Of the later accepted costume of the trail and range, there was no more than indication. The hats were a dozen sorts for a dozen men. The neck scarf of each man above his collarless tow shirt was a scanty plain red bandanna, for use, not show. Spurs, saddles, bridles, boots—these things were good, for the Spanish influence lingered in Texas a generation after the “dead body of Coahuila” had been shaken off. The saddles were heavy and broad of horn, each with double cinches. The stirrups were without exception covered with heavy tapaderos. The reata at each horn was thin, of hide close braided, pliable, tough as steel. Of chaparajos, or leggings, as these men always called them, perhaps a half dozen pairs were owned by older men; the young could not afford them. Now, freed of the necessity of riding chaparral in the round-up of the herd, the leggings were cast into the cook wagon along with the ragged bed rolls. So now they stood or kneeled or squatted, coatless, collarless, unbrushed, belted and booted, without exception thin, almost without exception tall, each with his white-and-black checkered pants in his boots, his garb light, insufficient, meager. They were poor. But of good weaponry these men of the border were covetous. The older men had each a pair of the army Colts—cap and ball, for fixed ammunition was not yet on the range. His pistol flask, his little cleaning rod, his bag of round balls, each man guarded with more care than his less weight of coin. The rifles were nondescript as the men themselves. One man had a revolving Colt rifle, a relic of the New Mexican expedition of ’42. Of the new Henry rifles, repeaters, many had found their way thus far south; and of the heavy Sharpe rifles, such as were used by Berdan’s sharpshooter corps in the Civil War—with the great Minié ball and its parchment cartridge and the lever breech action—a half dozen survived. Most prized by some, execrated by others, were the Spencer repeating carbines, throwing their heavy ball with at least approximate accuracy if one could guess the distance of the shot. The Yager and the Kentucky rifle, which won Texas, now had disappeared. The first trail men had yet to wait seven years before the Winchester and the Frontier Colt ushered in the general day of fixed ammunition. The first wild cavalcades of the Texas trail certainly were unstandardized. Of the Del Sol men, all alike were silent now. Jim Nabours, a long leg bent up, knelt over his plate on the ground. Del Williams, bearded, young, comely, sat on a cart tongue. Sanchez, old and gray, was under the cart itself. Cinquo Centavos, name and family unknown, called Sinker by his fellows, slim, eager, boyish, stood as he ate, shivering in his cottons. A reticent, ragged, grim, unprepossessing band they made, ill matched and wild as the diverse cattle which now began to edge out from their bed ground.