“I want to buy your cattle, Miss Lockhart,” said he, “and maybe I will; but let’s not talk price any more down here. This is the first herd to come to Abilene, and I’m going to see that you get the best price possible, so when you carry the news back to Texas that’ll bring more herds up next year. I don’t want to rob as young and fine-looking a woman as you are; and besides that, the first one to come up the trail.” “And the last!” said Jim Nabours conclusively. “You don’t know what I’ve been through!” The stranger smiled humorously, his eyes once more turning to the young girl, of unmistakably gentle breeding. “In a way, you don’t belong here,” said he. “Come an’ git it!” came the supper call of Buck, the negro cook, now rising at his fireside. The men not engaged on the herd straggled in toward the fire. The distant crooning of the hands at the bed ground came through the twilight. The stockman threw back his shoulders, drew a deep breath. “I been having a little fever and ague, ma’am,” said he; “but come to think of it, it’s quit. I’d rather be here than any place else in the world.” “We have quinine,” said Taisie Lockhart, “and coffee and boiled beef, and some very good bread that Milly has made. Won’t you please sit down with us?” They all sat upon the ground around the little fire, children, contented. The world still was young. CHAPTER XXXVI ROLL ALONG, LITTLE DOGIES! LATE at night the leaders of the herd sat talking, but the start on the next day was early. The country ahead was now open and free of buffalo. Once more the great herd trailed out. They left the camp of Jesse Chisholm with his wagon train a little at one side, but the leaders rode over to say farewell to the taciturn old half-breed. McCoyne promised him many things if he would load his next cargo at Abilene instead of Wichita. And so they parted, as ships sailing seas but little known. Thence on there was no need for the wagon tongue or the North Star. One Chisholm Trail, of many mythical ones, was now really begun. The marks of the wagon wheels were unmistakable. The giant steers of the Del Sol vanguard swung out along the main traveled road as though this was what they long had sought. McCoyne expressed wonderment at seeing so few men handle thousands of great animals. “You’ve been doing ten or twelve miles a day?” said he. “We can make fifteen or twenty. Push them along. All Abilene is waiting for them.” It was plain sailing and the weather was good. No tribute-seeking Indians appeared, and the cattle were as peaceable as though they never had dreamed of a run. The Del Sol outfit put mile after mile behind it, rapidly, steadily, the work oxen on the carts sometimes almost on a trot, the sore backs exempt in the remuda, every man feeling that trail’s end was not so far.