nderstood that he was being
invited to kneel and clean the mud-stained shoe.

"If you're looking for a doormat to wipe your feet on, I'll send for
Tony," he jeered.

The father of Bonita was Anglo-Saxon. She flashed anger at his
presumption.

"Don't you think it. Tony will never be a doormat to anybody. Be warned,
_senor_, and do not try to take what is his."

Again their eyes battled. Neither of them saw a man who had come out
from the house and was watching them from the end of the porch.

"I take what the gods give, my dear, and ask leave of no man," bragged
Wadley.

"Or woman?"

"Ah! That is different. When the woman is Bonita, _muchacha_, I am her
slave."

He dropped to one knee and with his handkerchief wiped the mud from the
heel of her slipper. For a moment his fingers touched lightly the trim
little ankle; then he rose quickly and caught her in his arms.

"Sometime--soon--it's going to be me and you, sweetheart," he whispered.

"Don't," she begged, struggling against herself and him. "If Tony
sees--"

His passion was too keen-edged to take warning. He kissed her lips and
throat and eyes. The eyes of the watcher never wavered. They were
narrowed to shining slits of jet.

"Why do you come and--and follow me?" the girl cried softly. "It is not
that you do not know Tony is jealous. This is not play with him. He
loves me and will fight for me. You are mad."

"For love of you!" he laughed triumphantly.

She knew he lied. The instinct that served her for a conscience had long
since told her as much. But her vanity, and perhaps something deeper,
craved satisfaction. She wanted to believe he meant it. Under his ardent
gaze the long lashes of the girl drooped to her dusky cheeks. It was
Tony she loved, but Tony offered her only happiness and not excitement.

A moment later she gave a startled little cry and pushed herself free.
Her dilated eyes were fixed on something behind the cattleman.

Rutherford, warned by her expression, whirled on his heel.

Tony Alviro, knife in hand, was close upon him. Wadley lashed out hard
with his left and caught the Mexican on the point of the chin.

The blow lifted Tony from his feet and flung him at full length to the
ground. He tried to rise, groaned--rolled over.

Bonita was beside him in an instant. From where she knelt, with Tony's
dark head in her arms pressed close to her bosom, she turned fiercely
on Wadley.

"I hate you, dog of a _gringo_! You are all on