Lane,” he said. “I was just going down in my pocket for a Christmas present for your husband. But I’ve left one for you, instead. It’s in the room to your right.”
“Oh, thank you, kind Santa Claus,” said Rosita, brightly.
Rosita went into the room, while Santa Claus stepped into the cooler air of the yard.
She found no one in the room but Madison.
“Where is my present that Santa said he left for me in here?” she asked.
“Haven’t seen anything in the way of a present,” said her husband, laughing, “unless he could have meant me.”
The next day Gabriel Radd, the foreman of the X O Ranch, dropped into the post-office at Loma Alta.
“Well, the Frio Kid’s got his dose of lead at last,” he remarked to the postmaster.
“That so? How’d it happen?”
“One of old Sanchez’s Mexican sheep herders did it!—think of it! the Frio Kid killed by a sheep herder! The Greaser saw him riding along past his camp about twelve o’clock last night, and was so skeered that he up with a Winchester and let him have it. Funniest part of it was that the Kid was dressed all up with white Angora-skin whiskers and a regular Santy Claus rig-out from head to foot. Think of the Frio Kid playing Santy!”
