The Lone Ranche.

A singular habitation was that into which Frank Hamersley, and after him Walt Wilder, had found their way. Architecturally of the rudest description—a kind among Mexicans especially styled jacal, or more generally rancho, the latter designation Anglicised or Americanised into ranche. The rancho, when of limited dimensions, is termed ranchito, and may be seen with walls of different materials, according to the district or country. In the hot low lands (tierras calientes) it is usually built of bamboos, with a thatching of palm-leaf; higher up, on the table lands (tierras templadas) it is a structure of mud bricks unburnt (adobe’s); while still higher, upon the slopes of the forest-clad sierras, it assumes the orthodox shape of a log cabin, though in many respects differing from that of the States.

The one which gave shelter to the fugitives differed from all these, having walls of split slabs, set stockade fashion, and thatched with a sedge of tulé, taken from a little lake that lay near. It had three rooms and a kitchen, with some sheds at the back—one a stable appropriated to the mustang mare, another to some mules, and a third occupied by two men of the class of “peons”—the male domestics of the establishment.

All, with the house itself, structures of the rudest kind, unlike as possible to the dwelling-place of a lady, to say nought of an angel.

This thought occurs to Wilder as he enters under its roof. But he has no time to dwell upon it. His wounded comrade is inside, to whom he is conducted. He finds the latter still alive—thank God for that!—but unconscious of all that is passing around. To the kindly words spoken in apostrophe he makes no reply, or only in speeches incoherent. His skin is hot, his lips parched, his pulse throbbing at ninety to the minute. He is in the throes of a raging fever, which affects his brain as his blood.

The stalwart hunter sits down by his side, and stays there, tenderly nursing him. It glads him to observe there are others solicitous as himself—to find that he and Hamersley have fallen among friends. Though also surprising him, as does the sort of people he sees around. First, there is a lady, easily recognised as the angel; then a man of military aspect, who addresses her as “Hermanita,” unquestionably a gentleman with a second and older man wearing spectacles, by both spoken of as “el medico.” Strange inhabitants for a hovel, as that this should be in such an od............