horses.

A tall man with a white moustache alighted, and assisted to the
ground a lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.

The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best
diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with
clear-cut, sun-browned features and smoothly brushed black hair.

Señora Urique threw back her black veil with a quick gesture. She
was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her
full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the
beauty peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her
eyes, and comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their
deep shadows and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived
only in some memory.

She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized
questioning. Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze rested
upon his left hand. And then with a sob, not loud, but seeming to
shake the room, she cried "_Hijo mio!_" and caught the Llano Kid to
her heart.

A month afterward the Kid came to the consulate in response to a
message sent by Thacker.

He looked the young Spanish _caballero_. His clothes were imported,
and the wiles of the jewellers had not been spent upon him in vain.
A more than respectable diamond shone on his finger as he rolled a
shuck cigarette.