pastimes that ain’t condoned by the pious.  I gamble, an’ swear, an’ smoke, an’ lie, an’ drink.  But I gamble square, swear decent an’ hearty, lie for fun, but never in earnest, an’ drink to a reasonable degree of hilarity.  My word is good with every man, woman, an’ child in the cow country.  I never yet went back on a friend, nor let up on an enemy.  I never took underhand advantage of man or woman, an’ I know the cow business.  For the rest of it, I’ll go to the old man an’ offer to take the Eagle Creek ranch off his hands an’ turn nester.  It’s a good ranch, an’ one that rightly handled would make a man rich—­provided he was a married man an’ had somethin’ to get rich for.  I don’t want you to tell me now, you won’t, or you will.  We’ve got a week or so yet to get acquainted in.  An’, here’s another thing.  I know, an’ you know, down deep in your heart, that you’re goin’ to marry either Win, or me.  Maybe you know which.  I don’t.  But if it is him, you’ll get a damned good man.  He’s square an’ clean.  He’s got nerve—­an’ there ain’t no bluff about it, neither.  Wise men don’t fool with a man with an eye like his.  An’ he wants you as bad as I do.  As I said, we’ve got a week or more to get acquainted.  It will be a week that may take us through some mighty tough sleddin’, but that ain’t goin’ to help you none in choosin’, because neither one of us will break—­an’ you can bet your last stack of blue ones on that.”

The girl’s lips were pressed very tight, and for some moments she rode in silence.

“Do you suppose I would ever marry a man who deliberately gets so drunk he sings and talks incessantly——­”

“You’d be safer marryin’ one that got drunk deliberately, than one who done it inadvertent when he aimed to stay sober.  Besides, there’s various degrees of drunkenness, the term bein’ relative.  But for the sake of argument admittin’ I was drunk, if you object to the singin’ and talkin’, what do you recommend a man to do when he’s drunk?”

“I utterly despise a man that gets drunk!” The words came with an angry vehemence, and for many minutes the Texan rode in silence while the bit chains clinked and the horses’ hoofs thudded the ground dully.  He leaned forward and his gloved hand gently smoothed his horse’s mane.  “You don’t mean just exactly that,” he said, with his eyes on the dim outline of a butte that rose high in the distance.  Alice noticed that the bantering tone was gone from his voice, and that his words fell with a peculiar softness.  “I reckon, though, I know what you do mean.  An’ I reckon that barrin’ some little difference in viewpoint, we think about alike. . . .  Yonder’s Antelope Butte.  We’ll be safe to camp there till we find out which way the wind blows before we strike across.”

Deeper and deeper they pushed into the bad lands, the huge bulk of Antelope Butte looming always before them, its outline showing distinctly in the light of the sinking moon.  As far as the eye could see on every side the moonlight revealed only black lava-rock, deep black shadows that marked the courses of dry coulees, and enormous mud-cracks—­and Antelope Butte.