Who ate the pink sweetmeat?

But one day as he sat idly before his open door, a little gray burro came ambling agilely through the fallen trees, his rider, a dwarfish man of haughty aspect, whose cheeks were wrinkled, and beard grizzled, but whose eyes were as piercing and elf-locks as black as the half-breed’s own. Seated on his little long-eared palfrey, he accosted the half-breed and gravely inquired, in tolerable English, if he knew that he was trespassing on the lands of the patron, who lived at the plaza, on the plain below.

“No; I don’t know nothing about no patron,” said Cherokee Sam shortly, as he arose and stood towering in giant height above the dwarfish rider of the burro.

Bien, then he was sorry to have to tell him, said the Spanish stranger in suave reply. He was the mayordomo, and this was the patron’s land, and the coyote (half-breed) that killed all the deer must seek some other spot. Far he must go, too, for the patron’s land was far-reaching, and he pointed with his willow wand to the Sierra rising above, and the plain rolling far away below. On all sides far as the eye could see was the patron’s land. His it was by virtue of a Spanish grant.

The coyote giant laughed in scorn. “I’ve heerd of them thar grants. What good are they? Squatters’ rights and squatters’ rifles rules in this here free country, I reckon. Go back, little Mr. Mexican, to your patron, and tell him that here I’ve took up my homestead, and here I’ll stay, and you uns may do your do!”

As he spoke he threw his rifle on his hollowed arm, and looked black thunder from his beetling brow upon the burro-rider. Perhaps had he been less haughty in his defiance, he would have fared better at the mayordomo’s hands. For when the corn was yellow, and he returned from one of his periodical prospects to gather it, he found only the bare stubble field awaiting him.

Thus it was that Cherokee Sam, hunter, prospector and squatter, despite his triad of trades, was now at Christmas without a “corn-pone,” and this state was likely to continue through the winter.

Returning home at sunset with the legs of a doe tied across his breast, and her slender head, with its big ears trailing behind against the muzzle of the eager hound, the hunter strode from the timber on the slope, and struck the snow from his frozen leggins and moccasons as he paused on the Shut-in. A lofty upheaved ledge of red sandstone was this, which arose from the slopes on either hand, and shut in the gulch from the plain below, leaving only a narrow portal for the passage of the stream.

Above him, as he stood, were the foot-hills, and his wild home all snow-covered and cold in the shadow of the Sierra. But below the snow had not fallen, and the plain shone brown and warm in the lingering light of the setting sun. There, softened by the distance, with a saffron shimmer about its dark outlines, lay the gray adobe plaza, sleeping by the silver stream.

There were gathered corn and oil, the fat of the land; and he would have nothing but the deer on his shoulders for Christmas cheer. A bad gleam came in the half-breed’s eyes as he thought of his harried corn-patch, and gazed at the abode of his enemy.

As if in sympathy with his master, the hound put up his bristles, and growled savagely. Looking down, the hunter was astonished to see a small figure standing motionless at the foot of the Shut-in, and gazing up at him.

The stranger was a young boy. He was very richly and somewhat fantastically dressed in a silken jacket, and silken pantalones, much be-buttoned about the outer seams, and confined at the waist by a silken sash. On his feet were buckskin zapatos, soled with raw-hide, and tied with drawstrings of ribbon, and over his long and flowing hair a white sombrero with gay silk tassels.

This he reverentially removed as the hunter descended, and resting on him his soft black eyes, said:

“Good evening, Señor don San Nicolas. To-night is Noche Buena (Christmas eve), and Padre Luis told me you would pass through the Shut-in on your way to the plaza. So I’ve come to meet you.”

His manner was eager and full of trustful confidence. The half-breed was taken aback.

“I don’t go by no such name as that,” he replied gruffly. “I’m Cherokee Sam, and I live down thar;” and he pointed to the dirt-roofed cabin in the gulch.

“I wanted badly to see the saint,” said the stranger, as his face fell; “and I never could when he comes to the plaza, because I’m then always asleep. I’m the patroncito, señor.”

He had replaced his sombrero, and his air as he declared himself was princely.

Cherokee Sam’s face darkened. The young patron– the son of his enemy – the despoiler of the corn-patch. Even now they must be seeking him, and here he was in his hands. And there was no snow below, and they could find no trail to follow.

“What did you do that for?” asked the patroncito, in a tone of authority, as he laid his hand on the ragged bullet-hole behind the doe’s shoulder.

“I had to have meat for my Christmas dinner,” said Sam. “Come with me, and I will show you that thar Spanish Santy Claus you’re huntin’ for,” he added, and held out his hand.

The patroncito placed his own in it promptly. For a moment the giant stayed his stride to the other’s puny steps. Then the patroncito stopped and said commandingly:

“The snow is deep; take me up!”

Never had the wild hunter known a master; but now, without a word, he stooped and, like another giant St. Christopher, set the child upon his shoulder, and plunged through the drifts for the cabin.

In a moment he had the doe gambrelled to a pine in front of the cabin. Then he pushed open the slab door, and entering, blew up the covered embers in the rough fireplace, and piled on the pitch pine. As it blazed up, he drew a couple of deerskins from his bed in the corner and flung them down before the fire and bade the patroncito be seated.

He obeyed; and the half-breed looked at him with stern satisfaction. Many a long day should it be ere the patron saw again his son and heir. But these reflections were disturbed. His guest pointed to his gay zapatos.

“Will you please take them off, Don Cherokee Sam?” he said. “My feet are wet and my fingers are numb.”

The half-breed knelt and undid the ribbons, and drew them off, and also his long silk stockings.

“Muchas gracias, Don,” said the patroncito, as he reclined at ease and toasted his bare toes before the fire.

His fearlessness pleased his hunter host well. His manner, too, was patronizing, and the half-breed entered into the jest with savage humor.

“If you’ll ’scuse me, Mister Patroncito, I’ll git supper.”

He spoke as if this were an operation requiring great culinary skill and much previous preparation. It consisted in cutting three steaks, with his sheath-knife, from the deer’s ham, and placing them with a lump of fat in the frying-pan over the fire. These turned and browned, two tin cups filled with water, and the supper was ready.

The guest took kindly enough to the venison. He tasted the water and paused. “I’ll thank you for a cup of hot coffee, Don Cherokee Sam, with plenty of sugar in it, if you please.”

Don Cherokee Sam was embarrassed at this polite but luxurious request.

“Coffee’s bad,” he said, shaking his head. “It spiles my nerve so’s I can’t draw a stiddy bead. Water’s best, patroncito.”

The guest was truly polite. He emptied his cup with the best of grace. But presently he paused again in his consumption of venison.

“Pardon me, but you have forgotten the bread.”

The host arose. What could he set before this youthful sybarite from the plaza?

“Bread’s been mighty scarce with me this winter,” he muttered. “And I planted a good plenty of corn out thar too.”

The recollection roused his rankling resentment, and he paused.

“Why didn’t you gather it, then, like the peones do?” asked the patroncito placidly.

“It was stole,” muttered the host; but he checked himself, and added in a softer tone, “by b’ars and other varmints, I reckon.”

And with this compromise between anger and truth, Cherokee Sam reached up and took down a small sack hanging to the great centre roof-log. It contained a few nubbins found on the harried field, his seed for next spring.

“Patroncito,” he remarked in a tone of conciliating confidence, as he shelled an ear in the frying-pan, “thar’s nothing like deer meat, and running water, and the free air of heaven, and maybe parched corn oncet in a while, to make a man a man.”

Under this encomium the parched corn was partaken of with gravity. And supper being over, the host cleaned up, a simple process, performed by dashing cold water in the red-hot frying-pan, and hanging it on a nail.

“San Nicolas, you said you’d show him to me,” then politely hinted the patroncito.

“It’s early yet for him,” said Cherokee Sam. “He’s jist about taking the trail in the Sierra, and the drifts is mighty deep, too. But he’ll be here.”

“My stockings, Don – they should be ready; and they’re wet. Will you oblige me by holding them to the fire?” said the princely patroncito.

Cherokee Sam held the damp stockings to the blaze. The patroncito watched him sleepily.

“He’s a long time coming, Don Cherokee Sam,” he murmured, as he nodded – nodded yet again, and slipped down upon the deerskin, fast asleep.

The half-breed lifted him like a feather, and laid him on his bed and drew the covering softly over him. Noiselessly he replenished the fire, and squatted before it, resuming the stocking-drying process.

The resinous boughs burst into flame, and a pungent perfume and a red glow pervaded the smoke-blackened cabin. The light fell on the patroncito as he lay on the couch of skins, caressed the slender foot he had thrust from out the covering, and danced on the silver buttons strung on his gay pantalones. Over him, like an ogre, hovered the wavering shadow of the giant’s head, rendered more grotesque by his towering cap of badger-skin, plumed with a flaunting tail.

As he sat on his heels in the brilliant light, this savage head-covering lent additional fierceness to the half-breed’s hatchet-face. Wild-eyed, too, was he as any denizen of his chosen haunts. But stolid in its composure as his saturnine countenance was, it was free from all trace of the petty passions that cramp the souls of his civilized half-brothers. And as he looked at the soft stockings, now dry in his hands, a smile parted his thin lips.

Just then the firelight flared up and went suddenly out, and the threatening shadow on the wall was lost. And though the door never opened, and even the hunter’s vigilant ears caught no sound, he felt a presence in the cabin. Looking up, he dreamily beheld, shadowed forth dimly in the gloom, the form of San Nicolas, long belated by the drifts. But how that Spanish Christmas saint looked, or what he said to remind the half-breed of that hallowed time when all should be peace on earth and good will towards men, must ever remain a secret between him and his lawless host.

The patroncito awoke, and through the open doorway saw the snow sparkling in the sun of Christmas morning. Over the fire Cherokee Sam was frying venison, and on either side hung the long silk stockings, filled.

“And I never saw him!” said the patroncito reproachfully, as he looked at them. “Oh, why didn’t you wake me, Don Cherokee Sam?”

“I didn’t dar to do it, patroncito,” explained Sam. “’Twasn’t safe when he told me not to.”

He watched the patroncito anxiously as he took the stockings down. But he need have had no fear. As their contents rolled out on the deerskin the patroncito uttered a cry of delight.

A handful of garnets, bits of broken agate, a shivered topaz, shining cubes of iron pyrites, picked up on otherwise fruitless prospects by San Nicolas; a tanned white weasel-skin purse, and ornaments of young bucks’ prongs, patiently carved by that good saint on winter evenings. Certainly, never before, with all his silk and silver, had the petted patroncito received gifts so prized as these.

“Never mind about breakfast,” he said imperiously, as he gathered them up. “Take me to the plaza right away.”

The half-breed humbly complied. But scarcely had they emerged from the granite gateway of the Shut-in when they were met by a party from the plaza, headed by the patron himself, searching, in great trouble, for the wanderer. They had been abroad all night. Happily, Cherokee Sam remembered the admonitions of San Nicolas over night.

“Patron,” he said, haughtily, as he led the patroncito forward, “I bring you a Christmas gift.”

Then, as Cherokee Sam afterwards described it, “there was a jabbering and a waving of hands by them thar Mexicans.” And he, turning, strode back to his cabin, and his unfinished breakfast. Still his resentment rankled. But it vanished later on that day.

Once more the gray burro ambled up the gulch bearing the dwarfish mayordomo, but this time on a mission of peace. After him came a burrada (pack-train) well laden, and drew up before the door of the astonished Cherokee Sam. With uncovered head and courtesy profound, the mayordomo stood before him and asked would Don Cherokee Sam indicate where he would have the Christmas gifts, sent by the patroncito, stored.

“In the cabin,” replied Sam, glancing at the loaded burros in dismay, “if it will hold ’em. I ain’t got nowhars else.”

The mayordomo waved his wand to the attendant packers, and in a moment the cabin was filled with box, bag, and bale, closely piled. Assuredly Don Cherokee Sam had luxuries of life to last until Christmas came again.