that getting married was the turning-point in Carey Troup's
life. Who knows but Aaron might sober down if he was to marry? Just
because a man has sown a few wild oats in his youth, does that condemn
him for all time? You want to be more liberal. Give me the man who has
stood the fire tests of life in preference to one who has never been
tempted."

"Now, Lance, you know you had a motive in taking Aaron down to
Wilson's," said the sister, reprovingly. "Don't get the idea that
I can't read you like an open book. Your argument is as good as an
admission of your object in going to Ramirena. Ever since Scales got up
that flirtation with Suzanne Vaux last summer, it was easy to see that
Aaron was a favorite with you. Why don't you take Happersett around and
introduce him to some nice girls? Honest, Lance, I wouldn't give poor
old Dan for the big beef corral full of rascals like Scales. Look how he
trifled with that silly girl in Florida."

Instead of continuing the argument, the wily ranchero changed the
subject.

"The trouble with Dan is he's too old. When a fellow begins to get a
little gray around the edges, he gets so foxy that you couldn't bait him
into a matrimonial trap with sweet grapes. But, Sis, what's the matter
with your keeping an eye open for a girl for Dan, if he's such a
favorite with you? If I had half the interest in him that you profess, I
certainly wouldn't ask any one to help. It wouldn't surprise me if the
boys take to marrying freely after John and Tom bring their brides to
Las Palomas. Now that Mrs. Annear is a widow, there's the same old
chance for June. If Glenn don't make the riffle with Miss Jule, he ought
to be shot on general principles. And I don't know, little sister, if
you and I were both to oppose it, that we could prevent that rascal of
an Aaron from marrying into the Wilson family. You have no idea what a
case Susie and Scales scared up during our ten days' hunt. That only
leaves Dan and Theodore. But what's the use of counting the chickens
so soon? You go to bed, for I'm going to send to the Mission to-morrow
after the masons. There's no use in my turning in, for I won't sleep a
wink to-night, thinking all this over."

CHAPTER XVIII

AN INDIAN SCARE

Near the close of January, '79, the Nueces valley was stirred by an
Indian scare. I had a distinct recollection of two similar scares in my
boyhood on the San Antonio River, in which I never caught a glimpse of
the noble red m