not to
do so until she felt sure that Runyon was beyond sight and hearing.

And then there came to Harboro the invitation out to the Quemado. The
belle of the settlement, a Mexican girl famed for her goodness and beauty,
was to be married to one of the Wayne brothers, ranchers on an immense
scale. The older of the two brothers was a conventional fellow enough,
with an American wife and a large family; but the younger brother was
known far and wide as a good-natured, pleasure-pursuing man who counted
every individual in Maverick County, Mexican and American alike, his
friend. It seemed that he was planning to settle down now, and he had won
the heart of a girl who seemed destined to make an admirable mate for one
of his nature-loving type, though his brother had mildly opposed the idea
of a Mexican girl as a member of the family.

The wedding was to be in the fashion of the bride's race. It was to be an
affair of some twenty-four hours' duration, counting the dancing and
feasting, and it was to take place in a sort of stockade which served the
Quemado settlement in lieu of a town hall or a public building of any
kind.

Invitations had been practically unlimited in number. There was to be
accommodation for hundreds. Many musicians had been engaged, and there was
to be a mountain of viands, a flood of beverages. It was to be the sort of
affair--democratic and broadly hospitable--which any honest man might have
enjoyed for an hour or so, at least; and it was in that category of events
which drew sightseers from a considerable distance. Doubtless there would
be casual guests from Spofford (the nearest railroad point on the Southern
Pacific) and from Piedras Negras, as well as from Eagle Pass and the
remote corners of Maverick County.

Harboro's invitation had come to him through one of his fellow employees
in the railroad offices--a Mexican who had spent four years in an American
university, and who was universally respected for his urbane manner and
kind heart. Valdez, his name was. He had heartily invited Harboro to go to
the wedding with him as his guest; and when he saw traces of some sort of
difficulty in Harboro's manner, he suggested, with the ready _simpatia_ of
his race, that doubtless there was a Mrs. Harboro also, and that he hoped
Mrs. Harboro, too, would honor him by accepting his invitation. He
promised that the affair would be enjoyable; that it would afford an
interesting study of a people whose social cus