rveyed her. "Oh, yu shore are mistaken, Mrs. Carmencita. I wants to
see yore daughter!"

"Ah, you have forgotten the little Carmencita who used to look for you.
Like all the men, you have forgotten," she cooed reproachfully. Then her
fear predominated again and she cried, "Oh, if my husband should see me
now!"

Hopalong mastered his astonishment and bowed. He had a desire to ride
madly into the Rio Grande and collect his senses.

"Yu are right--this is too dangerous--I'll amble on some," he replied
hastily. Under his breath he prayed that the outfit would never learn
of this. He turned his horse and rode slowly up the street as the door
closed.

Rounding the corner he heard a soft footfall, and swerving in his saddle
he turned and struck with all his might in the face of a man who leaped
at him, at the same time grasping the uplifted wrist with his other
hand. A curse and the tinkle of thin steel on the pavement accompanied
the fall of his opponent. Bending down from his saddle he picked up the
weapon and the next minute the enraged assassin was staring into the
unwavering and, to him, growing muzzle of a Colt's .45.

"Yu shore had a bum teacher. Don't yu know better'n to push it in? An'
me a cowpuncher, too! I'm most grieved at yore conduct--it shows you
don't appreciate cow-wrastlers. This is safer," he remarked, throwing
the stiletto through the air and into a door, where it rang out angrily
and quivered. "I don't know as I wants to ventilate yu; we mostly
poisons coyotes up my way," he added. Then a thought struck him. "Yu
must be that dear Manuel I've been hearin' so much about?"

A snarl was the only reply and Hopalong grinned.

"Yu shore ain't got no call to go loco that way, none whatever. I don't
want yore Carmencita. I only called to say hulloo," responded Hopalong,
his sympathies being aroused for the wounded man before him from his
vivid recollection of the woman who had opened the door.

"Yah!" snarled Manuel. "You wants to poison my little bird. You with
your fair hair and your cursed swagger!"

The six-shooter tentatively expanded and stopped six inches from the
Mexican's nose. "Yu wants to ride easy, hombre. I ain't no angel, but I
don't poison no woman; an' don't yu amble off with th' idea in yore head
that she wants to be poisoned. Why, she near stuck a knife in me!" he
lied.

The Mexican's face brightened somewhat, but it would take more than that
to wipe out the insult of the blow. The ho