w
that he was of the Coralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the
punchers from that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than
Kentucky feudists when wrong or harm was done to one of them. So,
with the wisdom that has characterized many great fighters, the Kid
decided to pile up as many leagues as possible of chaparral and pear
between himself and the retaliation of the Coralitos bunch.

Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among
the mesquits and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers.
Most of them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping
heads. But one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and
pawed the turf. Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and
slapped gently with the owner's own quirt.

If the slaying of the temerarious card-player had cast a cloud over
the Kid's standing as a good and true citizen, this last act of his
veiled his figure in the darkest shadows of disrepute. On the Rio
Grande border if you take a man's life you sometimes take trash; but
if you take his horse, you take a thing the loss of which renders
him poor, indeed, and which enriches you not--if you are caught. For
the Kid there was no turning back now.

With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness.
After a five-mile gallop he drew in to the plainsman's jogging trot,
and rode northeastward toward the Nueces River bottoms. He knew the
country well--its most tortuous and obscure trails through the great
wilderness of brush and pear, and its camps and lonesome ranches
where one might find safe entertainment. Always he bore to the east;
for the Kid had never seen the ocean, and he had a fancy to lay
his hand upon the mane of the great Gulf, the gamesome colt of the
greater waters.

So after three days he stood on the shore at Corpus Christi, and
looked out across the gentle ripples of a quiet sea.

Captain Boone, of the schooner _Flyaway_, stood near his skiff,
which one of his crew was guarding in the surf. When ready to sail
he had discovered that one of the necessaries of life, in the
parallelogrammatic shape of plug tobacco, had been forgotten. A
sailor had been dispatched for the missing cargo. Meanwhile the
captain paced the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.

A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's
edge. His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted
at a man's experience. His complexion was natu