s gave her his weapon with which to show her skill. Then
what? Before they could hinder her she turned in her saddle and shot
her younger sister through the brain. Herself she destroyed with a
bullet in her breast. Every word is the sacred truth, senora.
Longorio's soul is stained with the blood of those two innocents."

"I've heard many stories like that, from both sides," Alaire said,
gravely.

In the course of time the military train came creaking along on the
main track and stopped, to the great interest of the southbound
travelers. It was made up of many stock cars crowded with cavalry
horses. Each animal bore its equipment of saddle and bridle, and penned
in with them were the women and the children. The soldiers themselves
were clustered thickly upon the car roofs. Far down at the rear of the
train was a rickety passenger-coach, and toward this Jose Sanchez made
his way.

There began a noisy interchange of greetings between the occupants of
the two trains, and meanwhile the hot sun glared balefully upon the
huddled figures on the car tops. A half-hour passed, then occurred a
commotion at the forward end of Alaire's coach.

A group of officers climbed aboard, and among them was one who could be
none other than Luis Longorio. As he came down the passageway Alaire
identified him without the aid of his insignia, for he stood head and
shoulders above his companions and bore himself with an air of
authority. He was unusually tall, at least six feet three, and very
slim, very lithe; he was alert, keen; he was like the blade of a
rapier. The leanness of his legs was accentuated by his stiff, starched
riding-breeches and close-fitting pigskin puttees, while his face,
apart from all else, would have challenged prompt attention.

Longorio was a young man; his cheeks were girlishly smooth and of a
clear, pale, olive tint, which sun and weather apparently were
powerless to darken; his eyes were large, bold, and brilliant; his
nostrils thin and sensitive, like those of a blooded horse. He seemed
almost immature until he spoke, then one realized with a curious shock
that he was a man indeed, and a man, moreover, with all the ardor and
passion of a woman. Such was Alaire's first hasty impression of Luis
Longorio, the Tarleton of Potosi's army.

Disdain, hauteur, impatience, were stamped upon the general's
countenance as he pushed briskly through the crowd, turning his head
from side to side in search of the woman who had