the countryside within reach would attend, and the Vaux ranch was not over fifteen miles distant from Las Norias.  Acting on my advice, the mistress ordered the ambulance to be ready to start by three o’clock the next morning, and gave every one on the ranch who cared, permission to go along.  All of us took advantage of the offer, except Deweese, who, when out of hearing of the mistress, excused himself rather profanely.

The boy had returned late in the day, but we lost no time in acting on Miss Jean’s orders.  Fortunately the ambulance teams were in hand hauling rock, but we rushed out several vaqueros to bring in the remuda which contained our best saddle horses.  It was after dark when they returned with the mounts wanted, and warning Tiburcio that we would call him at an early hour, every one retired for a few hours’ rest.  I would resent the charge that I am selfish or unsympathetic, yet before falling asleep that night the deplorable accident was entirely overlooked in the anticipated pleasure of seeing Esther.

As it was fully a thirty-five-mile drive we started at daybreak, and to encourage the mules Quayle and Happersett rode in the lead until sun-up, when they dropped to the rear with Cotton and myself.  We did not go by way of Shepherd’s, but crossed the river several miles above the ferry, following an old cotton road made during the war, from the interior of the state to Matamoras, Mexico.  It was some time before the hour named for the burial when we sighted Las Norias on the divide, and spurred up the ambulance team, to reach the ranch in time for the funeral.  The services were conducted by a strange minister who happened to be visiting in Oakville, but what impressed me in particular was the solicitude of Miss Jean for the widow.  She had been frequently entertained at Las Palomas by its mistress, as the sweetheart of June Deweese, though since her marriage to Annear a decided coolness had existed between the two women.  But in the present hour of trouble, the past was forgotten and they mingled their tears like sisters.

On our return, which was to be by way of the Vauxes’, I joined those from the McLeod ranch, while Happersett and Cotton accompanied the ambulance to the Vaux home.  Nearly every one going our way was on horseback, and when the cavalcade was some distance from Las Norias, my sweetheart dropped to the rear for a confidential chat and told me that a lawyer from Corpus Christi, an old friend of the family, had come up for the purpose of taking the preliminary steps for securing her freedom, and that she expected to be relieved of the odious tie which bound her to Oxenford at the May term of court.  This was pleasant news to me, for there would then be no reason for delaying our marriage.