Big Medicine's stare became more curious than hostile, and he permitted his horse to lag a length.

It is difficult to fight absolute passivity.

Then Slim, who ever tramped solidly over the flowers of sarcasm, blurted one of his unexpected retorts.
"I was just wonderin', by golly, where yuh learnt to talk!" Miguel turned his velvet eyes sleepily toward the speaker.

"From the boarders who ate those parrots, amigo," he smiled serenely.
At this, Slim--once justly accused by Irish of being a "single-shot" when it came to repartee--turned purple and dumb.

The Happy Family, forswearing loyalty in their enjoyment of his discomfiture, grinned and left to Miguel the barren triumph of the last word.
He did not gain in popularity as the days passed.