The girl looked at him. She had been in tears. Her nerves were going. She was no longer the daring Taisie Lockhart, “dulce ridentem . . . dulce loquentem,” like the Lalage of Horace of old, always ready to chat and ready to laugh.
“Drive them away!” Her glance was toward the distant row of solemn black birds, advancing, hopping staring.
Dalhart dropped her tent flap into a screen. He found a bundle and seated himself, not invited.
“Miss Lockhart,” said he directly, “one way, I’m only one of your hands. In Uvalde, you could find out who I am.”
“I suppose so. You’re on point? That means my foreman thinks you know cows?”
“Yes. Now, Mr. Nabours and I been talking. We think we’ve been jumped by the Sim Rudabaugh bunch, of Austin. They don’t ever aim to let this herd git north, Miss Lockhart. They aim to break it up and git it headed west.
“They’ve got their own surveyors out—away west. We seen four camps of surveyors in west there this spring, where we was hunting strays. They’re locatin’ range by the hundreds of sections—waste land nobody has wanted. They’re scrippin’ it, ma’am. They want all the scrip they can git, and they done got it most all.”
He spoke of certain things. In his mind were certain other things. His bold eyes, virile, assertive, demanding, never left the alluring picture that Taisie Lockhart made for any man. She remained languid, indifferent.
“My father said Texas lands would go up. He was laughed at. You knew him—my father?”
“No’m; I didn’t know him personal. But all Texas knowed Colonel Burleson Lockhart fer a square man and a big man. This state needs him now; it shore does. We’ve got to clean up Austin, or Austin’s goin’ to take all Texas away from the Texans.