With
Panchito went an ancient Saratoga trunk, Pablo Artelan, and little
Allesandro Trujillo, ragged and bare-footed as usual.
Upon arriving in San Diego Don Mike unloaded Panchito at the Santa Fe
depot. Gone now were the leg bandages and the beautiful blanket with
which Danny Leighton had furnished Panchito at starting. These things
proclaimed the race-horse, and that was not part of Don Mike's plan.
He led the animal to a vacant lot a few blocks from the depot and,
leaving him there in charge of Pablo, went up town to the Mexican
consulate and procured passports into Baja California for himself and
Allesandro. From the consulate he went to a local stock-yard and
purchased a miserable, flea-bitten, dejected saddle mule, together with
a dilapidated old stock saddle with a crupper, and a well-worn
horse-hair hackamore.
Returning to the depot, he procured his old Saratoga trunk from the
station master and removed from it the beautiful black-leather,
hand-carved, silver-mounted stock saddle he had won at a _rodeo_ some
years previous; a pair of huge, heavy, solid silver Mexican spurs, with
tan carved-leathern straps, and a finely plaited hand-made rawhide
bridle, _sans_ throat-latch and brow-band and supporting a long, cruel,
solid silver Spanish bit, with silver chain chin-strap and heavily
embossed. In this gear he arrayed Panchito, and then mounted him.
Allesandro mounted the flea-bitten mule, the old Saratoga trunk was
turned over to Pablo, and with a fervent "_Adios_, Don Miguel.
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