Page 122 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

first, in a pointed straw hat, then the mother with the bigger
children, generally also a diminutive donkey, all under bur-
dens, 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 be-
tween 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 mon-
ey. 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 wom-
an 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.’

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