He exhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke
through his nostrils fiercely. "You play wit' me, eh?"
"No! no!" Mariedetta ran to him, and, seizing his arm, cooed
amorously in Spanish.
"Bah! _Vamos!"_ Carara flung her from him, and stalked away.
"Well, of all the outrageous things!" said Miss Blake. "Why, she
was actually flirting with that Chinaman."
"Mariedetta flirts with every man she can find," said Jean,
calmly, "but she doesn't mean any harm. She'll marry Carara some
time--if he doesn't kill her."
"Kill her!" Miss Blake's eyes were round. "He wouldn't do
_that!"_
"Indeed, yes. He is a Mexican, and he has a terrible temper."
Miss Blake sank back into the hammock. "How perfectly dreadful!
And yet-it must be heavenly to love a man who would kill you."
Miss Chapin lost herself in meditation for an instant. "Culver is
almost like that when he is angry. Hello, here comes our
foreman!"
Stover, a tall, gangling cattle-man with drooping grizzled
mustache, came shambling up to the steps. His weather-beaten
chaps were much too short for his lengthy limbs, the collar of
his faded flannel shirt lacked an inch of meeting at the throat,
its sleeves were shrunken until his hairy hands hung down like
tassels.
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