"Ughr! That's the real old tarantula-juice," he observed, as the fiery liquor made him shudder. "Since when did you swear off?"
"Six weeks," responded Babe, shortly. "How's Texas?"
"All right," replied the cowboy. "Did it git away with you?"
"Yep," returned the bar-keeper. "Don't like to talk about it—say, is they anybody left in Texas?"
The stranger gazed at him shrewdly for a moment, and a grim light came into his eye.
"Don't like to talk about it," he said, "but now you speak of it I know of one feller, for sure—and dam' badly left, too. May be around on crutches by now." He glanced out at his horse, which had just shaken itself under the saddle, and let his gaze wander to Marcelina.
"Pretty girls you have in this country," he remarked, turning a little sidewise to Babe, but watching her from beneath his hat. "Don't speak any English, I suppose?"
"Nope," replied Babe, sullenly, "her mother don't like cowboys. Oyez, Marcelina, vaya se a su madre, chiquita!" But though her mother was calling, the wilful Marcelina did not move. Like an Aztec princess she stood silent and impassive, gazing out from beneath her dark lashes and waiting to catch some further word of praise from this dashing stranger. Undoubtedly, Marcelina was growing to be a woman.
"Name's Marcelina, eh?" soliloquized the cowboy, innocently. "Pity she can't savvy English—she's right pretty, for a Mex."