d enough Amada had
carried every day to the house, up the hill from the spring, in an
_olla_ poised on her head, all the water for their domestic
necessities. And in consequence she walked with a grace and carried
her head with an air that not one American woman in a hundred thousand
could equal.

She brought them water from an _olla_ which stood in the _portal_,
where it would be free to the breeze and shaded from the sun, and as
she handed it to one after another she smiled and dimpled, her white
teeth gleamed, her black eyes shone alluringly in sudden flashes from
under their long-fringed covers, and her sweet, soft voice prattled
airy, beguiling flatteries and dear little complimentary nothings. As
she talked, she tossed her head and swayed her body and made graceful,
eloquent little gestures with her hands and arms. There was
unconscious coquetry in every movement and a mischievous "you dare
not" in every glance of her eyes and in every dimpling smile. She was
like a plump, saucy, sweet-throated bobolink, perched on a swaying
bough and singing a joyous and daring "catch me if you can."

She walked across the room to put the cup on the table and Ellhorn
sprang to her side and threw his arm about her. She drew back a
little, tossed her head, and looked at him with eyes gleaming "if you
dare, if you dare," from under their soft lids. She faced the door as
she did so and as he bent his head to take the kiss she dared, a
sudden, gray horror fell over her laughing face and changed it in a
second to a wide-eyed, open-mouthed, drawn thing, pitiful in its
helpless, ashen fear. The sudden change stopped him with his lips
close to hers, and with his hand on his gun he wheeled toward the door
to see what had frightened her. The other two, looking and laughing,
saw the sudden horror transform her face and they also sprang toward
the open entrance, revolvers in hand. But there was nothing there. The
_portal_ was empty of any living thing. And all across the gray-green
plain the only sign of life was the drove of cattle far down the
winding road. They turned to the girl in surprise and asked her what
was the matter. She had recovered her smiling, coquettish self, and
declared that Senor Ellhorn had frightened her. She scolded him
prettily, in the soft, sweet, Mexican tones that are a caress in
themselves, and, with a demure expression, to which only the black
eyes would not lend themselves, she told him it was not right for a