or fair. A hoss like that has him
wind an' power to burn--"

"You raised horses before the war?"

Kirby swallowed what must have been the last soggy crumb of hardtack.
"Well, we had a mind to try that. M'pa, he started him a spread down
Pecos way. He had him a good stud-quarter hoss--one of Steel Dust's git.
Won two or three races, that stud did. Called him Kiowa. Pa made a deal
with a Mex mustanger; he got some prime stuff he caught in the
Panhandle. One mare, I 'member--she was a natcherel pacer. Yeah, you
might say as how we was gittin' a start at a first-rate string. Me an'
m' brothers, we was breakin' some right pretty colts..."

His voice trailed into silence. Drew reined in the black again and asked
another question:

"What happened ... the war?"

"What happened? Well, you might say as how Comanches happened. Me, I was
trailin' 'long with this Mex mustanger to learn some of his tricks. When
I came back, theah jus' warn't nothin'--nothin' a man wants to remember
after. Someday I'm gonna hunt me Comanches. Gonna learn me some tricks
in this heah war I can use in that business!" There was no change in
his expression. If anything, his drawl was a little softer and lazier,
but the deadly promise in it reached Drew as clearly as if the other had
burst out with the Rebel Yell.

"This is it!" Captain Campbell rode back along their line. It was a
larger company; they had gathered in more fugitives this morning and had
no stragglers. All they lacked was adequate arms to present a rather
formidable source of trouble behind the Union lines. "We're goin' into
the McKeever place. You men--remember, you're prisoners!"

Very reluctantly those in that unhappy role unbuckled gun belts, passing
their side arms over to their "captors." There was a graveled drive
branching out of the pike to their right with a grove of trees arching
over it, so they rode into a restful green twilight out of the punishing
sun.

Fields rippled lushly beyond that border of trees. There was a
cleanness, a contentment, a satisfaction about this place which was no
part of them or any men who passed so, armed, restless, tearing apart
just such peace as enfolded them here. They rode out of urgency when the
gravel of that well-raked drive shifted under the hoofs of their mounts.

"I'm sayin' one thing loud an' clear," Kirby announced to those in his
immediate vicinity as they neared a big brick house. "I may be playin'
prisoner to you boys, but I a