One evening, late in the month, when the water wagon returned, Tiburcio brought a request from Miss Jean, asking me to come into the ranch that night.  Responding to the summons, I was rewarded by finding a letter awaiting me from Frances Vaux, left by a vaquero passing from the Frio to Santa Maria.  It was a dainty missive, informing me that Esther was her guest; that the tournament would not take place, but to be sure and come over on Sunday.  Personally the note was satisfactory, but that I was to bring any one along was artfully omitted.  Being thus forced to read between the lines, on my return to camp the next morning by dawn, without a word of explanation, I submitted the matter to John and Theodore.  Uncle Lance, of course, had to know what had called me in to the ranch, and, taking the letter from Quayle, read it himself.

“That’s plain enough,” said he, on the first reading.  “John will go with you Sunday, and if it rains next month, I’ll take Theodore with me when I go over for a cat hunt with old man Pierre.  I’ll let him act as master of the horse,—­no, of the hounds,—­and give him a chance to toot his own horn with Frances.  Honest, boys, I’m getting disgusted with the white element of Las Palomas.  We raise most everything here but white babies.  Even Enrique, the rascal, has to live in camp now to hold down his breakfast.  But you young whites—­with the country just full of young women—­well, it’s certainly discouraging.  I do all I can, and Sis helps a little, but what does it amount to—­what are the results?  That poem that Jean reads to us occasionally must be right.  I reckon the Caucasian is played out.”

Before the sun was an hour high, John Cotton and myself rode into the Vaux ranch on Sunday morning.  The girls gave us a cheerful welcome.  While we were breakfasting, several other lads and lasses rode up, and we were informed that a little picnic for the day had been arranged.  As this was to our liking, John and I readily acquiesced, and shortly afterward a mounted party of about a dozen young folks set out for a hackberry grove, up the river several miles.  Lunch baskets were taken along, but no chaperons.  The girls were all dressed in cambric and muslin and as light in heart as the fabrics and ribbons they flaunted.  I was gratified with the boldness of Cotton, as he cantered away with Frances, and with the day before him there was every reason to believe that his cause would he advanced.  As to myself, with Esther by my side the livelong day, I could not have asked the world to widen an inch.

It was midnight when we reached Las Palomas returning.  As we rode along that night, John confessed to me that Frances was a tantalizing enigma.  Up to a certain point, she offered every encouragement, but beyond that there seemed to be a dead line over which she allowed no sentiment to pass.  It was plain to be seen that he was discouraged, but I told him I had gone through worse ordeals.