“Yes, I know. But what one ranch in Texas doesn’t happen to have the neighbors do have—they always have had. Take in one or two neighbors with you for the drive—say a thousand head, each brand. They’d be glad to put up the wagon and the remuda. You must not push away your neighbors. This is Texas.” A cold rage met his sincerity and friendliness. “I’ll have help from no one! Del Sol will drive a lone herd north, win or lose. I’ll take it all back, Jim—you’re all hired on again, the last man of you. You’ll stand by me? I’ll sell my cows and pay my men; and then I’ll see if there’s any law in the North or any men in the South to help me find a murderer.” “Ma’am,” said Jim Nabours, “you’ve put it now so’s’t not one of us can help hisself. We got to go. When hell freezes we’ll all walk out on the ice together. “But you got to thank Mr. McMasters for what he’s done told us, Miss Taisie,” he added. “I reckon he’s our best neighbor.” “I do thank you, sir!” The girl rose and held out her hand frankly. The young man bent over it. He did not seat himself again. “But you’ll stop a day or so with us?” “No, I must be riding now,” he answered. He found his hat, bowed, passed out the door with no dallying or indecision; nor said a word about return. He was abrupt to coldness, if not to rudeness. Anastasie Lockhart looked through the window shades so intently that her hand remained not fallen after it had drawn them; so intently that she did not hear old Milly as she entered. “Laws, Miss Taisie, is that young gemman gone? I done brung in some likker fer him. He’s quality, Miss Taisie! Who is he, an’ whah he come from? Is he done ask you about marryin’ yit?” “Not yet, Milly,” answered Anastasie. She sat down in the one rocking-chair, staring at the uncarpeted floor. She was older now than she had been an hour ago. Why had this neighbor not promised an early return? And was he not a strangely stiff and silent young man? Were the honors of sheriff and captain so much as to render him superior to a girl with red hair who wore her mother’s clothes, years old? Anastasie Lockhart, astonishingly vital, astonishingly beautiful, rose to find a mirror so that she could read an answer. As she did so she recognized, standing at the end of the rawhide settee, where her visitor could not have failed to see the sudden disorder of its interior, the rawhide trunk which long had served alike as wardrobe and safety vault for her. Vexed at the revelation of her first untidiness in housekeeping, she bent now to close the heavy lid once more. Suddenly she went to her knees beside it, her eyes wet once more at what she saw of silk and lace gone to bits. She caught up the fragments to her cheeks.