e up to?" was the burden of
his thoughts; "w'at kind of a gold brick has the big guy got to sell?"
McGuire was only applying the measure of the streets he had walked to
a range bounded by the horizon and the fourth dimension.

[FOOTNOTE 37: There is a town named Rincon almost 200 miles south
of San Antonio, but it is not on the route of the
I. & G. N. O. Henry often appropriated names of
real places for his stories without worrying about
geographical correctness. The description here is
undoubtedly from O. Henry's memory of his journey
from his home in North Carolina to a ranch in
LaSalle County, Texas, when he was twenty. He
would have gotten off the I. & G. N. at Cotulla,
about 90 miles south of San Antonio, and ridden
to the ranch as described in this paragraph. The
description of this journey, with its vistas and
aromas, is repeated in a number of O. Henry's
stories.]

A week before, while riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick
and weakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had
reached and slung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped
it at the ranch for the boys to attend to. It was impossible for
McGuire to know or comprehend that, in the eyes of the cattleman, his
case and that of the calf were identical in interest and demand upon
his assistance. A creature was ill and helpless; he had the power to
render aid--these were the only postulates required for the cattleman
to act. They formed his system of logic and the most of his creed.
McGuire was the seventh invalid whom Raidler had picked up thus
casually in San Antonio, where so many thousand go for the ozone that
is said to linger about its contracted streets. Five of them had been
guests of Solito Ranch until they had been able to leave, cured or
better, and exhausting the vocabulary of tearful gratitude. One came
too late, but rested very comfortably, at last, under a ratama tree
in the garden.

So, then, it was no surprise to the ranchhold when the buckboard spun
to the door, and Raidler took up his debile _protege_ like a handful
of rags and set him down upon the gallery.

McGuire looked upon things strange to him. The ranch-house was the
best in the country. It was