ay come back any time in the night."

While Pepillo, squatting on the ground beside the sluggish estuary,
imparted to his accomplice the details of a bloody design, Palafox in
the tavern waxed more and more violent. He menaced an imaginary foe
with clinched fist. Mex tried to soothe him. He sat for a while in
sulky quiet. Rousing again, he ordered a candle, opened a leathern
wallet, and took from it a number of soiled papers. His hand shook.

"Look here, Abe, these old letters are worth more money than all our
plunder will fetch."

No response came from Sheldrake, who had prudently retired to the
second compartment of the row of huts opening into one another. The
whimsical Cacosotte had named the several rooms "Hell," "Purgatory,"
and "Heaven." Sheldrake sought a sleeping couch in "Purgatory,"
whither Honest Moses had preceded him to "flop" in a corner.

Mex stood behind the captain while he sat fumbling over a timeworn
manuscript, peering at its hieroglyphics in the dim light of the
candle. Cacosotte, yawning, rubbed his one eye, and groped his way to
a slumber-rug in "Heaven." Then Mex put her brown hand timidly on the
shoulder of Palafox.

"One in woods--not nab--no! no!" she said, shaking her head
violently and frowning.

"What you jabbering about now? Don't you see I'm busy?"

"Woman through window--not big Mex--look so!"

She wrinkled her features, and shrank down mimicking a dwarf. The
robber now understanding her speech and pantomime, slapped his thigh,
guffawed exasperatingly, and, roughly pushing the jealous barbarian
aside, "No, Mex, she don't look like that. Tall, white as your teeth,
smooth and purty as an antelope--"

"Mex purtier. Mex not Choctaw--Castiliano. Look blood." She nipped
her forearm with sharp teeth, and crimson drops oozed.

Palafox laughed.

The mane shook, and the wild eyes glared behind the half-drunken man,
who continued to fumble his papers. Before long his hand fell heavily,
his eyes closed, and he slept. Mex shook him by the shoulders.
Partially aroused, he looked up, thrust the papers and the wallet deep
within a breast pocket, quitted the bench, and lay down on a pallet in
the corner of the room. Mechanically he deposited a primed pistol
under his blanket, ready to hand. Soon he was snoring.

An hour went by. The new recruit had not returned. Mex scarcely kept
her eyes open where she crouched, Indian fashion, on a buffalo robe,
behind the bar. Nine Eyes had bolted the