nd little tables scattered about. What was
it, anyway, and how could one meet a girl who lived there?

The curious old tale of the Lost Souls' Pool was temporarily forgotten
in speculations of a more warmly personal nature. Was she an
Americano? She seemed of too fair a type for a native daughter, in
spite of her dark hair, and that, together with her violet-blue eyes,
gave more than a hint of Irish ancestry. What could bring a girl of
her sort to a boom town below the border?

So absorbed was the young engineer in his cogitations that he had
reached the outskirts of Limasito before he awoke from his reverie.
The swiftly falling curtain of twilight had wrapped the spreading
orchards and haciendas in fragrant gloom and a myriad of mysterious
chirpings and rustlings forecasted the coming night, when the harsh,
grating screech of a horn blared upon their monotone and a low roadster
appeared suddenly around a turn in the road, careening sharply on two
wheels, and bore down recklessly upon the lone rider.

Thode's pony was quicker than he and leaped aside barely in time to
avoid disaster as the car shot past and hurtled on into the dusk. He
turned in his saddle and watched its unlighted shape swerve drunkenly
from side to side of the road, until a further turn hid it from view.
With a muttered imprecation, he gave the sure-footed pinto its head,
and as it floundered out of the ditch the white, jeering face of the
man at the wheel, as he had seen it in that flashing glimpse, rose
again before his consciousness. It seemed for a startling instant to
be grimly, portentously familiar, then the fancy faded before the fact
of its obvious absurdity, and he laughed contemptuously. The danger of
the moment had played tricks with his nerves.

A long-drawn, tremulous moan from the roadside broke in upon his
thoughts and he halted the pinto abruptly. A small crumpled figure lay
face downward in the ditch, twisting and quivering like a shot rabbit,
and, bending over it, Thode saw a slender feminine form which made his
pulse miss a beat or two and then race on with unaccountable
acceleration. He flung himself from the saddle and reached the edge of
the ditch, hat in hand, just as a pair of soft violet eyes were raised
to his. It was the girl of the adobe house on the plaza.

"There has been an accident?" he stammered.

She nodded briefly.

"Put on your hat and help me tote him. He lives in that shack just
over yonder."