figure in lieu of a father to
present to Harboro's mind's eye. Her father (she said) was not very well
and was inclined to be disagreeable. He did not like the idea of his
daughter getting married. She was all he had, and he was fearfully
lonesome at times.

Harboro had accepted all this readily. He had asked no questions.

And so Little went to the wedding. He went early so that he could get a
seat over against the wall, where he wouldn't be too conspicuous. He
looked decidedly like an outsider, and, as a matter of fact, a good many
people did not recognize him as Sylvia's father. He was probably regarded
as a stranger who had drifted into the church to enjoy the familiar yet
interesting spectacle of a man and a maid bound together by a rite which
was the more interesting because it seemed so ephemeral, yet meant so
much.

Several of the young women of Eagle Pass had aided Sylvia in getting ready
to meet her husband-to-be at the altar. They were well-known girls, acting
with the aid (and in the company) of their mothers. They did not admit
even to one another what it was that separated Sylvia from their world.
Perhaps they did not fully understand. They did know that Sylvia was not
one of them; but they felt sorry for her, and they enjoyed the experience
of arraying her as a bride and of constituting, for the moment, a pretty
and irreproachable setting for her wistful person. They were somewhat
excited, too. They had the feeling that they were helping to set a
mouse-trap to catch a lion--or something like that.

And after the wedding Mr. and Mrs. Harboro emerged from the church into
the clear night, under the stars, and went afoot in the direction of their
new home--an attractive structure which Harboro had had erected on what
was called the Quemado Road.

A good many of the guests looked after them, and then at each other, but
of definite comment there was mighty little.

Sylvia's father went back to his house alone. He was not seen in the
Maverick Bar that night, nor for quite a number of succeeding nights. He
had never had any experiences in Eagle Pass which proved him to be a
courageous man--or to lack courage; but in all probability a sensation
akin to fear bothered him more or less during those first days and nights
after his daughter had got married.

Perhaps it would have been better for Sylvia if he had brazened it out
just at that time, for on the very night of the wedding there was talk in
the Maveri