In the shade of Pedro Vijil's little brown adobe on the Granados rancho, a horseman squatted to repair a broken cinch with strips of rawhide, while his horse––a strong dappled roan with a smutty face––stood near, the rawhide bridle over his head and the quirt trailing the ground. The horseman's frame of mind was evidently not of the sweetest, for to Vijil he had expressed himself in forcible Mexican––which is supposed to be Spanish and often isn't––condemning the luck by which the cinch had gone bad at the wrong time, and as he tinkered he sang softly an old southern ditty.