The guests began to arrive two days before Francisca"s birthday. Rancheros and their families came by horseback, carriage and ox cart. Don Hernando had several small but pleasant adobe cottages built for the occasion, while the extra rooms in the hacienda were for the visiting Dons and their immediate families.
Crow and LeRue had moved from the hacienda and into one of the small vaquero dwellings. Francisca had mooned about for a day, but soon the preparations for her birthday demanded her attention.
In their cottage, LeRue sat on a sleeping rack, smoking his pipe in the corner of the one-room building. Across from him, Crow sat at a wooden table. By the light of a lantern, Crow held a threaded needle in one hand as he strung small glass trading-beads onto it with the other. On the table
