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rent of rage mounting steadily to
ward his head.
"You're no coward. I can't shoot
you down like I want to. It's a fair
fight now." He .was thinking of
the white skirt that ha"d fluttered be
hind the screens of the patio. "If you
can go go back to her then you
won't have to pay any more "
Ramon waited, his hands hanguig
listlessly at his sides. Bill drew the
two big-shooters from his belt and
Ramon accepted one of them.
"And the signal?" Ramon asked.
He broke a twig from the mesquite
and, kneeling, braced it in the coals.
Bill rebelled at the injustice of having
to balance such an account with a
man who was not afraid to turn his
back.
"When the twig burns out," Ra
mon said, rising. He walked around
the camp fire, and Bill, moving back
an equal distance, faced him across it.
Across the fire he saw that Ra
mon's lips were moving, as if he pray
ed. The mesquite blackened and Bill
raised his six-shooter. As the twig
broke he saw the light on the other
gun barrel. He fired, and the echo
rang in the dunes. Ramon moved as
if he were about to step forward.
-o
He ran to him and caught him in
his arms. There was blood on the
shirt above the heart, and there was
no pulse in the wrists.
Bill laid him back gently in the
sand. When he saw the quiet smile
on his lips he knelt down and began
to cry. The sobs were torn out of
the very depths of his being he was
crying over other dead things than
the body beside him. The tears
poured down his face, but he did not
know how to wipe them away. He
had had no need of tears.
Afterward, under a new dawn
bright with promise, he dug a grave
in the shadow of the dunes. When
all was done he looked out across the
changeless desert to the Mexican
hills where lay freedom. When he
turned back he was smiling. "He
took his six-shooters from the sand
to clean them, for he had a long trip
before him. He emptie'd the cylin
ders.; only one cartridge had been
fired.
He sat a long time looking at the
pale light that hovered over the east
ern dunes. Then he slowly mounted
his burro and turned his head toward
the jail-at Cochina.
(THE END.)
o-
AMERICAN BOY IS REAL HEIR TO THRONE OF
AUSTRIA GRANDSON OF SUICIDE PRINCE
terview she has granted since the
assassination of Francis Ferdinand
and his consort in Bosnia, and as she
talked she sat on a great pale blue
dias flanked with the Hapsburg coat
of arms, with her arms thrown tight
about the six-year-old boy that she
is "afraid they will take away to put
upon the throne."
"Oh! I am so sorry this tragedy has
happened," she exclaimed. "It makes
little Rudolph just so much more
valuable in the eyes of the Haps
burgs. Every assassination brings
him nearer to the throne, and I do
not want him ever to come within its
sight. ,
"What could there be in a throne
BY H. P. BURTON
New York, N. Y., July 6. "My lit
tle Rudolph is the one true Haps
burg in all the world, and yet I will
see him dead before I will watch him
mount that blood-stained throne of
Austria."
Alma Vetsera Hayne, just a slip of
a girl herself and looking for all the
world like the pale, tragic Marie Vet
sera, who, with her lover, Crown
Prince Rudolph, was found dead in
the royal Austrian hunting lodge at
Mayerling twenty-five years ago,
spoke these words today in a luxur
ous 5th av. apartment in New York,
where she is practically hidden.
She had accorded me the only in-
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