Ten in the morning, and the last of Del Sol’s drag, little calves and all, misfits, ignorant mistakes and all, had rabbled off and away, sore under the fly-bitten road brand fresh on every hide. The dust cloud was hours old at the upper edge of the flat, when at the opposite edge, on the rim that divided the flat and the big house of Del Sol, another and lesser dust cloud appeared over the broken turf. It was made by two rude two-wheeled carts, each drawn by a double span of oxen. The roughly spoked wheels, stiffened by slats lashed on with rawhide thongs, emitted shrieking protest at each revolution on the axle. Each carreta had a tilt of canvas stretched above its rough bows, and each had certain cargo. On the front seat of the first vehicle sat old Anita, brown and gray and wrinkled. The rear cart was handled by a vast negro woman with a long musket at her side—Milly, as usual grumbling to herself. These two women, old beyond love and life, doggedly loyal, passionately affectionate, made the bodyguard of Anastasie Lockhart, educated and dead-broke orphan, setting out into the world at twenty-two on one of the most impossible adventures any woman ever knew. Just now Anastasie Lockhart, trousered, booted, gloved and hatted like some slim, curiously eye-arresting young man, rode alone on her crossbar, Blancocito. Her mass of heavy hair was down her back, burned tawnier beyond the shade of the sombrero. Her eye moody, she gazed on ahead at the procession that held every friend she had on earth and every dollar that she owned. She dropped back and rode alongside the leading cart. “Anita,” she said, “if I only had my stolen trunk, I’d not be leaving a single thing on earth behind me!” Anita vouchsafed nothing for a time. She understood English. “Tronk?” said she presently. “What-a tronk, _señorita_?” “The one that was stolen from my parlor—you know very well what one.” “That-a-tronk? He is not stole. He’s back. I setta on heem now.” “What? What’s that, Anita?” “_Si, Seguro._ I gotta heem under seat, serape on top. Sanchez, my man, he bring. Las’ night he got heem back.” “The lost trunk? Where? Where did he find it?” “Sanchez, he look in waggone, he look in corral. In one waggone, come from Gonzales, he find-a thees-a tronk. Sanchez, he tak-a heem and put-a heem in here. You like-a heem, dose tronk?” The hand of Anastasie Lockhart fell lax at her saddle horn. “Anita, tell me, was it in his wagon—Mr. McMasters’, the Gonzales wagon that went back yesterday? Was it in the wagon of Señor McMasters, the sheriff of Gonzales?” “_Oh, si!_” “Ah!” A long sighing breath. “_Vamenos!_” exclaimed Anastasie Lockhart after a long time. She looked straight forward, not turning, as one who left a used-out world behind. CHAPTER X IN DAYS OF OLD