"An ostrich egg, you see, cut off at the top. Pedro wove all this lacelike outside, of just the common tule rushes. He splits them till they are like threads, and see that handle! Nothing could break it, nor can one tell just where it begins or ends--the joinings, I mean. There are many wonderful weavers among the Indians, but none so deft as our Pedro, my mother says. "Now, will you not fill this again and drink it with me? For I see that our speechless friend, yonder, has gone to work again as if his life depended on his industry." "He's always at work, like that. Yet he never neglects his flock. He has been herding ever since he was a little boy. That must have been years ago. He's so very old." "He doesn't look it. I should guess he might be fifty." "Fifty! Why, there's nobody anywhere around who remembers when our Pedro was born. Not even Fra Mateo at the mission, yet even he is more than a hundred," she answered, proudly. "Possible? Well, this is all wonderful to me who have lived always in a crowded city. This big West is like a romance, a fairy tale; not the least of its marvels to find a little girl like you riding alone on such a steed up such a desolate canyon, yet not in the least afraid." "Why, why should I be afraid? Except, of course, I was, for a bit, when I saw that Zulu made your horse rear. A step nearer and you'd have both gone over." Mr. Hale shuddered, and Jessica hastened to add: "But the step wasn't taken and you're quite safe up here. Is the dizziness all gone? Many are like that before they get used to the glare. Some of the 'tourists' wear blue glasses, and veils, and things. They look so funny." Into her laughter burst Pedro's speech. "'Ware Antonio. Is it plucking day, no? His third hand is Ferd, who lies and steals. I know. The mistress' chest has many openings. _Nina_, go home, and bid Antonio come himself when next he'd have me die. Yes." Jessica sprang to her feet. These were many words for the shepherd to utter, and was not to be disobeyed. Though the old man's age was doubtless far less than was accredited him, he was commonly considered a sage whose intelligence increased, rather than diminished, with the passing years. "I'll go at once, Pedro. Please forget that I was angry and--good-by." Mr. Hale was unprepared for this sudden departure, which bereft the scene of its fairest feature; for even while he listened to the brief speech between this odd pair there was a flash of twinkling feet and a scarlet Tam, and Jessica was gone. "Why--why--what? Eh, what?" he demanded, rising. His answer came with a crash and clatter which could never have been made by one small, fleeing figure, and with the startling force with which everything happened on that eventful day. Over the bluff scrambled a shaggy piebald burro, from whose back there tumbled at the stranger's very feet a brace of little lads, securely lashed together; even their wrists and ankles bound beyond possibility of their own undoing.