“That’s yore sentence, Mister Cow Inspector, and it looks like God has had mercy on yore soul. Ef you get out don’t try charging no more Texas men for riding over the free lands. They won’t have it. Quick, boys! Don’t waste no more time.” Portia rode away, not knowing exactly how far her authority really would go with her wild crew. As she passed, her ears were assailed with the supplications of Henry D. Jameson, bound hand and foot and exceedingly full of cactus spines. Whereby may be seen the very natural reason for his enmity and his desire for revenge when he was found the next day by his own men. He voiced the same emotions, though he did not give full details, when he joined the freebooter camp of Rudabaugh, far to the east, when later he had found those friends. CHAPTER XXI THE RUBICON NOW it was noon of the next day. The cattle had been pushed close to the south bank of the great mysterious river. The foreman sat with his employer on the steep crest of the ravine selected as the take-off for the ford. A bridge had never been, a ferry no man had dreamed of here. Flowed only the wide sweep of tawny waters, boiling and fretting, bearing rape of far-off flats, tree trunks rolling and dipping. The Red was up! This was an ominous and savage scene, and one to depress even the boldest heart; for over this flood must pass each horned head ever to find a market in the north. To Anastasie Lockhart, whitely looking out over the mad waters, this seemed the very end. It did not appear possible to cross. It never would have seemed possible to Nabours had he been of longer trail experience or less desperate in view of other dangers which might come again if they tarried here indefinitely. A freshet of less extent later was known to hold back a hundred thousand cows. But Jim Nabours now had made up his mind to take a chance. “I’m going to throw the carts over first, ma’am,” said he. “Then I’ll cross the cows. I’m going to hold the horses back this time. Then, after the last head’s over, a lot of us’ll cross back after you. We’ll know the channel and the bars better then. Don’t you be a-scared. We’ll get you over somehow. That’s how I got it figgered, ma’am.” “She’s up, Jim,” said Taisie quietly. She was trying her very best to be brave. “Yep, some. But she’s fell a foot since last night. She shows a bar, a quarter below, and a low flat that edges in shaller on the fur side. I think that’s the real bank, and like enough hard footing.” “We could wait a week, maybe. She might raise and she might fall. We’ll soon know how deep she is. I don’t reckon she’s not over two-three hunderd yards actual swimming—I can’t tell. I don’t want to wait here. You know why.” “Can we make it, Jim?” asked the girl soberly.