enor? I saw him near the _puerta_ [64] but two hours past.
He bears a drag-rope."

[FOOTNOTE 64: puerta--(Spanish) gate]

"Get him and saddle him as quick as you can."

"_Prontito, senor_."

Soon, mounted on Vaminos, Ranse leaned in the saddle, pressed with his
knees, and galloped eastward past the store, where sat Sam trying his
guitar in the moonlight.

Vaminos shall have a word--Vaminos the good dun horse. The Mexicans,
who have a hundred names for the colours of a horse, called him
_gruyo_. He was a mouse-coloured, slate-coloured, flea-bitten
roan-dun, if you can conceive it. Down his back from his mane to his
tail went a line of black. He would live forever; and surveyors have
not laid off as many miles in the world as he could travel in a day.

Eight miles east of the Cibolo ranch-house Ranse loosened the pressure
of his knees, and Vaminos stopped under a big ratama tree. The yellow
ratama blossoms showered fragrance that would have undone the roses of
France. The moon made the earth a great concave bowl with a crystal
sky for a lid. In a glade five jack-rabbits leaped and played together
like kittens. Eight miles farther east shone a faint star that
appeared to have dropped below the horizon. Night riders, who often
steered their course by it, knew it to be the light in the Rancho de
los Olmos.

In ten minutes Yenna Curtis galloped to the tree on her sorrel pony
Dancer. The two leaned and clasped hands heartily.

"I ought to have ridden nearer your home," said Ranse. "But you never
will let me."

Yenna laughed. And in the soft light you could see her strong white
teeth and fearless eyes. No sentimentality there, in spite of the
moonlight, the odour of the ratamas, and the admirable figure of Ranse
Truesdell, the lover. But she was there, eight miles from her home, to
meet him.

"How often have I told you, Ranse," she said, "that I am your half-way
girl? Always half-way."

"Well?" said Ranse, with a question in his tones.

"I did," said Yenna, with almost a sigh. "I told him after dinner when
I thought he would be in a good humour. Did you ever wake up a lion,
Ranse, with the mistaken idea that he would be a kitten? He almost
tore the ranch to pieces. It's all up. I love my daddy, Ranse, and I'm
afraid--I'm afraid of him too. He ordered me to promise that I'd never
marry a Truesdell. I promised. That's all. What luck did you have?"

"The same," said Ranse, slowly. "I promised him that his son