later in pulling a gun than I used to be, and the difference
is worth thinking about. But this Kid's got a half-Mexican girl at the
Crossing that he comes to see. She lives in that /jacal/ a hundred
yards down the arroyo at the edge of the pear. Maybe she--no, I don't
suppose she would, but that /jacal/ would be a good place to watch,
anyway."

Sandridge rode down to the /jacal/ of Perez. The sun was low, and the
broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass-
thatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral
near by. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral
leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a
stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he
and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes--so old his
wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the
/jacal/ stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle
staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.

The Cisco Kid was a vain person, as all eminent and successful
assassins are, and his bosom would have been ruffled had he known that
at a simple exchange of glances two persons, in whose minds he had
been looming large, suddenly abandoned (at least for the time) all
thought of him.

Never before had Tonia seen such a man as this. He seemed to be made
of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather. He seemed to
illuminate the shadow of the pear when he smiled, as though the sun
were rising again. The men she had known had been small and dark. Even
the Kid, in spite of his achievements, was a stripling no larger than
herself, with black, straight hair and a cold, marble face that
chilled the noonday.

As for Tonia, though she sends description to the poorhouse, let her
make a millionaire of your fancy. Her blue-black hair, smoothly
divided in the middle and bound close to her head, and her large eyes
full of the Latin melancholy, gave her the Madonna touch. Her motions
and air spoke of the concealed fire and the desire to charm that she
had inherited from the /gitanas/ of the Basque province. As for the
humming-bird part of her, that dwelt in her heart; you could not
perceive it unless her bright red skirt and dark blue blouse gave you
a symbolic hint of the vagarious bird.

The newly lighted sun-god asked for a drink of water. Tonia brought it
from the red jar hanging under the brush shelter. Sandridge considered
it neces