n necessary, as the rules were obligatory upon the honor
and consent of all--and were never broken. "Except," he added, still
more engagingly, "she would remember, in her case--with their consent."

"And your caballeros break not the rules?"

"No."

"Then they shall not break the rules of me--at MY TIENDA! Look! I have
made the rule that I shall not have a caballero drunk at my house; I
have made the rule that I shall not sell him the aguardiente when he
have too mooch. I have made the rule that when he gamble too mooch, when
he put up too mooch money, I say 'No!' I will not that he shall! I make
one more rule: that he shall not quarrel nor fight in my house. When he
quarrel and fight, I say 'Go! Vamos! Get out!'"

"And very good rules they are too, Miss Mendez."

Jovita fixed her shining black eyes on the smiling Parks. "And when he
say, 'No, nevarre, damn the rules!' When he come drunk, remain drunk,
play high and fight, YOU will not poonish him? YOU will not take him
out?"

"Well, you see, the fact is, I have not the power."

"Are you not the Alcalde?"

"No. There is a Justice of the Peace at Fiddletown, but even he could
do nothing to enforce your rules. But if anything should happen, you can
make a complaint to him."

"Bueno. You have not the power; I have. I make not the complaint to
Fiddletown. I make the complaint to Jose Perez, to Manuel, to Antonio,
to Sanchicha--she is a strong one! I say 'Chook him out.' They chook him
out! they remove him! He does not r-r-remain. Enough. Bueno. Gracias,
senor, good-a-by!"

She was gone. For the next four days Parks was in a state of some
anxiety--but it appeared unnecessarily so. Whether the interview had
become known along the river did not transpire, but there seemed to be
no reason for Miss Mendez to enforce her rules. It was said that once,
when Thompson of Angels was a little too noisy, he had been quietly
conducted by his friends from the tienda without the intervention of
Jose. The frequenters of the saloon became its police.

Yet the event--long protracted--came at last! It was a dry, feverish,
breezeless afternoon, when the short, echoless explosion of a revolver
puffed out on the river, followed by another, delivered so rapidly that
they seemed rolled into one. There was no mistaking that significant
repetition. ONE shot might have been an accident; TWO meant intention.
The men dropped their picks and shovels and ran--ran as they never
before ran in