ime he rose and withdrew to the shelter of another tree, there
to content himself with mental images of his guest.

But one cannot sleep well with a tropic sun in the heavens, and since
there was really nothing for her to do until the heat abated, Alaire,
when she awoke, obliged the Ranger to amuse her.

Although she was in fact younger than he, married life had matured her,
and she treated him therefore like a boy. Law did not object. Mrs.
Austin's position in life was such that most men were humble in her
presence, and now her superior wisdom seemed to excite the Ranger's
liveliest admiration. Only now and then, as if in an unguarded moment,
did he appear to forget himself and speak with an authority equaling
her own. What he said at such times indicated either a remarkably
retentive memory or else an ability to think along original lines too
rare among men of his kind to be easily credited.

For instance, during a discussion of the Mexican situation--and of
course their talk drifted thither, for at the moment it was the one
vitally interesting topic along the border--he excused the barbarous
practices of the Mexican soldiers by saying:

"Of course they're cruel, vindictive, treacherous, but after all there
are only a hundred and forty generations between us and Adam; only a
hundred and forty lifetimes since the Garden of Eden. We civilized
peoples are only a lap or two ahead of the uncivilized ones. When you
think that it takes ten thousand generations to develop a plant and
root out some of its early heredities, you can see that human beings
have a long way yet to go before they become perfect. We're creatures
of environment, just like plants. Environment has made the Mexican what
he is."

Certainly this was an amazing speech to issue from a sun-browned cowboy
sitting cross-legged under a mesquite-tree.

From under her hat-brim Alaire Austin eyed the speaker with a curiosity
into which there had come a vague hostility. For the moment she was
suspicious and piqued, but Law did not appear to notice, and as he
talked on her doubts gradually subsided.

"You said, last night, that you were born on the other side?" She
inclined her ruddy head to the west.

"Yes'm. My father was a mining man, and he done well over there until
he locked horns with the Guadalupes. Old Don Enrique and him had a
run-in at the finish, over some land or something. It was when the Don
was gobbling all the property in the state, and layin