e Deweese,
Uncle Lance, and myself. With the exception of Deweese, who was nearly
twenty-five years old, the remainder of the boys on the ranch were young
fellows, several of whom besides myself had not yet attained their
majority. On ranch work, in the absence of our employer, June was
recognized as the _segundo_ of Los Palomas, owing to his age and his
long employment on the ranch. He was a trustworthy man, and we younger
lads entertained no envy towards him.

It was about nine o'clock when we mounted our horses and started. We
jollied along in a party, or separated into pairs in cross-country
riding, covering about seven miles an hour. "I remember," said Uncle
Lance, as we were riding in a group, "the first time I was ever at
Shepherd's Ferry. We had been down the river on a cow hunt for about
three weeks and had run out of bacon. We had been eating beef, and
venison, and antelope for a week until it didn't taste right any longer,
so I sent the outfit on ahead and rode down to the store in the hope of
getting a piece of bacon. Shepherd had just established the place at the
time, and when I asked him if he had any bacon, he said he had, 'But is
it good?' I inquired, and before he could reply an eight-year-old boy of
his stepped between us, and throwing back his tow head, looked up into
my face and said: 'Mister, it's a little the best I ever tasted.'"

"Now, June," said Uncle Lance, as we rode along, "I want you to let
Henry Annear's wife strictly alone to-night. You know what a stink it
raised all along the river, just because you danced with her once, last
San Jacinto day. Of course, Henry made a fool of himself by trying to
borrow a six-shooter and otherwise getting on the prod. And I'll admit
that it don't take the best of eyesight to see that his wife to-day
thinks more of your old boot than she does of Annear's wedding suit,
yet her husband will be the last man to know it. No man can figure to a
certainty on a woman. Three guesses is not enough, for she will and she
won't, and she'll straddle the question or take the fence, and when you
put a copper on her to win, she loses. God made them just that way,
and I don't want to criticise His handiwork. But if my name is Lance
Lovelace, and I'm sixty-odd years old, and this a chestnut horse that
I'm riding, then Henry Annear's wife is an unhappy woman. But that fact,
son, don't give you any license to stir up trouble between man and wife.
Now, remember, I've warned y