they breathed
seemed very different from the hot, close atmosphere at Longview.

One evening they made their camp for the night just outside a Mexican
village. It was a very queer-looking place, and Jack stared about him
in astonishment. He had seen Mexicans passing through Longview
occasionally, and now he had come to a village where no one but
Mexicans lived. The houses were not built of wood, like those at
Longview, but were made of a kind of mud called adobe. This adobe was
shaped into bricks and baked. The houses looked so funny. Some were
quite round like beehives, and it amused Jack very much when he noticed
that many of the doors were halfway up the front wall of the houses,
and when people wanted to go in and out, they went up and down ladders
placed to reach the openings.

That evening, after supper, Lem persuaded Jeff to walk into the
village, leaving Jack as usual to wash up the things. The boy felt a
mistrust of Lem when he saw how maliciously triumphant he looked as he
strolled away from the camp accompanied by Jeff. He watched them as
far as the village and then returned to his work. When it was finished
he sat contentedly down by the fire to wait for them. It got later and
later, but his companions did not return, and at last, unable to keep
awake any longer, he went to bed.

He fell into a troubled sleep, from which he was roused by hearing
men's voices. Starting up, he listened and heard his companions
returning. They were singing and shouting in a wild, boisterous way
that struck terror to Jack's heart, for he knew from such sounds that
they must have been drinking heavily. Their loud, rough voices
frightened him, and he lay very still inside the waggon for fear they
should see him. He could tell Lem was in a quarrelsome mood, and
trembled as they hunted about in the back of the waggon for their
blankets, swearing and growling all the time. At last they sank into
heavy slumbers, but all sleep had fled from Jack's eyes at the fresh
trouble that had arisen for him. The two men were evidently given to
drink, the awful curse in the West, and had taken the opportunity of a
first halt at a village to satisfy their craving for it. It was a
terrible thought for poor Jack, for he knew, from what they had said,
there must be many mining camps ahead of them, and of course in such
places there would be great temptations for men like them, and his
heart sank at the idea of being alone with such