“They’re a strange-looking people, them Texans,” he was saying. “They’ve got no wagons; only some carts, each with two yoke of oxen. There ain’t a whole pair of breeches in the outfit, nor a decent hat. Every morning when a fellow wants a horse, where his rope lands, that’s his—and he has to ride to stay with it. They can ride any horse in the world. They’ve got a fighting chicken on top of one cart and they say they’ll bet the herd on that rooster—and here us folks ain’t got a single one in Abilene! They’ll bet anything you like they’ve got the fastest horses in Kansas. They say they’ve got a man they’ll back in a shooting match against anybody in the world.” “They must mean Wild Bill,” said a voice. “No, his name is McMasters—Dan McMasters. But he ain’t with them now. Besides that, they got something else; you can’t guess. They’ve got a woman!” “Aw, go on!” A voice. “Yes, they have. Young woman, too, and prettier’n any picture you ever saw in a frame. She owns all the herd. She’s rich as she is pretty. Her name’s Lockhart, Miss Lockhart from Caldwell, County, Texas, but not Caldwell, Kansas, gentlemen. She owns the Del Sol ranch down there. They raised this whole herd on that ranch; or anyhow that’s what they say. Men, here’s to Miss Anastasie Lockhart, the finest girl in the world and the first one up the Texas trail!” Two men of the crowd who had been listening quietly stepped out at the door, looking at one another but not speaking. They passed close at hand; the future town marshal of Abilene and his deputy. [Illustration: _A Paramount Picture._ _North of 36._ RUDABAUGH (NOAH BEERY) AND DAN McMASTERS (JACK HOLT).] CHAPTER XXXVIII ALAMO ARRIVES FOR the last two hundred miles of the long trail up from Texas, life was less eventful for the Del Sol men. The cattle now were shaken down to the daily routine of marching and gave little or no trouble. They took the smaller streams almost in their stride; and as to the last large waterway, no problem of note existed, for at the Arkansas River, the trail maker, Jesse Chisholm, again had provided passage in the scow he had left moored not far from Wichita after it had served his own purposes. It was merely a procession north of the Arkansas to Abilene, across beautifully undulating country whose attractiveness would have been hard to match in all America.