rt jacket put on for to-day's courting, gray
steeple-hat silver-embroidered, a spruce, pretty boy, not likely to toil
severely at wood contracts so long as he could hold soul and body
together and otherwise be merry, and the hand of that careless arm soft
on his pistol, lest Don Ruz should abruptly dislike him too much; for
Luis contrived a tone for his small-talk that would have disconcerted
the most sluggish, sweet to his own mischievous ears, healing to his
galled self-esteem. "Good-night, Don Ruz. Good-night, Lolita. Perhaps I
shall come to-morrow, manana en la manana."

"Good-night," said Lolita, harshly, which increased his joy; "I cannot
stop you from passing my house."

Genesmere said nothing, but sat still on his white horse, hands folded
upon the horns of his saddle, and Luis, always engaging and at ease,
ambled away with his song about the hunchback. He knew that the American
was not the man to wait until his enemy's back was turned.

"'El telele se murio
A enterrar ya le llevan--'"

The tin-pan Mexican voice was empty of melody and full of rhythm.

"'Ay! Ay! Ay!'"

Lolita and Genesmere stood as they had stood, not very near each other,
looking after him and his gayety that the sun shone bright upon. The
minstrel truly sparkled. His clothes were more elegant than the
American's shirt and overalls, and his face luxuriant with
thoughtlessness. Like most of his basking Southern breed, he had no
visible means of support, and nothing could worry him for longer than
three minutes. Frijoles do not come high, out-of-doors is good enough to
sleep in if you or your friend have no roof, and it is not a hard thing
to sell some other man's horses over the border and get a fine coat and
hat.

"'Cinco dragones y un cabo,
Oh, no no no no no!
Y un gato de sacristan.'"

Coat and hat were getting up the canon's side among the cactus, the
little horse climbing the trail shrewdly with his light-weight rider;
and dusty, unmusical Genesmere and sullen Lolita watched them till they
went behind a bend, and nothing remained but the tin-pan song singing in
Genesmere's brain. The gadfly had stung more poisonously than he knew,
and still Lolita and Genesmere stood watching nothing, while the
sun--the sun of Arizona at the day's transfigured immortal
passing--became a crimson coal in a lake of saffron, burning and beating
like a heart, till the desert seemed no longer dead, but only asleep,
and br