Starr had seen copies of that paper at the Mexican ranches he visited, and as far as he knew, it was an ordinary newspaper of the country-town style, printed in Mexican for the benefit of a large percentage of Mexican-Americans whose knowledge of English print is extremely hazy.
He walked on slowly to the corner, puzzling over this new twist in the faint clue he followed. It had not occurred to him that so innocuous a sheet as _Las Nuevas_ should be implicated, and yet, why not? He turned at the corner and went back to the nearest newstand, where he bought an El Paso paper for a blind and laid it down on a pile of _Las Nuevas_ while he lighted his cigarette. He talked with the little, pock-marked Mexican who kept the shop, and when the fellow's back was turned toward him for a minute, he stole a copy of _Las Nuevas_ off the pile and strolled out of the shop with it wrapped in his El Paso paper.
He stole it because he knew that not many Americans ever bought the paper, and he feared that the hombre in charge might wonder why an American should pay a nickel for a copy of _Las Nuevas_. As it happened, the hombre in charge was looking into a mirror cunningly placed for the guarding of stock from pilferers, and he saw Starr steal the paper. Also he saw Starr slip a dime under a stack of magazines where it would be found later on. So he wondered a great deal more than he would have done if Starr had bought the paper, but Starr did not know that.
Starr went back to his cabin by way of the arroyo and the hole in the manger. When he unlocked the door and went in, he had an odd feeling that some one had been there in his absence. He stood still just inside the door and inspected everything, trying to remember just where his clothes had been scattered, where he had left his hat, just how his blankets had been flung back on the bed when he jumped up to see what had startled Rabbit; every detail, in fact, that helps to make up the general look of a room left in disorder.
He did remember, for his memory had been well trained for details. He knew that his hat had been on the table with the front toward the wall. It was there now, just as he had flung it down. He knew that his pillow had been dented with the shape of his head, and that it had lain askew on the bed; it was just as it had been. Everything--his boots, his dark coat spread over the back of the chair, his trousers across the foot of the bed--everything was the same, yet the feeling persisted.