There were new men on Del Sol, new horses and new cows. Old Jim Nabours, when he swung into saddle that morning, had at his side only one man of the old Del Sol clan—the boy Cinquo Centavos, now resplendent in the full regalia of the range and much more the man for his adventurings in far lands. Both these had stood at Blancocito’s head to assist their mistress in mounting when she rode back to the big house. So now Taisie Lockhart was pretty much alone as she pottered about the galleries of the old house, searching for morning-glory seeds, putting them into her cupped left hand. She was in riding habit now, her male attire discarded, and a sidesaddle fretted Blancocito; not the old saddle of low horn and double cinch, which he had yielded only after a long and bitter fight against the new substitute. What a change since that other morning of the spring, half a year ago, when she had returned from the cook-house door! Could this unsmiling young lady, tall and dignified, well clad, be the same Taisie Lockhart of that other day? On which day had she been rich, on which day poor? A world intervened between the two. Anastasie Lockhart, a new little droop at the corner of her mouth, knew that were it possible she would give this day for that other—that day when she was poor. That was when first she saw a tall young man ride in at her gate, whom she had never seen again since their cold parting in the street of Abilene. Some thought, some sound unrecognized, something in the air—she knew not what—caused Taisie’s cupped hand to cease accumulating morning-glory seeds, the fingers of the other to halt arrested in the air. She turned. That same rider now was entering her gate. The face of the mistress of Del Sol went pale. She dropped her morning-glory seeds. The rider, tall, slender, very straight, very easy in saddle, came on in directly through the gate, which a darky boy had opened for him. But he did not this morning, as upon that other morning, ride to the cook-house yard. Upon the contrary, at the same steady gentle and unbroken trot, he rode up, unfaltering, unagitated, to the gallery of Del Sol. His hat in hand, he dismounted not a dozen paces from where stood Anastasie, dumb and motionless, pale, even in the Texan sun. He also, for the time, was dumb. He came straight up to her without speaking. She noticed certain things, intimately shrewd, her memory holding every detail of the man whom for months she had known she loved in spite of every endeavor. He was scrupulously neat, now, as he had always been. His clothing was new and good. His collar and his cuffs were white—pure white, in good linen. Once—she vaguely remembered it now—he had not worn white; had explained to her some reason for the dull red of his linen. And there was another change, she was sure of this—he was unarmed! The heavy weapons no longer swung at his belt, nor even showed in his saddle holsters. For the first time since she had known him she saw him weaponless.