CHAPTER XIII

HIDE HUNTING

During the month of June only two showers fell, which revived the grass but added not a drop of water to our tank supply or to the river.  When the coast winds which followed set in, all hope for rain passed for another year.  During the residence of the old ranchero at Las Palomas, the Nueces valley had suffered several severe drouths as disastrous in their effects as a pestilence.  There were places in its miles of meanderings across our range where the river was paved with the bones of cattle which had perished with thirst.  Realizing that such disasters repeat themselves, the ranch was set in order.  That fall we branded the calf crop with unusual care.  In every possible quarter, we prepared for the worst.  A dozen wells were sunk over the tract and equipped with windmills.  There was sufficient water in the river and tanks during the summer and fall, but by Christmas the range was eaten off until the cattle, ranging far, came in only every other day to slake their thirst.

The social gayeties of the countryside received a check from the threatened drouth.  At Las Palomas we observed only the usual Christmas festivities.  Miss Jean always made it a point to have something extra for the holiday season, not only in her own household, but also among the Mexican families at headquarters and the outlying ranchites.  Among a number of delicacies brought up this time from Shepherd’s was a box of Florida oranges, and in assisting Miss Jean to fill the baskets for each jacal, Aaron Scales opened this box of oranges and found a letter, evidently placed there by some mischievous girl in the packery from which the oranges were shipped.  There was not only a letter but a visiting card and a small photograph of the writer.  This could only be accepted by the discoverer as a challenge, for the sender surely knew this particular box was intended for shipment to Texas, and banteringly invited the recipient to reply.  The missive certainly fell upon fertile soil, and Scales, by right of discovery, delegated to himself the pleasure of answering.

Scales was the black sheep of Las Palomas.  Born of a rich, aristocratic family in Maryland, he had early developed into a good-natured but reckless spendthrift, and his disreputable associates had contributed no small part in forcing him to the refuge of a cattle ranch.  He had been offered every opportunity to secure a good education, but during his last year in college had been expelled, and rather than face parental reproach had taken passage in a coast schooner for Galveston, Texas.  Then by easy stages he drifted westward, and at last, to his liking, found a home at Las Palomas.  He made himself a useful man on the ranch, but, not having been bred to the occupation and with a tendency to waywardness, gave a rather free rein to the vagabond spirit which possessed him.  He was a good rider, even for a country where every one was a born horseman, but the use of the rope was an art he never attempted to master.