tled
face to the girl. She smiled and then whispered quickly, "It is that I
hate that 'Bool' Malvey. He is bad. Of what are you thinking, senor?"

Pete blinked and hesitated. "Of my folks--back there," he said.

Boca darted from him as her mother called her to help set the table.
Pete's lips were drawn in a queer line. He had no folks "back
there"--or anywhere. "It was her eyes made me feel that way," he
thought. And, "Doggone it--I'm livin'--anyhow."

From the general conversation at the table that evening Pete gathered
that queer visitors came to this place frequently. It was a kind of
isolated, halfway house between the border and Showdown. He heard the
name of "Scar-Face," "White-Eye," "Sonora Jim," "Tio Verdugo," a rare
assortment of border vagabonds known by name to the cowboys of the high
country. The Spider was frequently mentioned. It was evident that he
had some peculiar influence over the Flores household, from the
respectful manner in which his name was received by the whole family.
And Pete, unfamiliar with the goings and comings of those men, their
quarrels, friendships, and sinister escapades, ate and listened in
silence, realizing that he too had earned a tentative place among them.
He found himself listening with keen interest to Malvey's account of a
machine-gun duel between two white men,--renegades and leaders in
opposing factions below the border,--and how one of them, shot through
and through, stuck to his gun until he had swept the plaza of enemy
sharp-shooters and had then crawled on hands and knees to the other
machine gun, killed its wounded operator with a six-shooter, and turned
the machine gun on his fleeing foes, shooting until the Mexicans of his
own company had taken courage enough to return and rescue him. "And
he's in El Paso now," concluded Malvey, "at the hospital. He writ to
The Spider for money--and The Spider sure sent it to him."

"Who was he fightin' for?" queried Pete, interested in spite of himself.

"Fightin' for? For hisself! Because he likes the game. You don't
want to git the idea that any white man is down there fightin' just to
help a lot of dirty Greasers--on either side of the scrap."

A quick and significant glance shot from Boca's eyes to her mother's.
Old Flores ate stolidly. If he had heard he showed no evidence of it.

"'Bull' Malvey! A darn good name for him," thought Pete. And he felt
a strange sense of shame at being in his company. He