The
horse he bought, and the outfit, from the silver-trimmed saddle and
bridle to the rawhide riata hanging coiled upon one side of the
narrow fork and the ivory-handled Colt's revolver tucked snugly in
its holster upon the other side. Pleased as a child over a Christmas
stocking, he straightway mounted the beautiful beast and galloped away
to the south, still led by Chance, the jester.
He returned in a week, enamored alike of his horse and of the ranch he
had discovered. He was going back, he said. There were cattle by the
thousands--and he was a cattleman, from the top of his white sombrero
to the tips of his calfskin boots, for all he had bent his back
laboriously all summer over a hole in the ground, and had idled in
town since Thanksgiving. He was a cowboy (vaquero was the name they
used in those pleasant valleys) and so was his friend. And he had
found a cowboy's paradise, and a welcome which a king could not cavil
at. Would Jack stake himself to a horse and outfit, and come to Palo
Alto till the snow was well out of the mountains and they could go
back to their mine?
Jack blew three small smoke-rings with nice precision, watched them
float and fade while he thought of a certain girl who had lately
smiled upon him--and in return had got smile for smile--and said he
guessed he'd stick to town life for a while.
"Old Don Andres Picardo's a prince," argued Dade, "and he's got a
rancho that's a paradise on earth.
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