“He was afraid father would catch him talking to one of the herders,” laughed the girl.

“The vaquero Corlees he afraid of not even the bear, I think, Senorita.”

Eleanor Loring laughed.  “Don’t you let father catch you calling him a bear!” she cautioned, provoking the old herder to immediate apology and a picturesque explanation of the fact that he had referred not to the patron, but the grizzly.

“All right, Fernando.  I’ll not forget to tell the patron that you called him a bear.”

The old herder grinned and waved farewell as she mounted and rode down the trail.  Practical in everyday affairs, he untied his bandanna and neatly folded and replaced it among his effects.  As he came out of the tent he picked up his hat.  He was no longer the cavalier, but a stoop-shouldered, shriveled little Mexican herder.  He slouched out toward the flock and called his son to dinner.  No, it was not so many years—­was not the Senorita but twenty years old?—­since he had wooed the Senora Loring, then a slim dark girl of the people, his people, but now the wealthy Senora, wife of his patron.  Ah, yes!  It was good that she should have the comfortable home and the beautiful daughter.  He had nothing but his beloved sheep, but did they not belong to his Senorita?

At the ford the girl took the trail to the uplands, deciding to visit the farthest camp first, and then, if she had time, to call at one or two other camps on her way back to the rancho.  As the trail grew steeper, she curbed the impatient Challenge to a steadier pace and rode leisurely to the level of the timber.  On the park-like level, clean-swept between the boles of the great pines, she again put Challenge to a lope until she came to the edge on the upper mesa.  Then she drew up suddenly and held the horse in.

Far out on the mesa was the figure of a man, on foot.  Toward him came a horse without bridle or saddle.  She recognized the figure as that of John Corliss, and she wondered why he was on foot and evidently trying to coax a stray horse toward him.  Presently she saw Corliss reach out slowly and give the horse something from his hand.  Still she was puzzled, and urging Challenge forward, drew nearer.  The stray, seeing her horse, pricked up its ears, swung round stiffly, and galloped off.  Corliss turned and held up his hand, palm toward her.  It was their old greeting; a greeting that they had exchanged as boy and girl long before David Loring had become recognized as a power to be reckoned with in the Concho Valley.

“Peace?” she queried, smiling, as she rode up.

“Why not, Nell?”

“Oh, cattle and sheep, I suppose.  There’s no other reason, is there?”

Corliss was silent, thinking of his brother Will.

“Unless—­Will—­” she said, reading his thought.

He shook his head, “That would be no reason for—­for our quarreling, would it?”

She laughed.  “Why, who has quarreled?  I’m sure I haven’t.”