"The pleasure is mine," replied Hardy, returning the salutation, and at the sound of his own language Don Pablo burst into renewed protestations of delight. Within the cool shadow of his _ramada_ he offered his own chair and seated himself in another, neatly fashioned of mesquite wood and strung with thongs of rawhide. Then, turning his venerable head to the doorway which led to the inner court, he shouted in a terrible voice: "_Muchacho_!" Instantly from behind the adobe wall, around the corner of which he had been slyly peeping, a black-eyed boy appeared and stood before him, his ragged straw hat held respectfully against his breast. "_Sus manos!_" roared the old man; and dropping his hat the _muchacho_ touched his hands before him in an attitude of prayer. "Give the gentlemen a drink!" commanded Don Pablo severely, and after Hardy had accepted the gourd of cold water which the boy dipped from a porous _olla_, resting in the three-pronged fork of a trimmed mesquite, the old gentleman called for his tobacco. This the _mozo_ brought in an Indian basket wrought by the Apaches who live across the river--Bull Durham and brown paper. The senor offered these to his guest, while Creede grinned in anticipation of the outcome. "What?" exclaimed the Senor Moreno, astounded. "You do not smoke? Ah, perhaps it is my poor tobacco! But wait, I have a cigarro which the storekeeper gave me when I--No? No smoke nothing? Ah, well, well--no smoke, no Mexicano, as the saying goes." He regarded his guest doubtfully, with a shadow of disfavor. Then, rolling a cigarette, he remarked: "You have a very white skin, Senor Hardy; I think you have not been in Arizona very long." "Only a year," replied Hardy modestly. "_Muchacho!_" cried the senor. "Run and tell the senora to hasten the dinner. And where," he inquired, with the shrewd glance of a country lawyer, "and where did you learn, then, this excellent Spanish which you speak?" "At Old Camp Verde, to the north," replied Hardy categorically, and at the name Creede looked up with sudden interest. "I lived there when I was a boy." "Indeed!" exclaimed Don Pablo, raising his eyebrows. "And were your parents with you?" "Oh, yes," answered Hardy, "my father was an officer at the post." "Ah, _si_, _si_, _si_," nodded the old man vigorously, "now I understand. Your father fought the Apaches and you played with the little Mexican boys, no? But now your skin is white--you have not lived long under our sun. When the Apaches were conquered your parents moved, of course--they are in San Francisco now, perhaps, or Nuevo York." "My father is living near San Francisco," admitted Hardy, "but," and his voice broke a little at the words, "my mother has been dead many years." "Ah, indeed," exclaimed Don Pablo sympathetically, "I am very sorry. My own _madre_ has been many years dead also. But what think you of our country? Is it not beautiful?"