nother heaping knifeful of the chile con carne
went into his mouth.

"It's too horrible!" said Lucia; and she turned away.

"Ees life too horrible?" Pancho wanted to know.

"I never knew life was like that!" she said.

"Because you 'ave never really lived," the bandit explained. "Because you
'ave been always protect by ozzers. I kill only men. And only evil men. And
when I kill evil man, it make me very 'appy. For I 'ave did a good deed."
His simple philosophy pleased him.

"But who decides whether a man is good or evil'"

"I do!" answered Lopez, quick as a flash, and wondering how she could have
asked so stupid a question.

"Oh, do let me pour some more coffee for you!" Angela begged.

"If you wish," Lopez said, indifferently. It mattered little to him now
who waited upon him. His inner man had been partially satisfied. He leaned
back in his chair, at peace with all the world. One spurred and booted foot
was on the table.

"Oh, thank you!" Angela was all smiles. She was making headway with this
evil man. "Thank you so much," she followed up, and, standing sweetly at
his left, she poured the brown stuff into his cup. "Lovely weather, isn't
it?" she remarked. The cook took the pot from her, and went back to the
kitchen with it.

"_Si_," Lopez said. "Sit down. Sit down." Angela thought of course he was
speaking to her, and being kind to her because of her girlish attentions.
So she promptly seated herself. "No, not you!" Pancho said roughly, putting
six spoons of sugar in this second cup. "You, I mean," indicating Lucia
once more. Angela pouted, and turned her back on this bad, bad man. Pancho
never even noticed her. The more opulent beauty of Lucia appealed to the
sensuous in him. "You," he repeated. "Tell me, senora, 'ave you never been
to a free country?"

Lucia was surprised at his question.

"A free country?" she said.

"Yes; like Mexico, for instance."

"Don't you call the United States a free country?" Lucia asked him.

He almost roared his head off. "The United--Bah! Ees the most unfree
country what is. Every man, every woman, is slave--slave to law, slave to
custom, slave to everysing. You get up such time; eat such time," his hands
went out in Latin frenzy. "Every day you work such time, every night go to
bed such time. And, _Madre di Dios_, every week you take bath such time!"
This was, to him, the ultimate joke. "An' you call it a free country! Ees
only one free country. Ees one in which man