ntly extracted some
humor from the situation, as his dark face began to break its strain.

"Aww!" breathed Anson, heavily.

"Ophelia awaits your command, my lord. I've been gathering flowers,"
she said, sweetly, holding up her empty hands as if they contained a
bouquet.

Shady Jones exploded in convulsed laughter. But his merriment was not
shared. And suddenly it brought disaster upon him. The girl flew at him.

"Why do you croak, you toad? I will have you whipped and put in irons,
you scullion!" she cried, passionately.

Shady underwent a remarkable change, and stumbled in his backward
retreat. Then she snapped her fingers in Moze's face.

"You black devil! Get hence! Avaunt!"

Anson plucked up courage enough to touch her.

"Aww! Now, Ophelyar--"

Probably he meant to try to humor her, but she screamed, and he jumped
back as if she might burn him. She screamed shrilly, in wild, staccato
notes.

"You! You!" she pointed her finger at the outlaw leader. "You brute to
women! You ran off from your wife!"

Anson turned plum-color and then slowly white. The girl must have sent a
random shot home.

"And now the devil's turned you into a snake. A long, scaly snake with
green eyes! Uugh! You'll crawl on your belly soon--when my cowboy finds
you. And he'll tramp you in the dust."

She floated away from them and began to whirl gracefully, arms spread
and hair flying; and then, apparently oblivious of the staring men, she
broke into a low, sweet song. Next she danced around a pine, then danced
into her little green inclosure. From which presently she sent out the
most doleful moans.

"Aww! What a shame!" burst out Anson. "Thet fine, healthy, nervy kid!
Clean gone! Daffy! Crazy 'n a bedbug!"

"Shore it's a shame," protested Wilson. "But it's wuss for us. Lord! if
we was hoodooed before, what will we be now? Didn't I tell you, Snake
Anson? You was warned. Ask Shady an' Moze--they see what's up."

"No luck 'll ever come our way ag'in," predicted Shady, mournfully.

"It beats me, boss, it beats me," muttered Moze.

"A crazy woman on my hands! If thet ain't the last straw!" broke out
Anson, tragically, as he turned away. Ignorant, superstitious, worked
upon by things as they seemed, the outlaw imagined himself at last beset
by malign forces. When he flung himself down upon one of the packs his
big red-haired hands shook. Shady and Moze resembled two other men at
the end of their ropes.

Wilson's tense face twitc