"It was, perhaps, as the master had noticed, a brigand's own day!
Bullying, treacherous, and wicked! It blew you off your horse if you so
much as lifted your arms and let the wind get inside your serape; and as
for the mud,--caramba! in fifty varas your forelegs were like bears, and
your hoofs were earthen plasters!"

Clarence knew that Incarnacion had not sought him with mere
meteorological information, and patiently awaited further developments.
The vacquero went on:--

"But one of the things this beast of a weather did was to wash down the
stalks of the grain, and to clear out the trough and hollows between,
and to make level the fields, and--look you! to uncover the stones and
rubbish and whatever the summer dust had buried. Indeed, it was even as
a miracle that Jose Mendez one day, after the first showers, came upon
a silver button from his calzas, which he had lost in the early summer.
And it was only that morning that, remembering how much and with what
fire Don Clarencio had sought the missing boot from the foot of the
Senor Peyton when his body was found, he, Incarnacion, had thought he
would look for it on the falda of the second terrace. And behold, Mother
of God it was there! Soaked with mud and rain, but the same as when the
senor was alive. To the very spur!"

He drew the boot from beneath his serape and laid it before Clarence.
The young man instantly recognized it, in spite of its weather-beaten
condition and its air of grotesque and drunken inconsistency to the
usually trim and correct appearance of Peyton when alive. "It is the
same," he said, in a low voice.

"Good!" said Incarnacion. "Now, if Don Clarencio will examine the
American spur, he will see--what? A few horse-hairs twisted and caught
in the sharp points of the rowel. Good! Is it the hair of the horse that
Senor rode? Clearly not; and in truth not. It is too long for the flanks
and belly of the horse; it is not the same color as the tail and the
mane. How comes it there? It comes from the twisted horsehair rope of a
riata, and not from the braided cowhide thongs of the regular lasso of a
vacquero. The lasso slips not much, but holds; the riata slips much and
strangles."

"But Mr. Peyton was not strangled," said Clarence quickly.

"No, for the noose of the riata was perhaps large,--who knows? It
might have slipped down his arms, pinioned him, and pulled him off.
Truly!--such has been known before. Then on the ground it slipped again,
o