extra
work. You won't mind that, my pet? I know you won't."

The mare wheels round at a slight pressure upon the rein; and then
commenced her canter in the direction of the soaring flock.

A mile is passed over, and the birds are brought near; but still the
object attracting them cannot be seen. It may be down among the
artemisias, or perhaps behind a large yucca, whose dark whorl rises
several feet above the sage, and over which the vultures are wheeling.

As the rider of Lolita arrives within gun-shot distance of the
yucca-tree she checks the mustang to a slower pace--to a walk in short.
In the spectacle of death, in the throes and struggles of an expiring
creature, even though it be but a dumb brute, there is something that
never fails to excite commiseration, mingled with a feeling of awe.
This last has come over the young girl, as she draws near the spot where
the birds are seen circling.

It has not occurred to her that the cause of their presence may be a
human being, though it is a remembrance of this kind that now prompts
her to ride forward reflectively. For once in her life, with others
around her who were near and dear, she has been herself an object of
like eager solicitude to a flock of zopilotes.

But she has not the slightest suspicion of its being a human creature
that causes their gathering now. There, upon the Llano Estacado, so
rarely trodden by human feet, and even shunned by almost every species
of animal, she could not.

As she draws still nearer, a black disc, dimly outlined against the dark
green leaves of the yucca, upon scrutiny, betrays the form of a bird,
itself a vulture. It is dead, impaled upon the sharp spikes of the
plant, as it came there by falling from above.

A smile curls upon her lips as she sits regarding it.

"So, _yegua_!" she says, bringing the mare to a stand, and half-turning
her. "I've been losing my time and you your labour. The abominable
birds--it's only one of themselves that has dropped dead, and they're
holding a _velorio_ over it."

She continues, again facing towards the dead vulture.

"Now, I wonder if they are only waking it, or if the wakers are
cannibals, and intend making a repast on one of their own kind. That
would be a curious fact for our natural historian, Don Prospero.
Suppose we stay awhile and see?"

For a moment she seems undecided as to staying or going. Only for a
moment, when an incident occurs that changes the current of her