day-laborer written all over you! Your hair--I wonder when and why you
ever began to part it away down near your left ear. But that's easily
changed. Your nose--well, you couldn't alter that much, and it's still
fairly straight and respectable. But that scar on the cheek-bone doesn't
help your looks a bit, my boy. Still, you mustn't kick about that, I
reckon, for if that slice of rock had come along an inch or so farther
to the right you'd have been _tuerto_ now. Not that your eyes are
anything to be stuck up about, though; they're neither brown nor green,
nor any other recognized color; just a sort of mixture--like Pedro's
_estofados_. Your mouth, now--you always had a homely sort of mouth, too
big by far. And you were an idiot to shave off your mustache. You might
let it grow again, now that you're where you could have it trimmed once
in awhile, but I suppose it would take a month and look like a
nail-brush in the meanwhile! And then there's your complexion, you poor
ugly _hombre_. I remember when it was like anybody else's and there was
pink in the cheeks. Look at it now! It's like a saddle-flap. And your
hands!"

He viewed them disdainfully. They were immaculately clean and the nails
were well tended, but two years of pick and shovel had broadened them,
and at the base of each finger a calloused spot still remained. On the
left hand the tip of one finger was missing and another was bent and
disfigured. They were honorable scars, these, like the one on his cheek,
but he looked at them disgustedly and finally shoved them out of sight
in his pockets.

"No, don't you worry about her recognizing you," he said to the
reflection in the mirror. "Even if she did she'd be ashamed to own it!"

Wade, however, was over-critical. Whatever might be said of the