Very early the next morning after the usual deep cup of chocolate Brainard joined Hollinger and Major Calloway, and the little party set forth on horseback. They rode through the silent town, between high walls jealously guarding the privacy of large gardens, out into the fields which were drenched with a heavy dew like rain. The birds sang in the arching trees above the road. The sun came up from a golden mist in the lowlands below and touched the hoary crest of Orizaba. Brainard had never seen such an incarnation of spring upon the earth as this glorious May morning, and his heart sang joyously, free of care, forgetful of the burden of his heavy bag and all the coil of events that had brought him hither. Like a schoolboy he was resolved to have his holiday. The lively chestnut horse with which Calloway had mounted him danced mincingly, chafing at the heavy bit. The magnate of the fight trust in a short jacket and leather breeches, a broad straw sombrero on his head, a long black cigar in his mouth, had the appearance of a bull fighter on parade. He too seemed gay in mood, and called Brainard’s attention to the richness of the land, the varied specimens of tropical trees beneath which they rode, the beauty of the landscape, always dominated by the symmetrical snow-crowned mountain. Calloway and the German took the expedition more phlegmatically, discussing the prospects of the new coffee yield. From the shaded hill road they emerged upon a fertile valley where the _peons_ were already at work in the fields. And they also began to meet the country population moving towards Jalapa for the weekly fair. Hollinger, who seemed to have a fair command of Spanish, joked with men and women along the road. “You couldn’t do that in the States!” he remarked to Brainard. “They’d just give you a couple of sour looks and vote for no license.” . . .