flash! My grandfather like it not--he is much
dissatisfied! My uncle have seen him, too, but he make the sign of
the cross, and the lasso have fall to the side, and my uncle have much
gratification. A vaquero of my father and a peon of my cousin have both
been picked up, lassoed, and dragged dead.

"Many peoples have died of him in the strangling. Sometime he is seen,
sometime it is the woman only that one sees--sometime it is but the
hoss. But ever somebody is dead--strangle! Of a truth, my friend, the
gallant Starbottle and the ambitious Richards have just escaped!"

The editor looked curiously at his friend. There was not the slightest
suggestion of mischief or irony in his tone or manner; nothing, indeed,
but a sincerity and anxiety usually rare with his temperament. It struck
him also that his speech had but little of the odd California slang
which was always a part of his imitative levity. He was puzzled.

"Do you mean to say that this superstition is well known?" he asked,
after a pause.

"Among my people--yes."

"And do YOU believe in it?"

Enriquez was silent. Then he arose, and shrugged his shoulders. "Quien
sabe? It is not more difficult to comprehend than your story."

He gravely put on his hat. With it he seemed to have put on his old
levity. "Come, behold, it is a long time between drinks! Let us to the
hotel and the barkeep, who shall give up the smash of brandy and the
julep of mints before the lasso of Friar Pedro shall prevent us the
swallow! Let us skiddadle!"

Mr. Grey returned to the "Clarion" office in a much more satisfied
condition of mind. Whatever faith he held in Enriquez's sincerity, for
the first time since the attack on Colonel Starbottle he believed he had
found a really legitimate journalistic opportunity in the incident. The
legend and its singular coincidence with the outrages would make capital
"copy."

No names would be mentioned, yet even if Colonel Starbottle recognized
his own adventure, he could not possibly object to this interpretation
of it. The editor had found that few people objected to be the hero of
a ghost story, or the favored witness of a spiritual manifestation. Nor
could Richards find fault with this view of his own experience, hitherto
kept a secret, so long as it did not refer to his relations with the
fair Cota. Summoning him at once to his sanctum, he briefly repeated the
story he had just heard, and his purpose of using it. To his surprise,
Richards's