“When I get mine you get yours, understand, _sabe_? I got nothing out of this. The deal’s off. The hombre who was to pay both you and me on the cattle deal didn’t pull it off, though I fixed the cars for the----,” and he swore an ugly oath. “The sale didn’t go through. He didn’t get any commission, see. And you let that gal ship half anyway. What you kickin’ about anyway? You got a ranch to work, ain’t you, a place to start you a herd? What’s the matter with the Flying H, that little private brand o’ yo’rn?” And with a laugh and an oath that but faintly expressed his disgust at the situation “A. B.” waved Esquibal off and rose from the table. It seemed that Raquel and Jimmy, too, had come to a time of settlement--about the question of Lois. Jimmy had not mentioned Raquel’s letter, but now, as they sat alone once more before the fire, while Mom got supper and the boys were out at the chores, Jimmy told her that he _had_ heard from his uncle. It was while he was in Kansas, he said. His uncle had missed him in El Paso anyway. They had been up in Colorado, but found it too cold there. They were leaving for California, and would see him on the way back. It was very possible that they might go on to the Orient. It was plain that Jimmy was keenly disappointed to have missed his uncle and Lois, and also to learn that she had failed him, and had been unkind to Raquel. It worried him, too, this uncertainty as to their plans. It was not a bit like his uncle, he said. But it was like Lois, Raquel could not help thinking. CHAPTER XI THE WILD HORSE Suddenly one day they were in the midst of spring. It was impossible to believe that there had been such a blizzard only six weeks before. The sun shone with a desperate heat for early April, the arroyos dried up, the open range was calling. Now the time had come, Raquel decided, to make that trip over into the reaches of the upper Pecos where a bunch of wild horses had been running free for several years. These horses had straggled down from Montana and Wyoming, it was said, through Colorado and New Mexico, and had multiplied on the unfenced stretches of Texas range. Ole Hossfoot had reported that a band of fine horse stock, partly mustang, was going to waste over there. The wild horses used up range that was needed for beef stock, and the hand of the cattleman was set against them. It was almost impossible to capture them, and if a stockman did take the trouble what could he do with them? They brought less than a cow at the stockyards, and you couldn’t sell an “unbroke” mustang for anything. And so many of these fine, free animals ended with a bullet between the eyes. Yet there they were, ready to be gentled into prize ponies for any one who would take the trouble. It would be an undertaking thoroughly to Raquel’s liking, to capture a few of the swift, untamed creatures.