The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley - Mayne Reid

Happy they, and happy also one who was but a witness of the ceremony, having a better view of it than most of the spectators, from being the head and shoulders taller than any. Need we say this towering personage was the big Tejano? Cris looked on delightedly, proud of his comrade and protégé, with the beautiful bride he had won and was wedding. For all it failed to shake his own faith in single blessedness. In his eyes there was no bride so beautiful as the “Land of the Lone Star,” no wife so dear as its wild “purairas.” And to them after a time he returned, oft around the camp-fire entertaining his companions of the chase with an account of his adventures in the Mexican valley—how he had there figured in the various rôles of jail-bird, scavenger, friar, and last of all as one of the Free Lances.

The End.