t flushed her face. At the third serving she paid the waiter
and shudderingly pushed the glass away with every evidence of disgust.

To Douglass, watching her out of the corner of his eye, for somehow, her
manner did not invite the leer customary on such occasions, she turned
suddenly:

"You are the Senor Douglass of Rancho C Bar?"

Her voice, though very musical and low-pitched, was tensely strained. As
it was apparent that her English, though correct, was labored, he
answered, hat in hand, in her own tongue:

"_A las pies de usted, Senorita._" (At your feet, Miss.)

She smiled gratefully, as much at his courteous consideration as in her
relief at his knowledge of her tongue and its social ethics.

"_Bese usted las manos, Senor._" (My hands for your kisses, Sir.)

Red looked his appreciation of her favor; they were very pretty hands,
and while he was not "up" in the flowery etiquette of sunny Spain, he
understood its language indifferently well. "Ken's shore thu luckiest
devil on yearth!" he muttered under his breath, enviously. It soon
developed, however, that his hastily-formed conclusions were at fault.
As he in duty bound slowly rose to his feet with a studious, "Well, I
must be goin'--see you lateh," she protestingly laid her hand on his
arm.

"But no, Senor. It is that I wish to have the speech wis you bot'--but
not here." She looked around in sudden alarm. "Can you to my room
graciously come? I live in the ho-tel." Her manner was pleading and
eager.

The eyes of the men met inquiringly. Red unostentatiously flecked a
speck of dust from a slight bulge in his coat under the left armpit.
Douglass tentatively placed his hand in the side pocket of his reefer.
Then as one man they both answered. "Why, certainly, Senorita."

"In an hour, then. Come carefully. Numero 9, the one mos' far in the
hall. I go first, now." And without further look at them she went out as
unobtrusively as she had entered. Red calmly confiscated her rejected
glass of brandy.

"Shame to waste good likker, 'specially when it's paid fer. What's yuh
ijea, Ken, a plant?"

"Damfino! She's all worked up over something, that's sure. Well, it's
all in the game." Then, with an inscrutable and not altogether pleasant
flicker in his eyes, "Not a bad looker, eh, Red?"

McVey emptied the glass. "Brandy's hell foh a woman," was his
enigmatical reply.

An hour later they gained her apartments unobserved, the hotel corridors
being deserted at