“Of course, I’ll do the cooking!” assented the girl, and began to carry the camp utensils from the pack that the half-breed had thrown upon the ground.  “The dough-gods are all gone!” she exclaimed in dismay, peering into a canvas bag.

“Mix up some bakin’-powder ones.  There’s flour an’ stuff in that brown sack.”

“But—­I don’t know how!”

“All right.  Wait ’til I get Win strung out on this job, an’ I’ll make up a batch.”

He watched Endicott arrange some stones:  “Hey, you got to fit those rocks in better’n that.  Mud ain’t goin’ to hold without a good backin’.”

The cowboy washed his hands in the overflow trickle and wiped them upon his handkerchief.  “I don’t know what folks does all their lives back East,” he grinned; “Win, there, ain’t barbered none to speak of, an’ the Lord knows he ain’t no stone-mason.”

Alice did not return the smile, and the Texan noticed that her face was grave in the pale starlight.  For the first time in her life the girl felt ashamed of her own incompetence.

“And I can’t cook, and——­”

“Well, that’s so,” drawled Tex, “but it won’t be so tomorrow.  No one but a fool would blame any one for not doin’ a thing they’ve never learnt to do.  They might wonder a little how-come they never learnt, but they wouldn’t hold it against ’em—­not ’til they’ve had the chance.”  Bat was still busy with the horses and the cowboy collected sticks and lighted a small fire, talking, as he worked with swift movements that accomplished much without the least show of haste.  “It generally don’t take long in the cow country for folks to get their chance.  Take Win, there.  Day before yesterday he was about the greenest pilgrim that ever straddled a horse.  Not only he didn’t know anything worth while knowin’, but he was prejudiced.  The first time I looked at him I sized him up—­almost.  ‘There’s a specimen,’ I says to myself—­while you an’ Purdy was gossipin’ about the handkerchief, an’ the dance, an’ what a beautiful rider he was—­’that’s gone on gatherin’ refinement ’til it’s crusted onto him so thick it’s probably struck through.’  But just as I was losin’ interest in him, he slanted a glance at Purdy that made me look him over again.  There he stood, just the same as before—­only different.”  The Texan poured some flour into a pan and threw in a couple of liberal pinches of baking-powder.

Alice’s eyes followed his every movement, and she glanced toward the spring that Endicott had churned into a mud hole.  The cowboy noted her glance.  “It would be riled too much even if we strained it,” he smiled, “so we’ll just use what’s left in that flask.  It don’t take much water an’ the spring will clear in time for the coffee.”

“And some people never do learn?” Alice wanted to hear more from this man’s lips concerning the pilgrim.  But the Texan mustn’t know that she wanted to hear.