a path ran down to the
river.

The first thing people mistrusted about Sylvia was her father. He had no
visible means of support; and if his manner was amiable, his ways were
furtive. He had a bias in favor of Mexican associates, and much of his
time was spent down under the river bank, where a few small wine-shops and
gambling establishments still existed in those days. There were also
rumors of drinking and gambling orgies in the house under the
mesquite-tree, and people said that many strange customers traversed that
path through the mesquite, and entered Little's back door. They were
soldiers and railroad men, and others of a type whose account in the bank
of society nobody ever undertakes to balance. Sylvia was thought to be the
torch which attracted them, and it was agreed that Sylvia's father knew
how to persuade them to drink copiously of beverages which they paid for
themselves, and to manipulate the cards to his own advantage in the games
which were introduced after a sufficient number of drinks had been
served.

Possibly a good deal of this was rumor rather than fact: an uncharitable
interpretation of pleasures which were inelegant, certainly, but possibly
not quite vicious. Still, it seemed to be pretty well established that up
to the time of Sylvia's marriage her father never worked, and that he
always had money--and this condition, on any frontier, is always regarded
with mistrust.

Sylvia's prettiness was of a kind to make your heart bleed, everything
considered. She was of a wistful type, with eager blue eyes, and lips
which were habitually parted slightly--lips of a delicate fulness and
color. Her hair was soft and brown, and her cheeks were of a faint, pearly
rosiness. You would never have thought of her as what people of strictly
categorical minds would call a bad woman. I think a wholly normal man must
have looked upon her as a child looks at a heather-bell--gladly and
gratefully, and with a pleased amazement. She was small and slight. Women
of the majordomo type must have regarded her as still a child. Her breasts
were little, her neck and shoulders delicate, and she had a trick of
lifting her left hand to her heart when she was startled or regarded too
shrewdly, as if she had some prescient consciousness of coming evil.

She was standing by her front gate when Harboro first saw her--and when
she first saw Harboro. The front gate commanded an unobstructed view of
the desert. It was near sundown