somewhat depeopled. This
quarter of the town was a ragged edge; its denizens the bubbling
froth of five nations; its architecture tent, _jacal_ [53], and 'dobe;
its distractions the hurdy-gurdy and the informal contribution to
the sudden stranger's store of experience. Beyond this dishonourable
fringe upon the old town's jowl rose a dense mass of trees,
surmounting and filling a little hollow. Through this bickered a small
stream that perished down the sheer and disconcerting side of the
great canon of the Rio Bravo del Norte.

[FOOTNOTE 53: jacal--(Spanish) a small house or shack built by
driving vertical stakes into the ground and filling
in walls between the stakes with adobe]

In this sordid spot was condemned to remain for certain hours the
impotent transport of the Queen of the Serpent Tribe.

The front door of the car was open. Its forward end was curtained
off into a small reception-room. Here the admiring and propitiatory
reporters were wont to sit and transpose the music of Senorita
Alvarita's talk into the more florid key of the press. A picture of
Abraham Lincoln hung against a wall; one of a cluster of school-girls
grouped upon stone steps was in another place; a third was Easter
lilies in a blood-red frame. A neat carpet was under foot. A pitcher,
sweating cold drops, and a glass stood on a fragile stand. In a willow
rocker, reading a newspaper, sat Alvarita.

Spanish, you would say; Andalusian, or, better still, Basque; that
compound, like the diamond, of darkness and fire. Hair, the shade of
purple grapes viewed at midnight. Eyes, long, dusky, and disquieting
with their untroubled directness of gaze. Face, haughty and bold,
touched with a pretty insolence that gave it life. To hasten
conviction of her charm, but glance at the stacks of handbills in the
corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see an incompetent
presentment of the senorita in her professional garb and pose.
Irresistible, in black lace and yellow ribbons, she faces you; a blue
racer is spiralled upon each bare arm; coiled twice about her waist
and once about her neck, his horrid head close to hers, you perceive
Kuku, the great eleven-foot Asian python.

A hand drew aside the curtain that partitioned the car, and a
middle-aged, faded woman holding a knife and a half-peeled potato looked
in and said:

"Alviry, are you right busy?"

"I'm reading the home paper, ma. What do you thi