Inarticulate sound came in Anastasie’s throat. She cast a triumphant glance at her foreman.
“Well, now, ma’am, how was I to know?” defended Jim. “I never did hear of no Aberlene, not in my whole life, till this young gentleman rid in here this morning.”
“Well, you ought to have heard of it!” rejoined his employer with a woman’s logic. “Why, man, that’s what all Texas has been starving for for years! Didn’t I tell you? Haven’t I been telling you? Haven’t I been begging you to make a herd and drive north, somewhere, and trust to God to find buyers there, since there’s no hope here, south or east? Haven’t I told you, Jim?”
“I reckon you did, ma’am,” admitted her aid. “Same time, you didn’t know a damned thing about it.”
“Oh, you!” Taisie turned to him. “Do you expect to have people show you what’s in their hands before you draw cards? Can’t you take a chance?”
“For my own self, yes, Miss Taisie. For you—we all was scared. Especial we was scared when you said you was going along.”
“But I am going along! And I am going to put up a herd!”
“Now, Miss Lockhart,” ventured Dan McMasters, “you couldn’t do that. Your men can put up a herd and drive north for you, but no woman ever has gone north of the Red, or ever ought to try it. There’s no real trail—it’s all wild north of here for fifteen hundred miles or more. There’s not a bridge—I’ve swum ten rivers and forded a hundred. There are Indians. There are storms—and no shelter for you. Miss Lockhart, there’s not a man in Texas ever would let you go.”
“There’s not men enough in all Texas to keep me from going!”
Taisie’s grief was entirely forgotten now.