Then outside Tonia swung in a grass hammock with her guitar and sang
sad /canciones de amor/.

"Do you love me just the same, old girl?" asked the Kid, hunting for
his cigarette papers.

"Always the same, little one," said Tonia, her dark eyes lingering
upon him.

"I must go over to Fink's," said the Kid, rising, "for some tobacco. I
thought I had another sack in my coat. I'll be back in a quarter of an
hour."

"Hasten," said Tonia, "and tell me--how long shall I call you my own
this time? Will you be gone again to-morrow, leaving me to grieve, or
will you be longer with your Tonia?"

"Oh, I might stay two or three days this trip," said the Kid, yawning.
"I've been on the dodge for a month, and I'd like to rest up."

He was gone half an hour for his tobacco. When he returned Tonia was
still lying in the hammock.

"It's funny," said the Kid, "how I feel. I feel like there was
somebody lying behind every bush and tree waiting to shoot me. I never
had mullygrubs like them before. Maybe it's one of them presumptions.
I've got half a notion to light out in the morning before day. The
Guadalupe country is burning up about that old Dutchman I plugged down
there."

"You are not afraid--no one could make my brave little one fear."

"Well, I haven't been usually regarded as a jack-rabbit when it comes
to scrapping; but I don't want a posse smoking me out when I'm in your
/jacal/. Somebody might get hurt that oughtn't to."

"Remain with your Tonia; no one will find you here."

The Kid looked keenly into the shadows up and down the arroyo and
toward the dim lights of the Mexican village.

"I'll see how it looks later on," was his decision.

*****

At midnight a horseman rode into the rangers' camp, blazing his way by
noisy "halloes" to indicate a pacific mission. Sandridge and one or
two others turned out to investigate the row. The rider announced
himself to be Domingo Sales, from the Lone Wolf Crossing. he bore a
letter for Senor Sandridge. Old Luisa, the /lavendera/, had persuaded
him to bring it, he said, her son Gregorio being too ill of a fever to
ride.

Sandridge lighted the camp lantern and read the letter. These were its
words:

/Dear One/: He has come. Hardly had you ridden away when he came
out of the pear. When he first talked he said he would stay three
days or more. Then as it grew later he was like a wolf or a fox,
and walked about without rest, looking and listening. Soon he said