Then through the cool twilight came the drive to the next pasture, and here the patience of the cowboys was taxed to the utmost, for as the stronger members of the herd forged ahead, the wearied, worried, littlest members fell behind.  Their joints were limber, and their legs unsteady; one and all were orphaned, too, for in that babel of sound no untrained ears could catch a mother’s low.  A mile of this and the whole rear guard was composed of plaintive, wet-eyed little calves who made slower and slower progress.  Some of them were stubborn and risked all upon a spirited dash back toward the homes they were leaving and toward the mothers who would not answer.  It took hard, sharp riding to run them down, for they fled like rabbits, bolting through prickly-pear and scrub, their tails bravely aloft, their stiff legs flying.  Others, too tired and thirsty to go farther, lay down and refused to budge, and these had to be carried over the saddlehorn until they had rested.  Some hid themselves cunningly in the mesquite clumps or burrowed into the coarse sagauista grass.

But now those swarthy, dare-devil riders were as gentle as women; they urged the tiny youngsters onward with harmless switches or with painless blows from loose-coiled riatas; they picked them up in their arms and rode with them.

Once through the gate and safe inside the restraining pasture fence, the herd was allowed to settle down.  Then began a patient search by outraged mothers, a series of mournful quests that were destined to continue far into the night; endless nosings and sniffings and caressings, which would keep up until each cow had found her own, until each calf was butting its head against maternal ribs and gaining that consolation which it craved.

A new moon was swinging in the sky as Alaire and Dave rode back toward Las Palmas.  The dry, gray grass was beginning to jewel with dew; the paths were ribbons of silver between dark blots of ink where the bushes grew.  Behind rose the jingle of spurs and bridles, the creak of leather, the voices of men.  It was an hour in which to talk freely, an environment suited to confidences, and Dave Law was happier than he had been for years.  He closed his eyes to the future, he stopped his ears to misgivings; with a song in his heart he rode at the stirrup of the woman he adored.

How or when Alaire Austin came to feel that this man loved her she never knew.  Certainly he gave no voice to his feeling, save, perhaps, by some unconscious tone or trick of speech; rather, the knowledge came to her intuitively as the result of some subconscious interchange of thought, some responsive vibration, which only a psychologist could analyze.  However it was, Alaire knew to-night that she was dear to her companion, and, strange to say, this certainty did not disturb her.  Inasmuch as the thing existed, why deny its right to exist? she asked herself.  Since it was in no wise dishonorable, how could it