Team after team came into the congestion and stopped. Cart and wagon and phaeton closed in around the colt. There was much maneuvering for space. The colt's nervousness increased, and became positive fear. He darted wild eyes about him. He was completely hedged in. On his right loomed a large horse; behind him stood a drowsing team; on his left was a dirt-cart; while immediately in front, such was his position now, stood his mother. But, though gripped in fear, he remained perfectly still until the locomotive, puffing and wheezing along at the rear of the train, having reached the crossing, sounded a piercing shriek. This was more than he could stand. Without a sound he dodged and whirled. He plunged to the rear and rammed into the drowsing team; darted to the right and into the teeth of the single horse; whirled madly to the left, only to carom off the hub of a wheel. But with all this defeat he did not stop. He set up a wild series of whirling plunges, and, completely crazed now, darted under the single horse, under a Mexican wagon, under a team of horses, and forth into a little clearing. Here he came to a stop, trembling in every part, gazing about in wildest terror. Following its shrill blast, the engine puffed across the crossing, the gates slowly lifted, and the foremost vehicles began to move. Soon the whole line was churning up clouds of dust and rattling across the railroad tracks. Felipe was of this company, cracking his whip and yelling lustily, enjoying the congestion and this unexpected opportunity to be seen by so many American eyes at once in his gorgeous raiment. In the town proper, and carefully avoiding the more rapidly moving vehicles, he turned off the avenue into a narrow side street, and pulled up at a water-trough. As he dropped the reins and prepared to descend, a friend of his--and he had many--hailed him from the sidewalk. Hastily clambering down, he seized the man's arm in forceful greeting, and indicated with a jerk of his head a near-by saloon. "We go gettin' soomt'ing," he invited. "I have munch good luck to tell you." Inside the establishment Felipe became loquacious and boasting. He now was a man of comfortable wealth, he gravely informed his friend--a wizened individual with piercing eyes. Besides winning a bet of fifteen dollars in money, he explained, he also held a note against Franke Gamboa for fifty dollars more on his property. But that was not all. Aside from the note and the cash in hand, he was the owner of a colt now of great value--_si_--worth at least ten dollars--which, added to the other, made him, as anybody could see, worthy of recognition. With this he placed his empty glass down on the bar and swung over into English.