“When you get through invoicin’ yer trooso, Winthrup, it wouldn’t delay us none if you’d grasp that there hand-ax an’ carve out a little fire-fodder.”  He glanced up at Alice.  “An’ if cookin’ of any kind has be’n inclooded in your repretwa of accomplishments, you might sizzle up a hunk of that sow-belly, an’ keep yer eye on this here pot.  An’ if Winthrup should happen to recover from his locomotive attacksyou an’ hack off a limb or two, you can get a little bigger blaze a-goin’ an’, just before that water starts to burn, slop in a fistful of java.  You’ll find some dough-gods an’ salve in one of them canvas bags, an’ when you’re all set, holler.  I’ll throw the kaks on these cayuses, an’ Bat, he can wrastle with the pack.”

Alice looked into the Texan’s face with a peculiar little puckering of the brows, and laughed:  “See here, Mr. Tex,” she said, “of course, I know that java must be coffee, but if you will kindly render the rest of your remarks a little less caliginous by calling the grub by its Christian name, maybe I’ll get along better with the breakfast.”

The Texan was laughing now, a wholesome, hearty laugh in which was no trace of cynicism, and the girl felt that for the first time she had caught a glimpse of the real man, the boyish, whole-hearted man that once or twice before she had suspected existed behind the mask of the sardonic smile.  From that moment she liked him and at the breezy whimsicality of his next words she decided that it would be well worth the effort to penetrate the mask.

“The dude, or dictionary, names for the above specified commodities is bacon, biscuits, an’ butter.  An’ referrin’ back to your own etymological spasm, the word ‘grub’ shows a decided improvement over anything you have uttered previous.  I had expected ‘food’ an’ wouldn’t have hardly batted an’ eye at ‘viands,’ an’ the caliginous part of it is good, only, if you aim to obfuscate my convolutions you’ll have to dig a little deeper.  Entirely irrelevant to syntax an’ the allied trades, as the feller says, I’ll add that them leggin’s of yourn is on the wrong legs, an’ here comes Winthrup with a chip.”

Turning abruptly, the man made his way toward the horses, and as Endicott approached with an armful of firewood, the contrast between the men was brought sharply to the girl’s notice.  The Texan, easy and lithe of movement as an animal born to the wild, the very tilt of his soft-brimmed hat and the set of his clothing bespeaking conscious mastery of his environment—­a mastery that the girl knew was not confined to the subduing of wild cattle and horses and the following of obscure trails in the nighttime.  Never for a moment had the air of self-confidence deserted him.  With the same easy assurance that he had flung his loop about the shoulders of the Mayor of Wolf River he had carried off the honours of the tournament, insulted Purdy to his face, dictated to the deputy sheriff, and planned and carried out the release of Endicott from the grip of the law.  And what was most surprising of all, never had he shown a trace of the boorish embarrassment or self-consciousness which, up to the moment of his brutal attack upon her, had characterized the attitude of Purdy.  And the girl realized that beneath his picturesque slurring and slashing of English, was a familiarity with words that had never been picked up in the cow-country.