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hair or a bunch of blossoms at their waist, they were alluring enough to set any man's heart going pit-a-pat. Nor were they unskilled in the subtle graces and diplomacy of the coquette. They knew how to use their black eyes to good advantage, and they were adept in the old fashioned Spanish art gone now from the Southwest of making their fans talk when their tongues were silent. I will venture it would be hard to find at modern balls and cotillions more spirited or graceful dancers than our Fort Sumner girls. No orchestra concealed behind palm fronds played for us, but we had very good music; generally six pieces violins, guitars, clarinets, and sometimes a tambe or Indian drum.

"It might surprise you to know that our dances were extremely decorous. Everybody attended them, old and young. We girls of Fort Sumner were not accustomed to dueñas, but with our mothers and grandmothers looking on at our merriment, we were quite well chaperoned. There was no drunkenness, no rowdyism. Our men would not have tolerated anything of the kind for an instant. The men did not wear evening clothes, but they lived up to the old West's traditions of chivalry. I suppose you are amazed that an outlaw and desperado like Billy the Kid should have been a favoured cavalier at our dances. But in the code of those days, any man who was courteous to a woman was considered a gentleman, and no questions asked; and, as there was little law in the country, an outlaw who measured up to this simple standard was as welcome at Fort Sumner's social affairs as anybody else."

You are naturally curious to know how this beautiful and cultured daughter of the House of Maxwell chanced to meet the Southwest's most desperate man-slayer.

"I have a perfectly clear picture of Billy the Kid the first