in the air they drank to
'Viva los Timochis!' again. Then the chief and his men withdrew and
recrossed the river. It was the best day's trade he had had in a long
time. Now, here comes in the native. While the boy did everything
from compulsion and policy, the native element looked upon him with
suspicion. The owners of the store, knowing that this suspicion
existed, advised him to leave, and he did."

The two prisoners were sleeping soundly. Sleep comes easily to tired
men, and soon all but the solitary guard were wrapped in sleep, to
fight anew in rangers' dreams scathless battles!

* * * * *

There was not lacking the pathetic shade in the redemption of this
State from crime and lawlessness. In the village burying-ground of
Round Rock, Texas, is a simple headstone devoid of any lettering save
the name "Sam Bass." His long career of crime and lawlessness would
fill a good-sized volume. He met his death at the hands of Texas
Rangers. Years afterward a woman, with all the delicacy of her sex,
and knowing the odium that was attached to his career, came to this
town from her home in the North and sought out his grave. As only a
woman can, when some strong tie of affection binds, this woman went to
work to mark the last resting-place of the wayward man. Concealing her
own identity, she performed these sacred rites, clothing in mystery
her relation to the criminal. The people of the village would not have
withheld their services in well-meant friendship, but she shrank from
them, being a stranger.

A year passed, and she came again. This time she brought the stone
which marks his last resting-place. The chivalry of this generous
people was aroused in admiration of a woman that would defy the
calumny attached to an outlaw. While she would have shrunk from
kindness, had she been permitted, such devotion could not go
unchallenged. So she disclosed her identity.

She was his sister.

Bass was Northern born, and this sister was the wife of a respectable
practicing physician in Indiana. Womanlike, her love for a wayward
brother followed him beyond his disgraceful end. With her own hands
she performed an act that has few equals, as a testimony of love and
affection for her own.

For many years afterward she came annually, her timidity having worn
away after the generous reception accorded her at the hands of a
hospitable people.

VIII

AT COMANCHE FORD

"There's our ford," sai