(2/3) The Teeth of the Gale Read Online Free PDF

abroad in the streets. Or, at least, anyone that we could see.
    Guided by the dawn star, on our right, we set off northward.
    "The turning for Pueblo de Sanabria should be about seven leagues farther on," Pedro said. So we rode at a good pace, in silence, for about an hour and a half, listening hard for any sound of pursuing hoofbeats.
    By that time, a gray and misty day had dawned. Ahead of us now, to the northwest, we should have been able to see high peaks, the Cabrera, and perhaps the Montanas de Leon; but all was veiled in cloud.
    "This weather favors a notion I have," said Pedro.
    "Which is—?"
    "We made very poor time yesterday. At this rate, it will be four days before we reach home. Your grandfather will be growing anxious. And if we take the mountain road, that is bound to slow us down—"
    "What do you suggest?"
    "We play the hare's game, and double back."
    Luck favored us. Just before the left turn that would take us to Pueblo de Sanabria—which is in open country—we encountered a shepherd driving a great flock of sheep southward toward Zamora.
    "Can you tell us, friend, which is the road for the Valle de Sanabria?" Pedro called above the bleating of his flock. In reply the shepherd gestured with his crook.
    "Four bowshots ahead, to your left, señores," he called back.
    We were still in the green valley of the River Esta; there were orchards and vineyards all around. When we had reached the turn indicated by the shepherd, taken it, and ridden a hundred yards or so, Pedro said, "Quick, now, while nobody is in sight. Off the road, and let us tie up the beasts at a good distance, out of sight and earshot."
    We led them among the trees, hobbled them, and left them grazing in the midst of an immense orchard of flowering plum trees; then returned to a point from which, hidden among the trees ourselves, we could watch the road. There we waited patiently.
    Our patience was rewarded. Not half an hour after we started our vigil, who should come along but the small man on the big gray stallion. Without hesitation he took the left-hand fork, northwestward for Pueblo de Sanabria.
    "Good," said Pedro. "He has interrogated the shepherd, and the shepherd told him what he told us. Now, let us make haste the other way."
    So we retrieved our beasts and set off at full speed on the carriage road northward toward Leon. "And at Beneventa," said Pedro with satisfaction, "we join the great highway from Madrid to La Coruna. So our road becomes easier still. While Sancho the Spy has ahead of him a weary clamber over mountains."
    "You think he knows our destination?"
    "Who can tell?"
    "Why does he follow us?"
    "How should I know?" said Pedro. "That's not my affair."
    And he fell to singing, horribly out of tune, the verse:
Santo Cristo de Lezo

Tres cosas piso

Salvacias y dinero

Y una buena marida.
    Pedro was good-natured, easy-going, cheerful, and shrewd as need be over all practical affairs; in many ways the best possible companion for a journey; yet there were boundaries to his nature, and beyond these he never made any attempt to venture. If the explanation of some matter was unknown to him, he would never try to seek it or guess at it. Things that he could not see were of no interest to him. And even things that he
could
see were valued strictly for their utility; you would never catch him admiring a sunset or a blossom-covered tree. I, as we rode in the mist among pink-and-white starry plum trees, would have liked to exclaim over and over at their mysterious beauty; but I knew that Pedro would be both embarrassed and perplexed if I did so, or turn it off with a laugh; so I remained silent. Yet he was very fond of me, I knew, and so was I of him; he was the older by two years, and we had played and tumbled about together, and fought, sometimes, ever since I was born. And he was devotedly attached to my grandfather.
    I thought of Juana. If she had seen this vast plain, covered with fruit blossom, she would have wished to write one