d walked toward the door. But he turned
again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left
hand with its back toward the consul.

"There's one more reason," he said slowly, "why things have got to
stand as they are. The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them
same pictures on his left hand."

Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the
door. The coachman ceased his bellowing. Senora Urique, in a
voluminous gay gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward
with a happy look in her great soft eyes.

"Are you within, dear son?" she called, in the rippling Castilian.

"_Madre mia, yo vengo_ [mother, I come]," answered the young Don
Francisco Urique.

IX

THE PASSING OF BLACK EAGLE

For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas
border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarly striking to the optic nerve
was this notorious marauder. His personality secured him the title
of "Black Eagle, the Terror of the Border." Many fearsome tales are
on record concerning the doings of him and his followers. Suddenly,
in the space of a single minute, Black Eagle vanished from earth.
He was never heard of again. His own band never even guessed the
mystery of his disappearance. The border ranches and settlements
feared he would come again to ride and ravage the mesquite flats.
He never will. It is to disclose the fate of Black Eagle that this
narrative is written.

The initial movement of the story is furnished by the foot of a
bartender in St. Louis. His discerning eye fell upon the form
of Chicken Ruggles as he pecked with avidity at the free lunch.
Chicken was a "hobo." He had a long nose like the bill of a fowl,
an inordinate appetite for poultry, and a habit of gratifying it
without expense, which accounts for the name given him by his fellow
vagrants.

Physicians agree that the partaking of liquids at meal times is
not a healthy practice. The hygiene of the saloon promulgates the
opposite. Chicken had neglected to purchase a drink to accompany
his meal. The bartender rounded the counter, caught the injudicious
diner by the ear with a lemon squeezer, led him to the door and
kicked him into the street.

Thus the mind of Chicken was brought to realize the signs of
coming winter. The night was cold; the stars shone with unkindly
brilliancy; people were hurrying along the streets in two egotistic,
jostling streams. Men had donned their overcoats, and Chicken kne