Taisie’s cotton shirt, a man’s shirt, was open at the neck. Above the high-water mark of the ardent sun, protected by her hat brim, flowed back the mass of her bright hair, which for sake of comfort she wore now, as customarily, in a great queue wrapped with thong, as though she were some Indian woman. True, she might have been the forerunning arbiter of woman’s ways of costume fifty years later in the West; but Taisie Lockhart’s dress was not done in any imitation or any affectation. She had chosen it for two reasons—firstly, because she was broke; secondly, because it was convenient.
“Miss Lockhart,” remarked Jim Nabours in the formula which he best knew, “shake hands with Mr. ——. What did you tell me your name was?”
“McCoyne—Joe McCoyne, of Abilene, ma’am. I’m pleased to meet you.” Which also was in conformance with ineradicable formula.
Taisie held out her hand in silence, with her usual straight glance.
“You didn’t expect to see me down here from Abilene, did you, Miss Lockhart?” began the stockyards man.
“Why, no sir; are we almost there?”
“Right there. It ain’t much over two hundred mile. I knew there’d be a herd up this year. I was telling your foreman that I met a Mr. McMasters, Daniel McMasters, a while back, over around Baxter Springs. He said he was going down to Central Texas. You don’t happen to know him?”
The swift blood surged up to Taisie’s forehead.
“Why, yes; he rode with us for a time.”
But the Northern man was all for business. He cleared his throat.