d, drawing the more or less mangled blossoms from his
shirt, presented them to her with sweeping gallantry. Anita blushed
and smiled. Sundown raised his hat. "Adios! Adios! Mucha adios!
Senorita! For you sure are the lindaest little linda rosa of the whole
bunch!" he said.

And with Anita standing in rapt admiration, Chico Miguel wondering if
the kick of the horse had not unsettled the strange caballero's reason,
and the Senora blandly aware that her daughter and the tall one had
become adepts in interpreting the language of the eyes, Sundown rode
away in a cloud of dust, triumphantly joyous, yet with a peculiar
sensation in the region of his heart, where the horse had kicked him.
When he realized that admiring eyes could not follow him forever, he
checked the horse and rubbed his chest.

"It hurts, all right! but hoss-shoes is a sign of _luck_--and posies is
a sign of _love_--and them two signs sure come together this mornin'.
'Oh, down in Arizona there's a--' No, I reckon I won't be temptin'
Providence ag'in. This hoss might have some kind of a dislikin' for
toad-lizards and po'try mixed, same as the other one. I can jest kind
o' work the rest of that poem up inside and keep her on the ice
till--er--till she's the right flavor. Wonder how they're makin' it at
the Concho? Guess I'll stir along. Mebby they're waitin' for me to
show up so's they can get busy. I dunno. It sure is wonderful what a
lot is dependin' on me these here days. I'm gettin' to be kind of a
center figure in this here country. Lemme see. Now I bruk
jail--hopped the Limited, took out me homesteader papers, got thrun off
a hoss, slumped right into love with that sure-enough Linda Rosa, and
got kicked by another hoss. And they say I ain't a enterprisin' guy!
Gee Gosh!"

Never so much at home as when alone, the mellifluous Sundown's
imagination expanded, till it embraced the farthest outpost of his
theme. He became the towering center of things terrestrial. The world
revolved around but one individual that glorious morning, and he
generously decided to let it revolve. He felt--being, for the first
time in his weird career, very much in love--that Dame Fortune, so long
indifferent to his modest aspirations, had at last recognized in him a
true adventurer worthy of her grace. He was a remarkable man,
physically. He considered himself a remarkable man mentally, and he
was, in Arizona. "Why," he announced to his horse, "they's folk