And sure enough, as she came within sight of the milkweeds, there was Uncle Hank on Buckskin, loping in from Ojo Bravo way. She left the trail and made for the weeds, running faster now, to get the pods and be ready by the time he came up with her. She was just reaching out to pick them—they had to be taken off carefully, or they would open out and all blow away like dandelion balls—when Uncle Hank’s big voice roared out at her, from where he had pulled up Buckskin: “Stop!” Hilda stopped, fairly frozen. Never had Uncle Hank spoken to her like that before. She stood there like a well-trained pointer dog, rigid in the attitude of running. “Stand. Don’t move—for your life. I’m a-going to shoot!” A hideous moment, then a noise that seemed to Hilda to split the sky, and send the earth reeling. Uncle Hank leaped from his pony and was running toward her. He had her now. She was lying back over his left arm, while the pistol in his right hand cracked again. “Uncle Hank’s baby! Did he scare her most to death? You ain’t hurt, Pettie. Look. See what it was I killed.” She opened unwilling eyes, first at the clouds that still ran circles above her in the blue sky; then she saw Uncle Hank’s eyes, almost as blue, and full of the same fathomless kindness. “Over there by the milkweed you was goin’ for—look, Pettie.” And now she held herself erect a moment, and saw the brown, rusty coil, the shattered diamond-shaped head, of the rattlesnake Uncle Hank had shot. She hid her face against the blue flannel sleeve and trembled. It was afterward—after he’d gone over to make sure the snake was dead—when she could get her breath easily again, and was climbing up on Buckskin with him, that the old man, looking down at the little foot set on his boot-toe, whispered: “Barefoot!” They rode a moment in tremulous silence, then he said sternly, “Never let that happen again, Pettie. You wear your shoes.” “I love to go barefoot.” “Pettie,” he turned and looked at her, “I don’t like that. Your pa’s daughter ought to be brought up a lady. She ain’t got no place in the barefoot brigade. You mind what I say about the shoes. Keep ’em on.” “All day? In the house?” “D’ruther you would,” and he swung her down at the ranch house door. No more was said of the matter. But at supper time, it was with the feeling of a martyr that Hilda came creeping down stairs stockinged and shod—after a fashion. She paraded around in front of Uncle Hank while they waited for the meal, but he paid no attention other than to remark cheerfully that he had two men’s work to do to-morrow—if it was Sunday—and didn’t she want to take one of them off his hands. Sitting at table during the meal, Hilda had no chance to give Uncle Hank an object lesson in the superiority of bare feet over ill-fitting shoes. If he got away from her and off to bed, she’d not have a chance till next day.