, and that he had intended going to the mountains. To start
at once would enable him to avoid an argument with his mother concerning
the inevitability of damnation for those who miss early Mass. He rose and
dressed himself, putting on a cotton shirt, a faded and dirty pair of
overalls and coarse leather riding boots; tied a red and white bandana
about his neck and stuck on his head an old felt hat minus a band and with
a drooping brim. So attired he looked exactly like a Mexican countryman--a
poor _ranchero_ or a woodcutter. This masquerade was not intentional nor
was he conscious of it. He simply wore for his holiday the kind of clothes
he had always worn about the sheep ranches.

Nevertheless he felt almost as different from his usual self as he looked.
A good part of his identity as a poor, discontented and somewhat lazy
young lawyer was hanging in the closet with his ready-made business suit.
He took a long and noisy drink from the pitcher on the wash-stand, picked
up his shot-gun and slipped cautiously out of the house, feeling care-free
and happy.

Behind the house was a corral with an _adobe_ wall that was ten feet high
except where it had fallen down and been patched with boards. A scrub cow
and three native horses were kept there. Two of