rs, and skins of animals, and a
pair of embankments of stones and mud, one at each corner of the room--
there was but one room--served as bedstead and beds. A brace of long
spears rested in one corner, alongside a rifle and a Spanish _escopeta_;
and above hung a machete or sword-knife, with powder-horns, pouches, and
other equipments necessary to a hunter of the Rocky Mountains. There
were nets and other implements for fishing and taking small game, and
these constituted the chief furniture of the hovel. All these things
Roblado might have seen by entering the hut; but he did not enter, as
the men he was in search of chanced to be outside--the mulatto lying
stretched along the ground, and the zambo swinging in a hammock between
two trees, according to the custom of his native country--the
coast-lands of the _tierra caliente_.

The aspect of these men, that would have been displeasing to almost any
one else, satisfied Roblado. They were just the men for his work. He
had seen both before, but had never scrutinised them till now; and, as
he glanced at their bold swarthy faces and brawny muscular frames, he
thought to himself, "These are just the fellows to deal with the
cibolero." A formidable pair they looked. Each one of them, so far as
appearance went, might with safety assail an antagonist like the
cibolero--for either of them was bigger and bulkier than he.

The mulatto was the taller of the two. He was also superior in
strength, courage, and sagacity. A more unamiable countenance it would
have been difficult to meet in all that land, without appealing to that
of the zambo. There you found its parallel.

The skin of the former was dull yellow in colour, with a thin beard over
the cheeks and around the lips. The lips were negro-like, thick, and
purplish, and behind them appeared a double row of large wolfish teeth.
The eyes were sunken--their whites mottled with yellowish flakes. Heavy
dark brows shadowed them, standing far apart, separated by the broad
flatfish nose, the nostrils of which stood so widely open as to cause a
protuberance on each side. Large ears were hidden under a thick
frizzled shock that partook of the character both of hair and wool.
Over this was bound, turban fashion, an old check Madras kerchief that
had not come in contact with soap for many a day; and from under its
folds the woolly hair straggled down over the forehead so as to add to
the wild and fierce expression of the face.