ructure of
the truly Spanish type, and it was kept by a huge, blubbery creature
with piggish eyes and a bloated, purple countenance and the palsy. As
much of him as appeared to be human appeared to be Irish; and Jean,
after the first qualm of repulsion, when she faced him over the hotel
register, detected a certain kindly solicitude in his manner, and was
reassured.

So far, everything had run smoothly, like a well-staged play. Absurdly
simple, utterly devoid of any element of danger, any vexatious obstacle
to the immediate achievement of her purpose! But Jean was not thrown
off her guard because of the smoothness of the trail.

The trip from Tucson had been terribly tiresome; she was weary in every
fibre, it seemed to her. But for all that she intended, sometime that
evening, to meet Art Osgood if he were in town. She intended to take
him with her on the train that left the next morning. She thought it
would be a good idea to rest now, and to proceed deliberately, lest she
frustrate all her plans by over-eagerness.

Perhaps she slept a little while she lay upon the bed and schooled
herself to calmness. A band, somewhere, playing a pulsing Spanish air,
brought her to her feet. She went to the window and looked out, and saw
that the street lay cool and sunless with the coming of dusk.

From the American customhouse just on the opposite corner came Lite
Avery, stalking leisurely along in his high-heeled riding-boots. Jean
drew back with a little flutter of the pulse and watched him, wondering
how he came to be in Nogales. She had last seen him boarding a car
that would take him out to the Great Western Studio; and now, here he
was, sauntering across the street as if he lived here. It was like
finding his bed up in the loft and knowing all at once that he had been
keeping watch all the while, thinking of her welfare and never giving
her the least hint of it. That at least was understandable. But to
her there was something uncanny about his being here in Nogales. When
he was gone, she stepped out through the open window to the veranda
that ran the whole length of the hotel, and looked across the street
into Mexico.

She was, she decided critically, about fifteen feet from the boundary
line. Just across the street fluttered the Mexican flag from the
Mexican customhouse. A Mexican guard lounged against the wall, his
swarthy face mask-like in its calm. While she leaned over the railing
and stared curiousl