the number of nearly two hundred, and now our
usual routine of horse breaking commenced. The masons had completed
their work on all three of the cottages and returned to the Mission, but
the carpenter yet remained to finish up the woodwork. Fidel and Juana
had begun housekeeping in their little home, and the cosy warmth which
radiated from it made me impatient to see my cottage finished. Through
the mistress, arrangements had been made for the front rooms in both
John's cottage and mine to be floored instead of cemented.

Some two weeks before Easter Sunday, Cotton returned from the Frio,
where he had been making a call on his intended. Uncle Lance at once
questioned him to know if they had set the day, and was informed that
the marriage would occur within ten days after Lent, and that he
expected first to make a hurried trip to San Antonio for a wedding
outfit.

"That's all right, John," said the old ranchero approvingly, "and I
expect Quirk might as well go with you. You can both draw every cent due
you, and take your time, as wages will go right on the same as if you
were working. There will not be much to do except the usual horse
breaking and a little repairing about the ranch. It's quite likely I
shan't be able to spare Tom in the early summer, for if no cattle buyers
come along soon, I'm going to send June to the coast and let him sniff
around for one. I'd like the best in the world to sell about three
thousand beeves, and we never had fatter ones than we have to-day. If we
can make a sale, it'll keep us busy all the fore part of the summer. So
both you fellows knock off any day you want to and go up to the city.
And go horseback, for this ranch don't give Bethel & Oxenford's stages
any more of its money."

With this encouragement, we decided to start for the city the next
morning. But that evening I concluded to give a certain roan gelding a
final ride before turning him over to the vaqueros. He was a vicious
rascal, and after trying a hundred manoeuvres to unhorse me, reared and
fell backward, and before I could free my foot from the stirrup, caught
my left ankle, fracturing several of the small bones in the joint. That
settled my going anywhere on horseback for a month, as the next morning
I could not touch my foot to the ground. John did not like to go alone,
and the mistress insisted that Theodore was well entitled to a vacation.
The master consented, each was paid the wages due him, and catching up
thei