e
waiter was gone after more grub.

"'Jeff,' she says, soft like, 'I've been a foolish girl. I've looked
at things from the wrong side. I never felt this way before. Men get
hungry every day like this, don't they? They're big and strong, and
they do the hard work of the world, and they don't eat just to spite
silly waiter girls in restaurants, do they, Jeff? You said once--that
is, you asked me--you wanted me to--well, Jeff, if you still care--I'd
be glad and willing to have you always sitting across the table from
me. Now give me something to eat, quick, please.'

"So, as I've said, a woman needs to change her point of view now and
then. They get tired of the same old sights--the same old dinner
table, washtub, and sewing machine. Give 'em a touch of the various--a
little travel and a little rest, a little tomfoolery along with the
tragedies of keeping house, a little petting after the blowing-up, a
little upsetting and a little jostling around--and everybody in the
game will have chips added to their stack by the play."

XI

THE CABALLERO'S WAY

The Cisco Kid had killed six men in more or less fair scrimmages, had
murdered twice as many (mostly Mexicans), and had winged a larger
number whom he modestly forbore to count. Therefore a woman loved him.

The Kid was twenty-five, looked twenty; and a careful insurance
company would have estimated the probable time of his demise at, say,
twenty-six. His habitat was anywhere between the Frio and the Rio
Grande. He killed for the love of it--because he was quick-tempered--
to avoid arrest--for his own amusement--any reason that came to his
mind would suffice. He had escaped capture because he could shoot
five-sixths of a second sooner than any sheriff or ranger in the
service, and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knew every
cow-path in the mesquite and pear thickets from San Antonio to
Matamoras.

Tonia Perez, the girl who loved the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen, half
Madonna, and the rest--oh, yes, a woman who is half Carmen and half
Madonna can always be something more--the rest, let us say, was
humming-bird. She lived in a grass-roofed /jacal/ near a little
Mexican settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio. With her
lived a father or grandfather, a lineal Aztec, somewhat less than a
thousand years old, who herded a hundred goats and lived in a
continuous drunken dream from drinking /mescal/. Back of the /jacal/ a
tremendous forest of bristling pe