w. The horribly staring eyes of Palafox followed her motions.

"There's something ails my heart, I tell you."

He stumbled upon the bed of pelts and lay sprawling.

"More drink! water! brandy! quick!"

With difficulty Mex turned the man upon his back. A while he lay
still. His breathing was labored and he twitched convulsively. The
entire nervous system was suddenly depressed. Mex stood motionless
beside the pallet, her eyes riveted upon him. Presently his livid lips
opened, and he spoke gaspingly, "I'm done for."

His hand fumbled about his heart. He was falling into syncope. He did
not feel the sweep and tickle of downfalling hair which, for a moment,
enmeshed and covered his face, when Mex knelt at his side and took
from his bosom the pocket-book he had told her contained a fortune.

Having secured this treasure, the slighted mistress of a dying robber
slid noiseless as a shadow to her accustomed covert behind the bar.
When she came thence her feet and ankles were encased in high buckskin
moccasins adorned in bright colors. About her shoulders she drew an
Indian blanket decorated in richest style of barbaric elegance. She
paused to bestow a parting look on the distorted face of him she had
loved and poisoned. A feeble moan came from his lips. She knew it
meant death, for wolf's-bane was mixed with the last draughts he had
taken.

Like a shadow Mex passed from the cabin into the darkness of the
woods. She had prevented the man from pursuing any other woman.

The hours of night wore slowly away, and Cacosotte, returning to
consciousness after his anaesthetic sleep, felt renewed pain in his
disabled arm. As soon as he realized his condition, he sat up in bed
and shouted for his nurse. "Mex!" No answer.

"Mex, for God's sake come and fix my arm."

No answer. No sound whatever was to be heard in the lonely cabin.

"Mex, O Mex!"

No response. Cacosotte waited half an hour and again called out.
Finally he got up, and in the gray light of a cloudy November dawn
made his way from his remote couch in "Heaven" to the glimmering
twilight of "Hell." Mex was not in her lair, nor was the couch itself
in the usual place.

Cacosotte bent over Palafox and saw a corpse.

XXI. PRO AND CON.

"No, sir, no, sir! I deny the statement. Burr is not getting justice.
Daviess is a persecutor, not a prosecutor. He hates Burr as he hates
every Republican. He rakes up all the filthy lies of the past,
concerning Burr and W