Mr. Dan McMasters, new sheriff of Gonzales, mighty young for that job, was a proper man. A vague sense of uneasiness came to the soul of Foreman Jim as he saw his comeliness and ease of manner. He felt he had been betrayed—did not feel familiar with these new little ways. “You see, Miss Lockhart,” went on McMasters when he had taken his own seat on the cowhide settee, “I’ve been north, up the Indian roads. As I was only fifty miles away, I thought I would ride in.” “You are very welcome, sir. Our families always have been friends.” The voice of Anastasie Lockhart was the color of her hair. Almost, you could call her hair vibrant. “Yes, my family always has known your family. I wanted to see you once more. That must have been my main reason. You—you have grown, Miss Lockhart. I’d not have known you. But just now I was talking with your segundo. He thought you might like to hear some word I am bringing down to Texas from the North.” “He means they’ve started a cattle market up North on the railroad, Miss Taisie,” broke in Jim Nabours. “Market? There’s going to be a shipping point—do you mean that, sir?” The girl turned swiftly. “I think so, yes,” replied Dan McMasters. “It’s at Abilene, in Kansas, right north of Wichita. You see, Wichita’s not far across the Kansas line, above the Nations.” “Abilene?” “No one ever heard of it. It’s head of the rails on the Kansas Pacific, the new road that’s building west. They want cattle. They are promising a market.” The girl’s eyes kindled. “That’s news!” He nodded. “Yes. The railroads are planning to run up the Arkansas the same as up the Platte—and that’s done, now. That whole country north of here, from all I can hear about it, is a thousand by two thousand miles of natural cow land. Grass? They tell me that farther on west there’s millions of acres of what they call buffalo grass—short, like our grama. Maybe it won’t carry cows, but some say it will. It certainly fattens the buffalo. And there isn’t a cow in it all; it’s empty and waiting for range stock—to say nothing of the Eastern demand.” Nabours broke in. “We know we could herd as far as Wichita. Shore we could get from there to Aberlene.” “Yes,” said this prophet of a new day; “and we would find Eastern buyers—farmers and feeders and beef men—waiting to buy our stuff as fast as we drove it through.” “Really?” Taisie Lockhart almost forgot her morning’s troubles. “Really?” “Why, yes, I reckon it’s true, from what the men told me that came down to cut the trail in the Nations. They declare there’ll be buyers for all we can drive, up to a hundred thousand head—yes, two-three hundred thousand!” Inarticulate sound came in Anastasie’s throat. She cast a triumphant glance at her foreman. “Well, now, ma’am, how was I to know?” defended Jim. “I never did hear of no Aberlene, not in my whole life, till this young gentleman rid in here this morning.”