The Washington herald., 1920-11-25
AN O. HENRY STORY WOMAN a ,SS sfs bs h;ia. ha1cs
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THE CABALLERO,S WAY q Bird" ~ ~ ~ RUNNING

THE Cisco kid had killed six
men in more or less fair
scrimmages, had murdered twice as
many (mostly Mexicans), and had
winged larger number whom he
modestly forebore to count There
fore a woman loved him.
The Kid was rs. looked 20; and
careful insurance company would
have estimated the probable time
OF his demise at, say. 26 His hab-
itat was anywhere between the Frio
| and the Rio Grande. He killed for
the love OF it-because he was
Quick-tempered-to avoid arrest
for his own amusement-any reason
| that came to his mind would suf-
fee. He had escaped capture be-
! cause he could shoot five-sixths OF
a second quicker than any sheriff
| or ranger in the service. and be-
cause he rode a speckled roam horse
that knew every cow-path in the
mesquite and pear thickets from
San Antonio to Matamoras.
Tonia Perez. the girl who loved
the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen,
half Madonna and the rest-oh yes,
a woman who is half Carmen and
half Madonna can always be some
thing more-the rest, let US say.
was humming-bird.
She lived in a grass-rooted jacal
near a little Mexican settlement at
the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio.
With her lived a father or grand
father. a lineal Aztec, somewhat less
| than 1000 years old. who herded 100
goats and lived in a continuous
drunken dream from drinking mes
! cal. Back of the jacal a tremen-
dous forest of brlstling pear, twenty
feet high at it's worst, crowded al
most to its door. 1t was along the
bewildering maze of this spinous
thicket that the speckled roam would
bring the Kid to see his girl. And
once, clinging like a lizard to the
ridge-pole. high up under the peaked
grass roof, he had heard Tonia, with
her Madonna face and Carmen
beauty and humming-bi soul,
parley with the sheriff's posse, de-
nying knowledge of her man in her
soft melange of Spanish and Eng
lish.
One day the adJutant general Of
a eAit CldlC' WIN Is, tN-OHlCIO, CONF
mander of the ranger forces, wrote
some sarcastic lines to Catain DuvaI
of Company y, stationed at Laredo
relative to the serene and undis-
turbed existence led by murderers
tain's territory.
The captain turned the color of
brick dust under his tan, and for
warded the letter, after adding a
few comments. per ranger Private
Bill Adamson, to ranger Lieut.
Sandridge. camped at a water hole
on the Nueces with a squad of five
men in preservation of law and
order.
Lieut.. Sandridge turned a beau
tiful couleur de rose through his
ordinary strawberry complexion,
tucked the letter in his hip pocket,
and chewed of the end of his gam
boge moustache.
The next morning he saddled his
horse and rode alone to the Mexi-
can settlement at the Lone Wolf
Crossing of the Frio, twenty miles
away.
Six feet two, blonde as a Viking,
quiet as a deacon. dangerous as a
machine gun. Sandridge moved
among the jacals, patiently seek
ing news of the Cisco Kid.
Far more than the Law the Mexf-
cans dreaded the cold and certain
vengeance of the lone rider that the
ranger sought. 1t had been one of
the Kids pastimes to shoot MexI-
cans ito see them kick" II he de-
manded from them moribund terp-
sichorean feats simply that he
might be entertained, what terrible
and extreme penalties would be
certain to follow should they anger
him! One ana all they lounged
with upturned palms and struggling
shoulders. filling the air with "Qui-
en- sabesa" and denials of the Kids
acquaintance"
But there was a man named Fink
who kept a store at the Crossing
q man of many nationalities.
tongues. interests. and ways of
thinking.
mo use to ask them Mexicans,"
he said to Sandridge. They're
afraid to tell. This hombre they
call the Kid-Goodall is his name.
amt it?-he's been In my store onca