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Rh might have saved his life by stopping the hand of your friend of that Don Tomas who had been paid to kill him, you told me."

"Did I say that?" cried Florencio; "then, by the life of my mother, I lied. I am a terrible liar when in drink; and you know, Señor Cavalier, I had drunk a great deal that day."

Florencio paused, visibly embarrassed. Fuentes thereupon asked him why he was in such a state of grief when we came up, and why he persisted in taking the carcass of a mule for a seat.

"This mule is the cause of my sorrow," replied Planillas. "Although I was tenderly attached to her, I had sold her in my misery to the hacienda de platas you see in the valley below. I got employment in the work-shops to be near her; but, alas! the poor beast died this morning, and I have dragged her to this lonely place in order to mourn over her undisturbed."

Planillas again plunged his head between his hands with the air of a man who will not be consoled; then, doubtless, to turn the conversation, "Ah! Señor Cavalier," he said, "that is not my only misfortune. Yesterday a fight took place between the miners of Rayas and those of Mellado, and I was not there."

"I see nothing so unfortunate in that."

"Nothing unfortunate!" vociferated Planillas. "Ah! it was not one of those vulgar encounters that one sees every day; and you would never guess how it—terminated by a shower of piastres which the miners of Mellado poured upon their adversaries to prove the superiority of their mine. Ah! the beautiful eagle piastres!" he added, with a broken-hearted air; "and I was too late in the field."

I could better understand Planillas's grief for this