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316 brandy and chocolate, supplemented with cigarettes and a guitar, satisfied his appetite perfectly. What he demanded next was a horse As an infant he had begun life with a ride to be baptized, and the saddle was his real home.

Given a dashing steed with a long, flowing mane, an arching neck, a broad chest, full flanks, slender legs and the gentle but fiery eye that proved its Arabian descent, the Californian was fairly on the road to happiness; and When dressed up in his dark, glazed sombrero with a conical crown, wide brim

and betasselled silver cord, his close blue jacket, flashy shawl (serape) and red sash—possibly fringed with gold——his loose trousers, decorated like his jacket with silver buttons and slashed below the knee to reveal snow-white drawers, his buckskin leggins and his mammoth spurs—as big as a small plate—he felt completely satisfied.

He could lasso the foot of a running steer, ride one hundred and forty miles a day for a week at a time, or check a full gallop