After a time the latter said, casually, “Tell me something about Tad Lewis.”

Blaze looked up quickly.  “What d’you want to know?”

“Anything.  Everything.”

“Tad owns a right nice ranch between here and Las Palmas,” Blaze said, cautiously.

Paloma broke out, impatiently:  “Why don’t you say what you think?” Then to Dave:  “Tad Lewis is a bad neighbor, and always has been.  There’s a ford on his place, and we think he knows more about ‘wet’ cattle than he cares to tell.”

“It’s a good place to cross stock at low water,” her father agreed, “and Lewis’s land runs back from the Rio Grande in its old Spanish form.  It’s a natural outlet for those brush-country ranchos.  But I haven’t anything against Tad except a natural dislike.  He stands well with some of our best people, so I’m probably wrong.  I usually am.”

“You can’t call Ed Austin one of our best people,” sharply objected Paloma.  “They claim that arms are being smuggled across to the Rebels, Dave, and, if it’s true, Ed Austin—­”

“Now, Paloma,” her father remonstrated mildly.  “The Regulars and the River Guards watched Lewis’s ranch till the embargo was lifted, and they never saw anything.”

“I believe Austin is a strong Rebel sympathizer,” Law ventured.

“Sure!  And him and the Lewis outfit are amigos.  If you go pirootin’ around Tad’s place you’re more’n apt to make yourself unpopular, Dave.  I’d grieve some to see you in a wooden kimono.  Tad’s too well fixed to steal cattle, and if he runs arms it’s because of his sympathy for those noble, dark-skinned patriots we hear so much about in Washington.  Tad’s a ‘galvanized Gringo’ himself—­married a Mexican, you know.”

“Nobody pays much attention to the embargo,” Law agreed.  “I ran arms myself, before I joined the Force.”

When meal-time drew near, both Jones and his daughter urged their guest to stay and dine with them, and Dave was glad to accept.

“After supper I’m going to show you our town,” Blaze declared.  “It’s the finest city in South Texas, and growing like a weed.  All we need is good farmers.  Those we’ve got are mostly back-to-nature students who leaped a drug-counter expecting to ’light in the lap of luxury.  In the last outfit we sold there wasn’t three men that knew which end of a mule to put the collar on.  But they’ll learn.  Nature’s with ’em, and so am I. God supplies ’em with all the fresh air and sunshine they need, and when they want anything else they come to Old Blaze.  Ain’t that right, Paloma?”

“Yes, father.”

Paloma Jones had developed wonderfully since Dave Law had last seen her.  She had grown into a most wholesome and attractive young woman, with an unusually capable manner, and an honest, humorous pair of brown eyes.  During dinner she did her part with a grace that made watching her a pleasure, and the Ranger found it a great treat to sit at her table after his strenuous scouting days in the mesquite.