SNAKE ROOT
pot and one of the blankets with fresh snow. While his guide was thus engaged, the Bishop took a swallow of old Taos whisky from his pocket flask. He never liked to drink spirits in the presence of an Indian.
Jacinto declared that he thought himself lucky to get bread and black coffee. As he handed the Bishop back his tin cup after drinking its contents, he rubbed his hand over his wide sash with a smile of pleasure that showed all his white teeth.
“We had good luck to be near here,” he said. “When we leave the mules, I think I can find my way here, but I am not sure. I have not been here very many times. You was scare, Padre?”
The Bishop reflected. “You hardly gave me time to be scared, boy. Were you?”
The Indian shrugged his shoulders. “I think not to return to pueblo,” he admitted.
Father Latour read his breviary long by the light of the fire. Since early morning his mind had been on other than spiritual things. At last he felt that he could sleep. He made Jacinto repeat a Pater Noster with him, as he always did on their night camps, rolled himself in his blankets, and stretched out, feet to the fire. He had it in his mind, however, to waken in the night and study a little the curious hole his guide had so carefully closed. After he put on the mud, Jacinto had never looked in the direction of
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