o Grande, and the church
is almost the last structure you will pass before you set forth into a
No-Man's land of sage and cactus and yucca and mesquite lying under the
blazing sun.

Harboro his name was. Of course, there was a Christian name, but he was
known simply as Harboro from Piedras Negras to the City. She was Sylvia
Little. Sylvia, people called her, both before and after her marriage. The
Little might as well never have belonged to her.

Although neither Harboro nor Sylvia really belonged to Eagle Pass, the
wedding was an event. Both had become familiar figures in the life of the
town and were pretty well known. Their wedding drew a large and interested
audience. (I think the theatrical phrase is justified, as perhaps will be
seen.) Weddings were not common in the little border town, unless you
counted the mating of young Mexicans, who were always made one by the
priest in the _adobe_ church closer to the river. Entertainment of any
kind was scarce. But there were other and more significant reasons why
people wanted to see the bride and the bridegroom, when Harboro gave his
name to the woman of his choice.

The young people belonging to some sort of church guild had decorated the
church, and special music had been prepared. And indeed when Harboro and
Sylvia marched up the aisle to the strains of the _Lohengrin_ march (the
bridegroom characteristically trying to keep step, and Sylvia ignoring the
music entirely), it was not much to be wondered at that people craned
their necks to get the best possible view. For both Harboro and the woman
were in a way extraordinary individuals.

Harboro was forty, and seemed in certain aspects older than that. He was a
big man, well built, and handsome after a fashion. He was swarthy, with
dark eyes which seemed to meditate, if not to dream. His hair was
raven-black, and he wore a heavy mustache which stopped just short of
being unduly conspicuous. It was said of him that he talked little, but
that he listened keenly. By trade he was a railroad man.

He had been heard to remark on one occasion that he had begun as a
brakeman, but there were rumors of adventurous days before he became a
member of a train crew. It was said that he had gone prospecting into
Mexico as a youth, and that he had spent years working at ends and odds of
jobs about mines and smelters. Probably he had hoped to get into something
in a big way.

However, he had finally turned to railroading, and in th