Ah, here he
comes now."
The man and the dog would have attracted attention anywhere, separately
or together. The man was well-made and vigorous, with red-brown hair and
beard, and clear merry eyes, a leader who would rather lead than
command. The dog was of medium size but very powerful, tawny in color
with a black muzzle, and the scars on his compact body recorded many
battles, not with other dogs but with hostile Indians. He had been his
master's body-guard in several fights, and Balboa sometimes lent him to
his friends, the dog receiving the same share of plunder that would have
been due to an armed man. Leoncico is said to have brought his captain
in this way more than a thousand crowns.
"You called him off, eh, General?" Saavedra asked, bending to stroke the
terrible head. He and Vasco Nunez had been friends for years; in fact it
was Saavedra who had managed the smuggling of Balboa on board the ship
in a cask, to escape his creditors, when the expedition set out. They
were intimate, as men are intimate who are different in character but
alike in feeling and tradition. Pizarro was an outsider and knew it.
"Yes; Enciso's dog would be better for a whipping, perhaps, but I had no
mind to make the Bachelor any more an enemy than he is. Pizarro,--" he
turned to the soldier of fortune, with a frank smile, "I have work for
you to do.
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