nnessee had the same
hunch about coal veins, and an old lead vein where one family went for
their ammunition. They could use it and they did, but were mighty sure
they'd all be hoodooed if they uncovered it for anyone else, so I
reckon that primitive dope does go pretty far back. I'll bet it was
old when Tubal Cain first began scratching around the outcroppings by
his lonesomes."

Conrad sauntered along the corridor and seated himself, flicking idly
some leather thongs he had cut out from a green hide with a curved
sheath knife rather fine and foreign looking. Singleton called him to
come in and have coffee, but he would not enter, pleading his
evil-smelling pipe as a reason.

"It can't beat mine for a downright bachelor equipment," affirmed
Pike, "but I've scandalized this outfit enough, or thereabout, and
that venison has killed all our appetites until breakfast, so why hang
around where ungrateful children swat a man's dearest hobbies?"

"If you think you'll get rid of me that way you had better think
again," said Billie. "I don't mind your old smokes, or any other of
your evil ways, so long as you and Tia Luz tell us more bewitched mine
stories. Say, Cap, wouldn't it be great if that old sheepskin was
found again, and we'd all outfit for a Sonora _pasear_, and----"

"We would not!" decided the old man patting her hair. "You, my lady,
will take a _pasear_ to some highbrow finishing school beyond the
ranges, and I'll hit the trail for Yuma in a day or two, but at the
present moment you can wind up the music box and start it warbling.
That supper sure was so perfect nothing but music will do for a
finish!"

The men drifted out in the corridor and settled into the built-in
seats of the plazita, though Rhodes remained standing in the portal
facing inward to the patio where the girl's shimmering white dress
fluttered in the moonlight beside the shadowy bulk of Tia Luz.

He lit a cigarette and listened for the music box Pike had suggested,
but instead he heard guitar strings, and the little ripple of
introduction to the old Spanish serenade _Vengo a tu ventana_, "I come
to your window."

He turned and glanced towards the men who were discussing horse
shipments, and possibilities of the Prussian sea raiders sinking
transports on the way to France, but decided his part of that
discussion could wait until morning.

Tia Luz had lit the lamp in the _sala_, and the light streamed across
the patio where the night moths