Dade looked down at his hand and laughed.  “I did get a scratch.  I’ll let you see what it’s like.”

“You never told me you got shot!” accused Jack sharply, from where he had thrown himself down on a bundle of blankets covered over with a bullock hide dressed soft as chamois.

“Never thought of it,” retorted Dade in Spanish, out of regard for his host.

“We had some trouble with the gringos,” he explained to Manuel.  “There was a little shooting, and a bullet grazed my arm.  It doesn’t amount to much, but I’ll let you look at it.”

“Ah, the gringos!” Manuel spat after the hated name.  “The patron is too good, too generous!  They steal the cattle of the patron, though they might have all they need for the asking.  Like the green worms upon the live oaks, they would strip the patron’s herds to the last, lean old bull that is too tough even for their wolf teeth!  Me, I should like to lasso and drag to the death every gringo who comes sneaking in the night for the meat which tastes sweeter when it is stolen.  To-day Valencia rode down to the bayou—­”

While he told indignantly the tale of the latest pillage, he bared the wounded arm.  Jack got stiffly upon his swollen feet to look.  It was not a serious wound, as wounds go; a deep gash in the bicep, where a bullet meant for Dade’s heart had plowed under his upraised arm four inches wide of its mark.  It must have been painful, though he had not once mentioned it; and a shamed flush stung Jack’s cheeks when he remembered his own complaints because of his feet.

“You never told me!” he accused again, this time in the language of his host.

“The Senor Hunter has the brave heart of a Spaniard, though his blood is light,” said Manuel rebukingly.  “The Senor Hunter would not cry over a bigger hurt than this!”

Jack sat down again upon the bull-hide seat and dropped his face between his palms.  Old Manuel spoke truer than he knew.  Dade Hunter was made of the stuff that will suffer much for a friend and say nothing about it, and to-day was not the first time when Jack had all unwittingly given that friendship the test supreme.

Manuel carefully inspected the wound and murmured his sympathy.  He pulled a bouquet of dry herbs from where it hung in a corner, under the low ceiling, and set a handful brewing in water, where the coals were golden-yellow with heat.  He tore a strip of linen off Valencia’s best shirt which he was saving for fiestas, and prepared a bandage, interrupting himself now and then to dart over and inspect the tortillas baking on the hot rock.  For a fat man he moved with extraordinary briskness, and so managed to do three things at one time and do them all thoroughly; he washed and dressed the wound with the herbs squeezed into a poultice, rescued the tortillas from scorching, and spake his mind concerning the gringos who, he declared, were despoiling this his native land.  Then he lifted certain pots and platters to the center of the hut and cheerfully announced supper; and squatted on the floor, facing his guests over the food.