“Now, Lance, you know you had a motive in taking Aaron down to Wilson’s,” said the sister, reprovingly.  “Don’t get the idea that I can’t read you like an open book.  Your argument is as good as an admission of your object in going to Ramirena.  Ever since Scales got up that flirtation with Suzanne Vaux last summer, it was easy to see that Aaron was a favorite with you.  Why don’t you take Happersett around and introduce him to some nice girls?  Honest, Lance, I wouldn’t give poor old Dan for the big beef corral full of rascals like Scales.  Look how he trifled with that silly girl in Florida.”

Instead of continuing the argument, the wily ranchero changed the subject.

“The trouble with Dan is he’s too old.  When a fellow begins to get a little gray around the edges, he gets so foxy that you couldn’t bait him into a matrimonial trap with sweet grapes.  But, Sis, what’s the matter with your keeping an eye open for a girl for Dan, if he’s such a favorite with you?  If I had half the interest in him that you profess, I certainly wouldn’t ask any one to help.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the boys take to marrying freely after John and Tom bring their brides to Las Palomas.  Now that Mrs. Annear is a widow, there’s the same old chance for June.  If Glenn don’t make the riffle with Miss Jule, he ought to be shot on general principles.  And I don’t know, little sister, if you and I were both to oppose it, that we could prevent that rascal of an Aaron from marrying into the Wilson family.  You have no idea what a case Susie and Scales scared up during our ten days’ hunt.  That only leaves Dan and Theodore.  But what’s the use of counting the chickens so soon?  You go to bed, for I’m going to send to the Mission to-morrow after the masons.  There’s no use in my turning in, for I won’t sleep a wink to-night, thinking all this over.”

CHAPTER XVIII

AN INDIAN SCARE

Near the close of January, ’79, the Nueces valley was stirred by an Indian scare.  I had a distinct recollection of two similar scares in my boyhood on the San Antonio River, in which I never caught a glimpse of the noble red man.  But whether the rumors were groundless or not, Las Palomas set her house in order.  The worst thing we had to fear was the loss of our saddle stock, as they were gentle and could be easily run off and corralled on the range by stretching lariats.  At this time the ranch had some ten remudas including nearly five hundred saddle horses, some of them ranging ten or fifteen miles from the ranch, and on receipt of the first rumor, every remuda was brought in home and put under a general herd, night and day.