Captain Maloné ceased again.

"After all, do you believe in luck?" I asked.

"Do you?" answered the captain, with his ambiguous smile shaded by
the brim of his soft straw hat.




VIII

A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER


The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he
should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the
Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at
twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.

It happened in old Justo Valdos's gambling house. There was a poker
game at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often
where men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops. There
was a row over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the
smoke had cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed
an indiscretion, and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder.
For, the unfortunate combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a
high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age
and possessed of friends and champions. His blunder in missing the
Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun