"There was my mother," said Mercedes slowly, in her turn pointing to the third bed of straw by the fire. "We journeyed over to Nogales, she and I. Your soldiers came and took away our pigs, giving us pieces of paper for them. They said that if we took these to Nogales someone would pay us: so we started, leaving _him_. And at Nogales your men were rough and parted us, and I have not seen her since." The Corporal eyed her with the beginnings of a leer. She faced him with steady eyes. "Well, well," said he, after a pause, "I mean no harm to you, anyway. Lord! but you're in luck. Here you reach home and find a fortune at your door--a sort of fortune a man can dig into with a spade; while a poor devil like me----" He paused again and stood considering. "You knew about this?" She nodded towards the dollars. "You knew how it came here, and you came after it?" "I did and I didn't. I knew 'twas somewhere hereabouts; but strike me, if a man could dream of finding it like this!" "Yet you came to this door and beat it open!" "You've wits, my girl," said the Corporal admiringly; "but they are on the wrong tack. I mean no harm; and the best proof is that here I'm standing with a loaded musket and not offering to hurt you. As it happens, I came to the door asking a bite of bread. I'm cruel hungry." Mercedes pulled a crust of millet-bread from her pocket. The Fathers at the convent had given it to her at parting, but she had forgotten to eat. She stepped forward; the Corporal stretched out a hand. "No," said she, and, avoiding him, laid the crust on the block-table. He caught it up and gnawed it ravenously. "I think there is no other food in the house." "You don't get rid of me like that." He ran a hand along the shelves, searching them. "Hullo! a gun?" He took it down and examined it beside the fire, while Mercedes' heart sank. She had hoped to possess herself of it, snatching it from the shelf when he should be off his guard. "Loaded, too!" He laid it gently on the block and eyed her, munching his crust. "You'd best put down that knife and talk friendly," said he at length. "What's the use?--you a woman, and me with two guns, both loaded? It's silliness; you must see for yourself it is. Now look here: I've a notion--a splendid notion. Come sit down alongside of me, and talk it over. I promise you there's no harm meant." But she had backed to her former position in the doorway and would not budge. "It's treating me suspicious, you are," he grumbled: "hard _and_ suspicious." "Cannot you take the money and go?" she begged, breathing hard, speaking scarcely above a whisper. "No, I can't: it stands to reason I can't. What can I do in a country like this with dollars it took two carts to drag here--two carts with six yoke of bullocks apiece? And that's where my cruel luck comes in. All I can take, as things are, is just so much as this knapsack will carry: and even for this I've run some risks."