horses.

The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door. But he turned
again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left
hand with its back toward the consul.

"There's one more reason," he said slowly, "why things have got to
stand as they are. The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them
same pictures on his left hand."

Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the
door. The coachman ceased his bellowing. Señora Urique, in a
voluminous gay gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward
with a happy look in her great soft eyes.

"Are you within, dear son?" she called, in the rippling Castilian.

"_Madre mia, yo vengo_ [mother, I come]," answered the young Don
Francisco Urique.




IX

THE PASSING OF BLACK EAGLE


For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas
border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarly striking to the optic nerve