ew one on me. Why, Tom, I never knew
you had any folks; I got the idea, somehow, that you was won on a horse
race. Here I had everything figured out to send you down to Santa Maria
with Enrique. But I reckon with the ice broken, he'll have to swim out
or drown. Where do your folks live?" I explained that they lived on the
San Antonio River, northeast about one hundred and fifty miles. At this
I saw my employer's face brighten. "Yes, yes, I see," said he musingly;
"that will carry you past the widow McLeod's. You can go, son, and good
luck to you."

I timed my departure from Las Palomas, allowing three days for the trip,
so as to reach home on Christmas eve. By making a slight deviation,
there was a country store which I could pass on the last day, where I
expected to buy some presents for my mother and sisters. But I was in a
pickle as to what to give Esther, and on consulting Miss Jean, I found
that motherly elder sister had everything thought out in advance. There
was an old Mexican woman, a pure Aztec Indian, at a ranchita belonging
to Las Palomas, who was an expert in Mexican drawn work. The mistress of
the home ranch had been a good patron of this old woman, and the next
morning we drove over to the ranchita, where I secured half a dozen
ladies' handkerchiefs, inexpensive but very rare.

I owned a private horse, which had run idle all summer, and naturally
expected to ride him on this trip. But Uncle Lance evidently wanted me
to make a good impression on the widow McLeod, and brushed my plans
aside, by asking me as a favor to ride a certain black horse belonging
to his private string. "Quirk," said he, the evening before my
departure, "I wish you would ride Wolf, that black six-year-old in my
mount. When that rascal of an Enrique saddle-broke him for me, he always
mounted him with a free head and on the move, and now when I use him
he's always on the fidget. So you just ride him over to the San Antonio
and back, and see if you can't cure him of that restlessness. It may be
my years, but I just despise a horse that's always dancing a jig when I
want to mount him."

Glenn Gallup's people lived in Victoria County, about as far from Las
Palomas as mine, and the next morning we set out down the river. Our
course together only led a short distance, but we jogged along until
noon, when we rested an hour and parted, Glenn going on down the river
for Oakville, while I turned almost due north across country for the
mouth