McMasters turned to the silent negro, who had brought in a pan of water and a towel. As he turned up his sleeves, the cuffs of his linen shirt—as the rolled soft collar also might before then have disclosed—showed a dull red, not white. He laughed. “A superstition,” said he, nodding. “Sort of oath of the family. In the war my mother had to dye her own clothing with pokeberry. She dyed a few of my father’s shirts that way by mistake once. My father was so proud of our sacrifices to the cause—though he didn’t think Texas should have seceded—that he swore he’d never have collars or cuffs any other color. Well, a new sheriff in Gonzales hasn’t so many shirts. This one was once my father’s. Yes, we’re poor—poor, we Texans. “Turn my horse in the round pen, please, sir,” he concluded, when he had made himself neat as possible. “Would you please ask Miss Lockhart if she will see Mr. Dan McMasters, the son of her father’s friend?” CHAPTER III THE ORPHAN OF DEL SOL BLANCOCITO had dozed in the sun for a considerable interval. Hearing a sound at the front door, he turned an idle eye, and sprang back with a snort at sight of the unusual apparition which now descended the gallery steps—Anastasie Lockhart, no longer in male apparel, and by the merest accident coming out of the house as the two men would now have entered. Jim Nabours was not accustomed to social formulas. “Miss Taisie, this here is Mr. McMasters, of Gonzales, below. He’s sher’f down there. I reckon you know who he is.” “I saw you when you came in, sir,” said the mistress of Del Sol demurely, extending her hand. “Why did you not come up to breakfast?” While McMasters, his eyes fixed on hers, was explaining his travel-worn condition, Jim Nabours was wondering how and why in the name of all the saints of the Southwest Taisie had managed in so short a time to change from her daily ranch costume to this feminine marvel of fresh lawn, with ruffled flounces and great belled skirt. She even had white mitts—yellow-white with age. But Taisie saw no reason to explain that much of her apparel once had been her mother’s, and was now fresh resurrected. Jim did not know the mysteries of a certain rawhide chest so well as old black Milly, who had served in the Burleson Lockhart family before they moved into the border country. Had he known he might also have had a guess at the miracle of Taisie’s heavy hair, no longer banded like an Indian woman’s but done up in some sort of high twisted mass that left visible the milk-white nape of a neck not always otherwise protected against the sun.