Over all blew the trade-wind; prolonged,
insistent, harassing, swooping up the red dust of the road and the white
powder of the alkali beds, and flinging it--white-and-red banners in a
sky of burnt-out blue--here and there about the landscape.
The wine shop, which was also an inn, was isolated, lonely, but it was
comfortable, and Felipe decided to lay over there that night, then in
the morning reach his rancho by an easy stage.
He had his supper--an omelet, cheese, tortillas, and a glass of
wine--and afterward sat outside on a bench smoking innumerable
cigarettes and watching the sun set.
While he sat so a young man of about his own age rode up from the
eastward with a great flourish, and giving over his horse to the
_muchacho_, entered the wine shop and ordered dinner and a room for the
night. Afterward he came out and stood in front of the inn and watched
the _muchacho_ cleaning his horse.
Felipe, looking at him, saw that he was of his own age and about his own
build--that is to say, twenty-eight or thirty, and tall and lean. But in
other respects the difference was great. The stranger was flamboyantly
dressed: skin-tight pantaloons, fastened all up and down the leg with
round silver buttons; yellow boots with heels high as a girl's, set off
with silver spurs; a very short coat faced with galloons of gold, and a
very broad-brimmed and very high-crowned sombrero, on which the silver
braid alone was worth the price of a good horse.
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