front.

The man glanced into the white frightened face: "Coyotes," he said,
gravely. "They won't bother any one."

The girl shuddered. "There must be a million of them. What makes them
howl that way?"

"Most any other way would be better, wouldn't it. But I reckon that's
the way they've learnt to, so they just keep on that way."

Alice glanced at him sharply, but in the moonlight his clean-cut
profile gave no hint of levity.

"You are making fun of me!"

He turned his head and regarded her thoughtfully. "No. I wouldn't do
that, really. I was thinkin' of somethin' else."

"You are a very disconcerting young man. You are unspeakably rude, and
I ought to be furiously angry."

The Texan appeared to consider. "No. You oughtn't to do that because
when something important comes up you ain't got anything back, an'
folks won't regard you serious. But you wouldn't have been even peeved
if you knew what I was thinkin' about."

"What was it?" The instant the question left her lips the girl wished
she could have recalled it.

There was a long pause and Alice began to hope that the man had not
heard her question. Then he turned a very grave face toward her and
his eyes met hers squarely. "I was thinkin' that maybe, sometime,
you'd get to care enough about me to marry me. Sounds kind of abrupt
an' off-hand, don't it? But it ain't. I've been thinkin' about it a
lot. You're the first woman I've seen since--well, since way back
yonder, that I'd ever marry. The only one that stacks up to the kind
of people mine are, an' that I was back there. Of course, there'd be a
lot of readjustin' but that would work out--it always does when the
right kind of folks takes holt to put anything through. I've got some
recreations an' pastimes that ain't condoned by the pious. I gamble,
an' swear, an' smoke, an' lie, an' drink. But I gamble square, swear
decent an' hearty, lie for fun, but never in earnest, an' drink to a
reasonable degree of hilarity. My word is good with every man, woman,
an' child in the cow country. I never yet went back on a friend, nor
let up on an enemy. I never took underhand advantage of man or woman,
an' I know the cow business. For the rest of it, I'll go to the old
man an' offer to take the Eagle Creek ranch off his hands an' turn
nester. It's a good ranch, an' one that rightly handled would make a
man rich--provided he was a married man an' had somethin' to get rich
for. I don't want