“They was tied!” said Jim Nabours.
McMasters nodded, bending over the bruised stems which the reins had covered.
“They must have closed up a lot last night,” said Dan McMasters cryptically, as though to himself. “They couldn’t have been far off this morning.
“Thank you, Mr. Rattler!” He smiled grimly as he kicked at a crooked stick for substitute of the dead snake. “You served me a good turn!”
CHAPTER V
MARRIAGE, COWS AND CARPETBAGS
THE foreman of Del Sol stood, hands in pockets, for some time, looking down the trace whither the late visitor had disappeared. His head was dropped forward, as one in studious distrust of his own judgment; a frown yet more wrinkled his forehead. At length he turned and found his way, not to the corrals, but to the house.
Blancocito still stood dozing in the sun. The mistress of Del Sol was not riding this morning. Jim knocked at the front door.
“Come!”
He entered. Taisie was sitting at the end of the rawhide settee, still in her bravest finery. Her hands lay in her lap; her eyes were somber, clouded; doubt, distrust appeared her portion also.
She had looked about her with appraising eye; had reflected also. All about, in every token, she saw evidences of lapse, of retrogression, of decay, indeed of poverty rapidly running to seed. The lack of a strong hand was not to be denied. Moreover, the conditions of this property were reflected all over a state, where not even the strongest hand or the clearest mind had been able to achieve solution. It was the hour of travail for a great, unknown, forgotten country. Taisie Lockhart might have known that the travail of a country is only the multiple of many individual pains.