aroused.

"You will soon grow fat," Lopez continued, looking her over carefully.

Angela pulled out her handkerchief and brushed her eyes. "Oh!"

"Like ze tub!" said Lopez, inexorably, spreading his arms to indicate an
immense diameter.

"Oh!" was all poor Angela could get out.

"Also, you 'ave ze bad temper."

"Oh! Oh!" Sobs now came from her.

"So, if you do not marry soon, it will be too late."

"What's that?" she looked up, not able to believe she had understood.

"Now, my frand 'ere, 'e wish to marry wiz you. Why, I do not know." Lopez
grinned broadly. He knew this would be the last stroke. He was right.

"Oh!" gasped Angela.

"Shall he come wiz me to Mexico," the bandit piled it on, "I will give 'im
planty wives, young, beautiful...."

"Oh!" again came from the distracted Angela.

"But he want you. And so ..."

"You're going to force me to marry him. I see!" She turned to the listening
"Red." "And you'd let him force you on me, like this?"

"It ain't my fault, Angela," the foreman assured her. "I didn't know he was
going to do this! You know that."

Lopez issued his ultimatum.

"I am not going to force you to marry 'im. You are going to choose to marry
'im."

The girl was on the brink of despair.

"Never! Never! Never!" she screamed, and stamped her foot vigorously.

"Ah! my young lady. We shall see." He turned abruptly, and called, "Pedro!"

"_Si_," the faithful one answered, and came to his master.

Lopez then addressed Angela: "I shall not force you to marry 'im,"
indicating "Red" with a wave of the hand. "I shall insist only zat if you
do not marry wiz 'im, you shall marry wiz Pedro."

Directly behind the girl stood the fearful Pedro. His face was the dirtiest
that had ever crossed the border into Arizona. His teeth were sparse, his
hair a tangled mass of grit and dirt; his hands like violent mud-pies. The
suit he wore was stained and greasy--he had slept in it for many nights.
Altogether, he was about the most hopeless-looking individual a girl could
be asked to look upon. At his master's words, he grinned a fiendishly happy
grin, spread out his arms as if to embrace the charming Angela, and, if
possible, press a kiss upon her rosy cheek. But Angela, with one look at
him, collapsed into "Red's" waiting arms. He seemed like heaven to her now.

"Ah!" yelled Lopez.

"'Red'! save me, save me!" Angela cried in melodramatic fashion.

Pedro, seeing how far from popular he was with the