“I’ve been busy while you were gone,” he announced.  “Been down to the pump-house every day laying that new intake.  It was a nasty job, too.  I had Morales barbecue a cabrito for my lunch, and it was good, but I’m hungry again.”  Austin attacked his meal with an enthusiasm strange in him, for of late his appetite had grown as errant as his habits.  Ed boasted, in his clubs, that he was an outdoor man, and he was wont to tell his friends that the rough life was the life for him; but as a matter of fact he spent much more time in San Antonio than he did at home, and each of his sojourns at Las Palmas was devoted principally to sobering up from his last visit to the city and to preparing for another.  Nor was he always sober even in his own house; Ed was a heavy and a constant drinker at all times.  What little exercise he took was upon the back of a horse, and, as no one knew better than his wife, the physical powers he once had were rapidly deteriorating.

By and by he inquired, vaguely:  “Let’s see, ...  Where did you go this time?”

“I went up to look over that Ygnacio tract.”

“Oh yes.  How did you find it?”

“Not very promising.  It needs a lot of wells.”

“I haven’t been out that way since I was a boy.  Think you’ll lease it?”

“I don’t know.  I must find some place for those La Feria cattle.”

Austin shook his head.  “Better leave ’em where they are, until the rebels take that country.  I stand mighty well with them.”

“That’s the trouble,” Alaire told him.  “You stand too well—­so well that I want to get my stock out of Federal territory as soon as possible.”

Ed shrugged carelessly.  “Suit yourself; they’re your cows.”

The meal went on with a desultory flow of small talk, during which the husband indulged his thirst freely.  Alaire told him about the accident to her horse and the unpleasant ordeal she had suffered in the mesquite.

“Lucky you found somebody at the water-hole,” Ed commented.  “Who was this Ranger?  Never heard of the fellow,” he commented on the name.  “The Rangers are nothing like they used to be.”

“This fellow would do credit to any organization.”  As Alaire described how expeditiously Law had made his arrest and handled his man, her husband showed interest.

“Nicolas Anto, eh?” said he, “Who was his companero?”

“Panfilo Sanchez.”

Ed started.  “That’s strange!  They must have met accidentally.”

“So they both declared.  Why did you let Panfilo go?”

“We didn’t need him here, and he was too good a man to lose, so—­” Ed found his wife’s eyes fixed upon him, and dropped his own.  “I knew you were short-handed at La Feria.”  There was an interval of silence, then Ed exclaimed, testily, “What are you looking at?”

“I wondered what you’d say.”

“Eh?  Can’t I fire a man without a long-winded explanation?” Something in Alaire’s expression warned him of her suspicion; therefore he took refuge behind an assumption of anger.  “My God!  Don’t I have a word to say about my own ranch?  Just because I’ve let you run things to suit yourself—­”