I should
be very sorry for your poor old mother and your crippled sister, for
who will support them if you should fail them? As for you, Senor
Juan, it does not matter much if you never again breathe the air of
New Mexico. Your young little wife has not yet had an opportunity to
know you fully, anyway, and your cousin, the strapping Don Isidro
Chavez, will surely take the best care of her. They say he calls on
her daily to inquire after her welfare. Senor Cuzco Gonzales, as you
might be unlucky enough to leave your bones on this prairie, I would
advise you to make me heir to your garden of chile peppers. To be
sure, I never saw a more tempting crop! Mayhap you will have no
further use for chile, as the Indians are likely to heat your belly
with hot coals, in lieu of peppers."
Then he called for the cook. "Senor Doctor," he said, "prepare the
medicine for this man, who is too sick to load a musket properly, and
had to be shown how to do so by a little gringo, as I observed a
while ago. Hold him, Senores." And they held him down while the cook
administered the medicine, forcing it down his unwilling throat. The
medicine was compounded from salt, and the prescribed dose was a
handful of it dissolved in a tin cupful of water.
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