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 fully. "I always was as clumsy as a colt for gettin' my legs tangled up in the rope."

"Well, if Sallie don't come on her knees to you when she finds out what you've done for her and her mother, I'll take in my horns."

Texas put his hand on the old man's shoulder and looked him earnestly in the face.

"Uncle Boley, the best kindness you can do me is never to mention my name in that matter to them. Give Fannie the full credit for it; it rightly belongs to her. As she said, she gave me the cards—all I did was play them. Keep my name out of it the same as if I was a man that'd been hung."

"I don't see what you're goin' to gain by that," said Uncle Boley impatiently.

"There's nothing to be gained, one way or the other. I'll have to walk out there in the road direc'ly, sir, and face them cattlemen, for no man nor set of men's ever goin' to say they come a lookin' for me and I couldn't be found. I'll go out there and I'll face 'em, Uncle Boley, and I'll do my best for the sake of the land I come from, and the right that I know is on my side."

"It ain't right for you to have to go that way, Texas," the old man protested, "and you a burnin' your heart up for Sallie."

Texas did not deny it. He sat with drooping head, leaning forward a bit, dejection over him,