“I can give you an excellent cup in a moment, I think. Excuse me an instant, sir,” and she dashed from the room. She had remembered the three little tins that through all her adventures had lain in the bottom of her saddle bag, Mom’s contribution. Would they still be there? Would the sterno be any good, or would it have evaporated or melted, in all the heat through which they had passed? At any rate, the coffee would keep perfectly. Just outside the door she stumbled over Georgie. His blessed, freckled face, his wide-toothed grin! Raquel’s chin quivered ridiculously. “_Buenos dias, Señor. Como le va?_--Don’t you know me?” Georgie inquired anxiously, for Raquel was standing there, looking at him sternly. “Shut up,” she said. Then loudly, “Well, _el Diente_ [the Tooth]! Well! I’ll have to get the _Coronel_ to let me take you home with me, young runaway. Here, stay by my horse.” With trembling fingers she searched into the depths of her bag and, sure enough, there they were, the three little tins. Georgie had followed, and was standing at her elbow. “Raquel,” he whispered. “Georgie,” huskily. “Wait.” A few moments later she was back at the table where the sterno was set up. Opening a can with a stout table knife, she touched a match to it. The fluid flickered, flared, then settled down to burn with a lovely blue flame. She set a little tin of water over it. The _Coronel_ was enchanted. And as the water grew warm, steamed, boiled, all under his rapt gaze, and as the boy put a coffee powder into a cup, he began to gesticulate wildly. For in a moment here was a cup of steaming coffee, its unmistakable fragrance warming the heart. He snatched the cup and drained the scalding drink. “More,” he sighed, handing it back to Raquel. “It is delicious!” As indeed it was. “What may I give you in exchange for that little _apparato_, my lad!” beamed the _Coronel_ after his third cup of coffee, all his irritability vanished. “It is yours, _Coronel_,” Raquel replied. “All I want is a runaway youngster who belongs to our hacienda, but who I see has joined your company. I’d like to take him back with me.” “By all means,” assented the _Coronel_, beaming in the possession of this new toy, this delightful tin stove (apparently it did not occur to him that it would ever burn out) which would always give him coffee. “Unless it is the amusing and indispensable infant called ‘Tooth.’ Him I can part with for no one.” “Alas, it is he, none other,” replied Raquel, grinning with apparent amusement. “Oh, well, then, if he belongs at your place. Go with God. Only hurry up.” “And may he have a horse to ride back?” She pushed her advantage a bit further. “But certainly. Give him a horse. Give him his horse,” the _Coronel_ shouted, waving dismissal. The aide went out to authorize Georgie’s departure. “You had better vamoose, my son,” he advised, “before the _Coronel_ changes his mind. It’s a good thing you returned that roan horse.”