Supper was set for six. Elbert found Mary Gertling seated at his left. He rose from the table to get a glass of water, but the Señora prevented, thrusting red wine in his hands. ‘Vino tinto! Vino tinto!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m s’prised, Elbert,’ Slim corrected. ‘Didn’t you know water is for the horses?’ ‘Isn’t everything wonderful?’ whispered Mary Gertling. ‘Do you think so?’ Elbert inquired. ‘Dulzura!’ flamed Slim; then Cal’s easy voice as he monopolized the attention of Florabel Burton: ‘So your father hasn’t written to you none, Miss, that there’s a mixture of politics going on about his oil wells?’ ‘Oh, yes. Papa always allows for that. He says it wouldn’t be Mexico--if there wasn’t some trouble in the air.’ ‘No special trouble lately--things comin’ to a head?’ ‘Oh, let’s go back!’ trembled the voice from behind the big necktie. ‘Just take it easy, lady,’ in Slim’s gentlest corral tones. ‘Things are always coming to a head down here,’ said Miss Burton. ‘I know,’ said Cal, ‘I can understand just how you feel. But we’re concerned, especially Elbert here. If you knew that boy as well as I do, you’d seen by his face that he’s sick with concern right now.’ ‘Oh, Florabel!’ said Mary Gertling. ‘Can’t we ask them to go with us? I’ll breathe so much easier.’ ‘Oh, let’s!’ faintly from the little one, whom they called Imogen. ‘Why, we’ll be down there in an hour, before it’s really dark!’ Florabel objected, but finally gave way. XI GAS AND GUNS ELBERT smelled gas, as he rode behind the sedan. It had always been so; gas belonged to the deep fatigue of his bones. One of the keenest minutes he had ever lived was that in which they had leaned down toward the wide tangle of tracks in front of the fonda marked El Cajon--all able-bodied men gone from Nacimiento, and big doings promised farther on. And then, a matter of mere minutes afterward, his old enemy had come roaring down the dirt road. Girls--everything spoiled--Cal and Slim all changed around. The sedan was just rolling forward, but it kept the ponies at a lope. It seemed hours; the sliver of a moon had sunk out of the sky. Florabel’s resonant voice reached him from the car. No secret now why ‘Mexicali’ Burton dared to stand off Northern Sonora for his oil wells--the father of this girl would be like that. Cal loomed in the dark, having waited for Mamie to come up. ‘Your lady-friend’s got her mind made up to sit a horse for a ways, Elbert. Slim’s Indian ain’t that kind of a horse, and your Mamie’s a filly yet. I figure she’d better try old Chester, but you sort of ride close and keep him consoled and her camped in the right place.’ ‘How about you, Cal?’ ‘Nothin’ else will do, but I’m to test my morals in the little red buggie.’ The transfer was made. Elbert rode on through the thick May dark with Mary Gertling at his left. ‘I’ve been on a horse before,’ she said. No answer. ‘I’m afraid you think I’m being a trouble.’