fuge. But
you'd better slide out now; for the diagnosis don't call for you in
regular doses. The little lady'll be all right when she wakes up.'

"I seen old McAllister outside. 'She's asleep,' says I. 'And now you
can start in with your colander-work. Take your time; for I left my
gun on my saddle-horn.'

"Old Mac laughs, and he says to me: 'Pumpin' lead into the best
ranch-boss in West Texas don't seem to me good business policy. I don't
know where I could get as good a one. It's the son-in-law idea, Webb,
that makes me admire for to use you as a target. You ain't my idea for a
member of the family. But I can use you on the Nopalito if you'll keep
outside of a radius with the ranch-house in the middle of it. You go
upstairs and lay down on a cot, and when you get some sleep we'll talk
it over.'"

Baldy Woods pulled down his hat, and uncurled his leg from his
saddle-horn. Webb shortened his rein, and his pony danced, anxious to be
off. The two men shook hands with Western ceremony.

"_Adios_, Baldy," said Webb, "I'm glad I seen you and had this talk."

With a pounding rush that sounded like the rise of a covey of quail,
the riders sped away toward different points of the compass. A hundred
yards on his route Baldy reined in on the top of a bare knoll, and
emitted a yell. He swayed on his horse; had he been on foot, the earth
would have risen and conquered him; but in the saddle he was a master
of equilibrium, and laughed at whisky, and despised the centre of
gravity.

Webb turned in his saddle at the signal.

"If I was you," came Baldy's strident and perverting tones, "I'd be
king!"

At eight o'clock on the following morning Bud Turner rolled from his
saddle in front of the Nopalito ranch-house, and stumbled with whizzing
rowels toward the gallery. Bud was in charge of the bunch of beef-cattle
that was to strike the trail that morning for San Antonio. Mrs. Yeager
was on the gallery watering a cluster of hyacinths growing in a red
earthenware jar.

"King" McAllister had bequeathed to his daughter many of his strong
characteristics--his resolution, his gay courage, his contumacious
self-reliance, his pride as a reigning monarch of hoofs and horns.
_Allegro_ and _fortissimo_ had been McAllister's tempo and tone. In
Santa they survived, transposed to the feminine key. Substantially,
she preserved the image of the mother who had been summoned to wander
in other and less finite green pastures long before the waxi