"Better hurry; somebody might hurt him."

The Queen's teeth showed in a gleaming, contemptuous smile. "No
danger. When they see Kuku outside they simply scoot away and buy
bromides. There's a crick over between here and the river. That old
scamp'd swap his skin any time for a drink of running water. I guess
I'll find him there, all right."

A few minutes later Alvarita stepped upon the forward platform, ready
for her quest. Her handsome black skirt was shaped to the most recent
proclamation of fashion. Her spotless shirt-waist gladdened the eye
in that desert of sunshine, a swelling oasis, cool and fresh. A man's
split-straw hat sat firmly on her coiled, abundant hair. Beneath her
serene, round, impudent chin a man's four-in-hand tie was jauntily
knotted about a man's high, stiff collar. A parasol she carried, of
white silk, and its fringe was lace, yellowly genuine.

I will grant Gallipolis as to her costume, but firmly to Seville or
Valladolid I am held by her eyes; castanets, balconies, mantillas,
serenades, ambuscades, escapades--all these their dark depths
guaranteed.

"Ain't you afraid to go out alone, Alviry?" queried the Queen-mother
anxiously. "There's so many rough people about. Mebbe you'd better--"

"I never saw anything I was afraid of yet, ma. 'Specially people. And
men in particular. Don't you fret. I'll trot along back as soon as I
find that runaway scamp."