tarted and stared to see--not a spirit, but a man, dismounted from his
horse, with a rifle. At that his heart clutched him like talons, and in
the flashing spasm of his mind came a picture--smoke from the rifle, and
himself bleeding in the dust. Costly love-making! For Luis did not
believe the rifle to have been brought to the ledge there as a staff,
and he thanked the Virgin for the stone that fell and frightened him,
and made him move suddenly. He had chattered himself cool now, and
ready. Lolita was smiling at the man on the hill, glowing without
concealment of her heart's desire.

"Come down!" she repeated. "Come round the side." And, lifting the olla,
she tapped it, and signed the way to him.

"He has probably brought too much white flour for Uncle Ramon to care to
climb more than he must," said Luis. But the man had stirred at last
from his sentinel stillness, and began leading his horse down. Presently
he was near enough for Luis to read his face. "Your gringo is a handsome
fellow, certainly," he commented. "But he does not like me to-day."

"Like you! He doesn't think about you," said Lolita.

"Ha! That's your opinion?"

"It is also his opinion--if you'll ask him."

"He is afraid of Cousin Luis," stated the youth.

"Cousin grasshopper! He could eat you--if he could see you."

"There are other things in this world besides brute muscle, Lolita. Your
gringo thinks I am worth notice, if you do not."

"How little he knows you!"

"It is you he does not know very well," the boy said, with a pang.

The scornful girl stared.

"Oh, the innocent one!" sneered Luis. "Grasshopper, indeed! Well, one
man can always recognize another, and the women don't know much."

But Lolita had run off to meet her chosen lover. She did not stop to
read his face. He was here; and as she hurried towards him she had no
thought except that he was come at last. She saw his eyes and lips, and
to her they were only the eyes and lips that she had longed for. "You
have come just in time," she called out to him. At the voice, he looked
at her one instant, and looked away; but the nearer sight of her sent a
tide of scarlet across his face. His actions he could control, his
bearing, and the steadiness of his speech, but not the coursing of his
blood. It must have been a minute he had stood on the ledge above,
getting a grip of himself. "Luis was becoming really afraid that he
might have to do some work," continued Lolita, coming up the st