had a guitar from the cabin.

"Oh!" said she, diverted by his youthful feint. "Well, if you think it
is so late." She busied herself with the harvest. Her red handkerchief
and strands of her black hair had fallen loosely together from her head
to her shoulders. The red peppers were heaped thick, hiding the whole
roof, and she stooped among them, levelling them to a ripening layer
with buckskin gloves (for peppers sting sharper than mustard), sorting
and turning them in the bright sun. The boy looked at her most
wistfully.

"It is not precisely late--yet," said he.

"To be sure not," she assented, consulting the sky. "We have still three
hours of day."

He brightened as he lounged against a water-barrel. "But after night it
is so very dark on the trail to camp," he insincerely objected.

"I never could have believed you were afraid of the dark."

"It is for the horse's legs, Lolita. Of course I fear nothing."

"Bueno! I was sure of it. Do you know, Luis, you have become a man quite
suddenly? That mustache will be beautiful in a few years. And you have a
good figure."

"I am much heavier than last year," said he. "My arm--"

"I can see, I can see. I am not sure I shall let you kiss me any more.
You didn't offer to when you came this morning--and that shows you men
perceive things more quickly than we can. But don't go yet. You can lead
your horse. His legs will come to no harm, eased of your weight. I
should have been lonely to-day, and you have made it pass so quickly.
You have talked so much that my peppers are not half spread."

"We could finish them in five minutes together," said the youth, taking
a step.

"Two up here among all these peppers! Oh no, Luis. We should tread on
them, and our ankles would burn all night. If you want to help me, go
bring some fresh water. The barrel is almost empty."

But Luis stood ardently gazing up at the roof.

"Very well, then," said Lolita. "If you like this better, finish the
peppers, and I'll go for the water."

"Why do you look down the trail so often?" said the baffled love-maker,
petulantly.

"Because Uncle Ramon said the American would be coming to-day," the girl
replied, softly.

"Was it Uncle Ramon said that? He told you that?"

"Why not?" She shaded her eyes, and looked where the canon's widening
slit gave view of a slant of sand merging fan-spread into a changeless
waste of plain. Many watercourses, crooked and straight, came out of the
gaps, creasing