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Concession.

Whole families had been moving from the first towards the spot in the
Higuerota range, whence the rumour of work and safety had spread over
the pastoral Campo, forcing its way also, even as the waters of a high
flood, into the nooks and crannies of the distant blue walls of the
Sierras. Father first, in a pointed straw hat, then the mother with the
bigger children, generally also a diminutive donkey, all under burdens,
except the leader himself, or perhaps some grown girl, the pride of the
family, stepping barefooted and straight as an arrow, with braids of
raven hair, a thick, haughty profile, and no load to carry but the small
guitar of the country and a pair of soft leather sandals tied together
on her back. At the sight of such parties strung out on the cross
trails between the pastures, or camped by the side of the royal road,
travellers on horseback would remark to each other--

"More people going to the San Tome mine. We shall see others to-morrow."

And spurring on in the dusk they would discuss the great news of the
province, the news of the San Tome mine. A rich Englishman was going
to work it--and perhaps not an Englishman, Quien sabe! A foreigner with
much money. Oh, yes, it had begun. A party of men who had been to Sulaco
with a herd of black bulls for the next corrida had reported that from
the porch of the posada in Rincon, only a short league from the town,
the lights on the mountain were visible, twinkling above the trees. And
there was a woman seen riding a horse sideways, not in the chair seat,
but upon a sort of saddle, and a man's hat on her head. She walked
about, too, on foot up the mountain paths. A woman engineer, it seemed
she was.

"What an absurdity! Impossible, senor!"

"_Si! Si! Una Americana del Norte_."

"Ah, well! if your worship is informed. _Una Americana_; it need be
something of that sort."

And they would laugh a little with astonishment and scorn, keeping a
wary eye on the shadows of the road, for one is liable to meet bad men
when travelling late on the Campo.

And it was not only the men that Don Pepe knew so well, but he seemed
able, with one attentive, thoughtful glance, to classify each woman,
girl, or growing youth of his domain. It was only the small fry that
puzzled him sometimes. He and the padre could be seen frequently side by
side, meditative and gazing across the street of a village at a lot
of sedate brown children, trying to sort them out, as it were, in low,
consulting tones, or else they would together put searching questions
as to the parentage of some small, staid urchin met wandering, naked and
grave, along the road with a cigar in his baby mouth, and perhaps his
mother's rosary, purloined for purposes of ornamentation, hanging in a
loop of beads low down on his rotund little stomach. The spiritual and
temporal pastors of the mine flock were very good friends. With Dr.
Monygham, the medical pastor, who had accepted the charge from Mrs.

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