Near the house was something he had not seen when he had looked before—the flutter of a white dress against the background of green. As he looked the white figure moved rapidly through the garden and disappeared behind the house.
"She didn't say a word," said Texas chokingly.
Ten hours out of Socorro Texas Rankin rode morosely into San Marcial. Into San Marcial the unbeautiful, with its vista of unpainted shanties and lurid dives. For in San Marcial foregathered the men of the mines and the ranges; men of forgotten morals, but of brawn and muscle, whose hearts beat not with a yearning for high ideals, but with a lust for wealth and gain—white, Indian, Mexican, half-breed; predatory spirits of many nations, opposed in the struggle for existence.
For ten hours Texas had ridden the river trail, and for ten hours his ears had been burdened with the dull beat of his pony's hoofs on the matted mesquite grass, and the rattle of his wooden stirrups against the chaparral growth. And for ten hours his mind had been confused with a multitude of perplexities and resentments.
But all mental confusions reach a culminating point when the mind finally throws aside the useless chaff of thought and considers only the questions that have to do with the heart. Wherefore, Texas Rankin's mind dwelt on Mary Jane. Subconsciously his mind harbored rebellion against her father, who had judged him; against Socorro, which had misunderstood him; against Fate, which had been unjust. All these atoms of personal interest were elements of a primitive emotion that finally evolved into one great concrete determination that he would show Jim Webster, Socorro, Mary Jane—the world, that he was not the creature they had thought him. Tearing aside all mental superfluities, there was revealed a new structure of thought:
"I am goin' to be a man again!"
And so Texas rode his tired pony in the gathering dusk; down the wide street that was beginning to flicker with the shafts of light from grimy windows; down to the hitching rail in front of the Top Notch Saloon—where he dismounted and stood stiffly beside his beast while he planned his regeneration.
Half an hour later Texas sat opposite a man at a card table in the rear of the Top Notch Saloon.