look for Ranse to roll in to-day sure. He’s an early starter and a hell-to-split driver, and he ought to be here not far from sundown.”
“What plugs is he drivin’?” asked Mustang Taylor, with a smack of hope in his tones.
“The buckboard greys,” said Sam.
“I’ll wait a spell, then,” said the wrangler. “Them plugs eat up a trail like a road-runner swallowin’ a whip snake. And you may bust me open a can of greengage plums, Sam, while I’m waitin’ for somethin’ better.”
“Open me some yellow clings,” ordered Poky Rodgers. “I’ll wait, too.”
The tobaccoless punchers arranged themselves comfortably on the steps of the store. Inside Sam chopped open with a hatchet the tops of the cans of fruit.
The store, a big, white wooden building like a barn, stood fifty yards from the ranch-house. Beyond it were the horse corrals; and still farther the wool sheds and the brush-topped shearing pens—for the Rancho Cibolo raised both cattle and sheep. Behind the store, at a little distance, were the grass-thatched jacals of the Mexicans who bestowed their allegiance upon the Cibolo.
The ranch-house was composed of four large rooms, with plastered adobe walls, and a two-room wooden ell. A twenty-feet-wide “gallery” circumvented the structure. It was set in a grove of im-
