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 with him as she turned to where he sat, his rough bare arms folded across his breast.

"But if there is one woman on that ship, she is mine," Borromeo stolidly persisted.

"What does a soldier want with a wife at his heels, following him from mission to mission?" Magdalena inquired, turning to Sergeant Olivera. "That is no life for a woman, at least for a woman fit to be the wife to a gentleman like you, Sergeant Olivera."

"I shall retire from the service in another year, if God spares me that long, doña. Then a ranch with a stream of living water through it, a herd, a flock of sheep. That would be paradise for a man, I think, doña, if he had a woman to hold his head when he is weary."

"What a man!" said Magdalena.

"It's safer to have a woman here than in Mexico," Borromeo reflected, "there are not so many men to put poison in her ears while her husband is at work at his anvil. Give me a chance with another one, I say, and I'll keep her till her teeth fall out."

"Devils!" said Sergeant Olivera, dodging, striking with his hand as at an insect that annoyed him. "What is it dripping down on a man in your kitchen, Doña Magdalena? Surely the rains have not begun in September?"

"It is the fathers' ham," the blacksmith enlightened him, laughing to see the spreading grease-spot on the soldier's sleeve. "This time of the year they