sees his wife crane her neck through the jalousies, had better twist it
and be done!'"

He would go! Yes, he would know. If this thing were false (as he prayed
God), he would kneel and kiss her little white feet. They were
pink--yes, pink on the instep as the heart of a sea-shell. And he,
Ramon, would set the arched instep on his neck and bid her crush him for
a faithless unbelieving hound to suspect his own--his purest--his only!

But, that cousin, Rafael de Flores--ah, the rich youth. He remembered
how once upon a time when he was a young man going to market driving his
father's oxen, he had seen Rafael rushing about the orchard playing with
Dolores. They had been together thus for years, more like brother and
sister than cousins.

Was it not likely? How could it be otherwise? He knew it all now. His
eyes were opened. Even the devil can speak truth sometimes. He knew a
way, a quicker road than Manuela dreamed of--up the edge of the ravine,
across by the pine tree which had fallen in the spring rains. He would
go and take them together in their infamy. That would be his
home-coming.

* * * * *

"_You dog of dogs!_"

In the darkness of the night Ramon saw a window from whose grille, bent
outward at the bottom like so many hoops, one had been slipped cunningly
aside.

"Chica, dearest--my beloved!"

The face of the speaker was within, his body without.

Up rose behind him the great bulk of Ramon Garcia, henceforward to be El
Sarria, the outlaw.

The Albacete dagger was driven deep between the shoulder-blades. The
young lithe body drew itself together convulsively as a clasp knife
opens and shuts again. There was a spurt of something hot on Ramon's
hand that ran slowly down his sleeve, growing colder as it went. A
shriek came from within the _rejas_ of bowed iron.

* * * * *

And after this fashion Ramon Garcia, the vine-dresser, the man of means,
became El Sarria, the man without a home, without friends, an outlaw of
the hills.

CHAPTER II

THE MAN WITHOUT A FRIEND

Yet on the side of Rafael and little Dolores Garcia there was something
to be said. Ramon, had he known all, need not have become "El Sarria,"
nor yet need young de Flores, the alcalde's son, have been carried home
to the tall house with the courtyard and the one fig tree, a stab under
his right shoulder-blade, driven through from side to side of his white
girlish body.