She turned her eyes to see what
had diverted his interest. A man with red-brown, curling hair and a
melancholy, sunburned, smooth-shaven face was coming up the path,
twenty yards away. Around the Mexican's waist was buckled a pistol
belt with two empty holsters. He had laid aside his sixes--possibly in
the /jacal/ of the fair Pancha--and had forgotten them when the
passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail. His hands
now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone,
he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating
Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer
unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the
ground, and continued to advance.
"Splendid!" murmured Alvarita, with flashing eyes.
*****
As Bob Buckley, according to the mad code of bravery that his
sensitive conscience imposed upon his cowardly nerves, abandoned his
guns and closed in upon his enemy, the old, inevitable nausea of
abject fear wrung him.
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