e-wolf of the hills!" growled Perez with the concentrated
hate of utter failure in his voice. "I fed you, and my money covered
your nakedness, and now you put a knife in my neck and go back to
cattle of the range for a mate! You,--without shame or soul!"

"That is true," she said coldly. "You killed a soul in the _casita_ of
the oleanders, Jose Perez, and it was a dead woman you and the German
chained to be buried in the desert. But even the dead come back to
help friends who are faithful, Jose,--and I am as the dead who walk."

She did not look at him as she spoke, but sank on her knees before the
dark canvas where only the faint golden halo gave evidence of some
incarnated holiness portrayed there. Her voice was low and even, and
the sadness of it thrilled Kit. He thought of music of sweet chords,
and a broken string vibrating, for the hopelessness in her voice held
a certain fateful finality, and her delicate dark loveliness----

Rotil emerged from the doorway of the shrine and stood there, a
curious substitute for the holy picture, looking down on her with a
wonderful light in his face.

"Your ransom wins for you all you wish of me,--except the life of one
man," he said, and with a gesture indicated that Kit help her to her
feet. He did so, and saw that she was very white and trembling.

Rotil looked at Perez over her head, and Perez scowled back, with all
the venom of black hate.

"You win!--but a curse walks where she walks. Ask her? Ask Marto of
the men she put under witchcraft! Ask Conrad who had good luck till
she hated him! If you have a love, or a child, or anything dear, let
her not look hate on them, for her knife follows that look! Ask her of
the knife she set in the heart of a child for jealousy of Conrad! Ai,
general though you are, your whole army is not strong enough to guard
you from the ill luck you will take with the gift _she_ gives! She is
a woman under a curse. Ha! Look at her as I say it, for you hear the
truth. Ask the padre!"

Kit realized that Perez was launching against her the direst weight of
evil the Mexican or Indian mind has to face. Though saints and heaven
and hell might be denied by certain daring souls, the potency of
witchcraft was seldom doubted. Men or women accused of it were shunned
as pariahs, and there had been known persons who weakened and dwindled
into death after accusation had been put against them.

He thought of it as she cowered under each separate count of th