come into her eye. Her
frown smoothed away. She had an inspiration.

"There's a store over at Lone Elm Crossing on the Nueces," she said,
"that keeps hats. Eva Rogers got hers there. She said it was the
latest style. It might have some left. But it's twenty-eight miles to
Lone Elm."

The spurs of two men who hastily arose jingled; and Tonia almost
smiled. The Knights, then, were not all turned to dust; nor were their
rowels rust.

"Of course," said Tonia, looking thoughtfully at a white gulf cloud
sailing across the cerulean dome, "nobody could ride to Lone Elm and
back by the time the girls call by for me to-morrow. So, I reckon I'll
have to stay at home this Easter Sunday."

And then she smiled.

"Well, Miss Tonia," said Pearson, reaching for his hat, as guileful as
a sleeping babe. "I reckon I'll be trotting along back to Mucho Calor.
There's some cutting out to be done on Dry Branch first thing in the
morning; and me and Road Runner has got to be on hand. It's too bad
your hat got sidetracked. Maybe they'll get that trestle mended yet in
time for Easter."

"I must be riding, too, Miss Tonia," announced Burrows, looking at his
watch. "I declare, it's nearly five o'clock! I must be out at my
lambing camp in time to help pen those crazy ewes."

Tonia's suitors seemed to have been smitten with a need for haste. They
bade her a ceremonious farewell, and then shook each other's hands with
the elaborate and solemn courtesy of the Southwesterner.

"Hope I'll see you again soon, Mr. Pearson," said Burrows.

"Same here," said the cowman, with the serious face of one whose friend
goes upon a whaling voyage. "Be gratified to see you ride over to
Mucho Calor any time you strike that section of the range."

Pearson mounted Road Runner, the soundest cow-pony on the Frio, and let
him pitch for a minute, as he always did on being mounted, even at the
end of a day's travel.

"What kind of a hat was that, Miss Tonia," he called, "that you ordered
from San Antone? I can't help but be sorry about that hat."

"A straw," said Tonia; "the latest shape, of course; trimmed with red
roses. That's what I like--red roses."

"There's no color more becoming to your complexion and hair," said
Burrows, admiringly.

"It's what I like," said Tonia. "And of all the flowers, give me red
roses. Keep all the pinks and blues for yourself. But what's the use,
when trestles burn and leave you without anything? It'll be