Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1917-03-09
CHAPTER Nv. ~
At Las PaImas.

Although the lower counties Oh
southwest Texas are fiat and badly
watered, they possess q rich soil. They
are favored, too, by kindly climate,
subtropic in &ts mildness. The RiC
Grande, jaundiced, cratic as an in.
valid, wrings it's saffron blood from the
clay bluffs and gravel canyons of the
hill country, but near it's estuary winds
quietly through q low coastal plain
which the very impurities of that blood
have richened. Here the rivers banks
are smOthered in thickets Of huisache,
ebony, mesquite, oak and alamo.
Railroads are so scarce along this
division of the border that to travei
from Brownsville north along the in.
ternational line one must, for several
hundred miles, avail oneself of horses,
mules or mOtorcars, since rail transpOr.
tatiOn is almost lacking. And on his
way the traveller will traverse whole
counties where the houses are jacals,
where English is foreign tongue. anG
where poems plOw their fields will
~Iochtt StitAS It's uIu Tie dICltIlt
Egyptians.
That part of the state which lies
below the Nueces river was for a time
disputed territory, and long after Tex
ans had given their lives to drive the
eagle of Mexico across the Rio Grande
much of it remained a forbidden land.
Even today it is alien. It is q part of
our Southland, but a South different
to any other that we have Within it
there are no blacks, and yet the whites
number but one in twenty. The rest
are SWarthy, black-haired men who
speak the Spanish tongue and whose
citizenship is mostly a matter of form.
The stOckmen, pushing ahead of the
neSters and the tillers Of the soil, were
the first to invade the lower Rio
Grande, and among these "Old Ed'
Austin was pioneer. Like the other
cattle barOns, he was hungry for land
and took it where or how he could.
Those were crude old days; the pic.
neers who pushed their herds into the
far pastures We're laWless fellows, ruth.
less, acquisitive, mastered by the en-
pire-builder's urge for acres and still
more acres.
AS other ranches grew under the
hands Of such unregenerate owners, SC
also under "Old Ed Austin's manage.
ment did Las Palmas increase and
prosper. 1t comprised an expanse of
rich overland backed by miles OF
range where "BOx AZ cattle lived and
bred. In his later years when the old
man handed Las Palmas to his SON
young Ed" as a wedding gift, the
ranch was known far and wide for its
size and richness. Las Palmas had
changed greatly since Austin, senior,
painfully scraWled his Slanting sigma.
ture to the deed. 1t was a different
ranch now to what the old man had
known; indeed, it was doubtful if he
would have recognized it, for even the
house was new.
Alaire had some such thought in
mind as she rode up to the gate on
the afternoon following her departure
from the water hole, and she felt q
thrill of pride at the acres of sprOuting
corn, the dense green field of alfalfa
so nicely fitted between their fences.
They were like clean, green squares of
mating spread for the feet of summer.
Mexican boy came running to care
for her horse, a Mexican woman greet
ed her as she entered the wide, cool
hall and went to her room. Dolores
fixed bath and laid out clean clothes
with running accompaniment of chat
ter concerned with household affairs.
She was q great gossip, and possessed
such q talent for gaining information
that through her husband, BenitO. the
range boss, she was able to keep her
mistress in fairly intimate touch with
ranch matters.
Alaire, as she leisurely dressed her.
self, acknowledged that it was good tc
feel the physical comforts of her own
house, even though her homecoming
gave her no especial joy. She made it
a religious practice to dress for dinner
regardless of Eds presence, though
often for weeks at q time she sat in
solitary state, presiding over an empty
table. Tonight, Ed was at home. It
was with a grave preoccupation that
she made herself ready to meet him.
In the dining room, Ed acknowl.
edged his wife's entrance with a care
less nod, but did not trouble to re.
move his hands from his pockets. As
he seated himself heavily at the table
and with unsteady fingers shook the
folds from his napkin, he said:
"You stayed longer than you intend.
ed. Um-m--you were gone three days
weren't your"
"Four days." Alaire told him, real.
lZing with q little inward start how
very far apart she and Ed had da.ifted.
She looked at him curiously for an in.
slant, wondering if he really could be
her husband, or-if he were not some
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