“Our distinguished friend, speaks truthfully,” remarked Nappy Boney, the only Frenchman in camp, and possessing a nickname playfully contracted from the name of the first emperor. “La gloire is nothing to them.  Comprehends any one that they know not even of France’s most illustrious son, le petit caporal?”

“That’s bad, to be sure,” said Texas, cutting an enormous chew of tobacco, and passing both plug and knife; “but that might be overlooked; mebbe the schools down in Mexico ain’t up with the times.  What I’m down on is, they hain’t got none of the eddication that comes nateral to a gentleman, even, ef he never seed the outside of a schoolhouse.  Who ever heerd of one of ’em hevin’ a difficulty with any gentleman, at the saloon or on the crick?  They drar a good deal of blood, but it’s allers from some of their own kind, an’ up there by ’emselves.  Ef they hed a grain of public spirit, not to say liberality, they’d do some of their amusements before the rest of us, instead of gougin’ the camp out of its constitutional amusements.  Why, I’ve knowed the time when I’ve held in fur six hours on a stretch, till there could be fellers enough around to git a good deal of enjoyment out of it.”

“They wash out a sight of dust!” growled Lynn Taps, from the Massachusetts shoe district; “but I never could git one of ’em to put up an ounce on a game—­they jest play by ‘emselves, an’ keep all their washin’s to home.”

“Blarst ’em hall! let’s give ’em tickets-o’-leave, an’ show em the trail!” roared Bracelets, a stout Englishman, who had on each wrist a red scar, which had suggested his name and unpleasant situations.  “I believe in fair play, but I darsn’t keep my eyes hoff of ’em sleepy-lookin’ tops, when their flippers is anywheres near their knives, you know.”

“Well, what’s to be done to ’em?” demanded Lynn Taps.  “All this jawin’s well enough, but jaw never cleared out anybody ‘xcep’ that time Samson tried, an’ then it came from an individual that wasn’t related to any of this crowd.”

“Let ’em alone till next time they git into a muss, an’ then clean ’em all out of camp,” said Chagres Charley.  “Let’s hev it onderstood that while this camp cheerfully recognizes the right of a gentleman to shoot at sight an’ lay out his man, that it considers stabbin’ in the dark’s the same thing as murder.  Them’s our principles, and folks might’s well know ’em fust as last.  Good Lord! what’s that?”

All the men started to their feet at the sound of a long, loud yell.

“That’s one of ’em now!” ejaculated Mississip, with a huge oath.  “Nobody but a Greaser ken holler that way—­sounds like the last despairin’ cry of a dyin’ mule.  There’s only eight or nine of ’em, an’ each of us is good fur two Greasers apiece—­let’s make ’em git this minnit.”

And Mississip dashed out of the door, followed by the other five, revolvers in hand.

The Mexicans lived together, in a hut made of raw hides, one of which constituted the door.