Only on the lower hills, where the rough country rock cropped up and nature was at its worst, only there did the real Mexico creep in and assert itself in a crude huddle of half-Indian huts; the dwellings of the care-free natives. "Well, by Jove!" exclaimed De Lancey, surveying the scene with an appraising eye, "this doesn't look very much like Mexico--or a revolution, either!" "No, it don't," admitted Bud; "everything running full blast, too. Look at that ore-train coming around the hill!" "Gee, what a burg!" raved Phil. "Say, there's some class to this--what? If I mistake not, we'll be able to find a few congenial spirits here to help us spend our money. Talk about a company town! I'll bet you their barroom is full of Americans. There's the corral down below--let's ride by and leave our horses and see what's the price of drinks. They can't faze me, whatever it is--we doubled our money at the line." Financially considered, they had done just that--for, for every American dollar in their pockets they could get two that were just as good, except for the picture on the side. This in itself was a great inducement for a ready spender and, finding good company at the Fortuna hotel bar, Phil bought five dollars' worth of drinks, threw down a five-dollar bill, and got back five dollars--Mex. The proprietor, a large and jovial boniface, pulled off this fiscal miracle with the greatest good humor and then, having invited them to partake of a very exquisite mixture of his own invention, propped himself upon his elbows across the bar and inquired with an ingenuous smile: "Well, which away are you boys traveling, if I may ask?" "Oh, down below a ways," answered De Lancey, who always constituted himself the board of strategy. "Just rambling around a little--how's the country around here now?" "Oh, quiet, quiet!" assured their host. "These Mexicans don't like the cold weather much--they would freeze, you know, if it was not for that _zarape_ which they wind about them so!" He made a motion as of a native wrapping his entire wardrobe about his neck and smiled, and De Lancey knew that he was no Mexican. And yet that soft "which away" of his betrayed a Spanish tongue. "Ah, excuse me," he said, taking quick advantage of his guess, "but from the way you pronounce that word '_zarape_' I take it that you speak Spanish." "No one better," replied the host, smiling pleasurably at being taken at his true worth, "since I was born in the city of Burgos, where they speak the true Castilian. It is a different language, believe me, from this bastard Mexican tongue. And do you speak Spanish also?" he inquired, falling back into the staccato of Castile. "No, indeed!" protested De Lancey in a very creditable imitation; "nothing but a little Mexican, to get along with the natives. My friend and I are mining men, passing through the country, and we speak the best we can. How is this district here for work along our line?"