he Battle of the Border," which ran swiftly
to lurid climax after climax, until even Pete's unsophisticated mind
doubted that any hero could have the astounding ability to get out of
tight places as did the cowboy hero of this picture. This sprightly
adventurer had just killed a carload of Mexicans, leaped from the roof
of an adobe to his horse, and made off into the hills--they were real
hills of the desert country, sure enough--as buoyantly as though he had
just received his pay-check and was in great haste to spend it, never
once glancing back, and putting his horse up grades at a pace that
would have made an old-timer ashamed of himself had he to ride sixty
miles to the next ranch before sundown--as the lead on the picture
stated. Still, Pete liked that picture. He knew that kind of
country--when suddenly he became aware of the tightly packed room, the
foul air laden with the fumes of humanity, stale whiskey, and tobacco,
the shuffling of feet as people rose and stumbled through the darkness
toward the street. Pete thought that was the end of the show, but as
Brevoort made no move to go, he fixed his attention on the screen
again. Immediately another scene jumped into the flickering square.
Pete stiffened. Before him spread a wide canon. A tiny rider was
coming down the trail from the rim. At the bottom was a Mexican 'dobe,
a ramshackle stable and corral. And there hung the Olla beneath an
acacia. A saddle lay near the corral bars. Several horses moved about
lazily . . . The hero of the recent gun-fight was riding into the yard
. . . Some one was coming from the 'dobe. Pete almost gasped as a
Mexican girl, young, lithe, and smiling, stepped into the foreground
and held out her hands as the hero swung from his horse. The girl was
taller and more slender than Boca--yet in the close-up which followed,
while her lover told her of the tribulations he had recently
experienced, the girl's face was the face of Boca--the same sweetly
curved and smiling mouth, the large dark eyes, even the manner in which
her hair was arranged . . .

Pete nudged Brevoort. "I reckon we better drift," he whispered.

"How's that, Pete?"

"The girl there in the picture. Mebby you think I'm loco, but there's
somethin' always happens every time I see her."

"You got a hunch, eh?"

"I sure got one."

"Then we play it." And Brevoort rose. They blinked their way to the
entrance, pushed through the crowd at the doorway, and st