ningly, and speaking in Spanish. "Be careful who you charm.
Best not be coddling Nine Eyes, or any other man, while I'm livin'.
Bring another bottle. You could have kept those girls here for me, if
you'd tried. You allowed that strutting dandy to carry them off before
your eyes. This makes the second time he got away from me. The third
time is the charm. Not your kind of charm, Mex, but one that acts
quicker."

"What charm?" asked Mex, who had gone behind the bar, and was busy
with bottles and cups. She decanted some drops into a flask.

"What charm! Copper-cheeks! You don't recollect how I dosed Pepillo
that night!"

"Yes, that night me save your life. Me your wife then! Me kill dandy?"

Palafox chuckled at the question.

"No, senora, no. I'll do that part of the business, and you see after
the charming. You might have captivated the dandy for all I care, and
kept him to yourself. It isn't him I want. I want her. And I'll have
her yet. I've set my heart on getting ahold of that woman."

The hand of Mex could not have been steady; she let fall something
that broke like glass.

"What are you spilling, there? Don't break my bottles. Bring me more
drink."

Mex started up confusedly from behind the bar, brought a flagon, sat
down on the bench beside Palafox, and looked into his face. A furious
resentment was raging in her heart.

Palafox enjoyed his temporary wife's manifestations of jealousy. He
laughed, took a deep draught from the flagon, and said:

"You are infernal particular, Mex. I never heard of another woman of
your pedigree who was opposed to polygamy."

She did not understand all the words he used, but gathered the chief
import, and replied with impetuous wrath:

"No Mex--not Choctaw--me Castiliano--me Senora Palafox." The
desperado sat still several minutes, drank again from a bowl which Mex
had mixed.

"You're all right, senora--I couldn't keep house without you. Look
ye here, bring all those papers and I'll put 'em safe back in the
pocket book." The papers were folded up and enclosed carefully into
the leathern wallet. Palafox, with trembling hand, thrust the package
in his pocket, and then staggered to his feet.

"There's a queer pain in the back of my neck and in my chest, Mex; I
can't stand up--help me." He leaned on the bar, and the woman hastily
drew to the middle of the floor the great buffalo robe which was her
usual bed. She also brought a panther's hide rolled up to serve as a
pillo