The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1917-04-12
CHAPTER ~.
At Las Palmas.

southwest Texas r flat and badly
watered, they possess a rich soil. They
are favored, too, by a kindly climate,
subtropic in its mildness. The Rio
Grande, %jaundiced, cratic as an in
valid, wrings its saffron blood from the
clay bluffs and gravel canyons Of the
hill country, but near it's estuary winds
quietly through a low coastal plain
which the very impurities of that blood
have richened. Here the rivers banks
IRE smothered in thickets Of huisache,
ebony, mesquite, oak and alamo.
Railroads are Sc scarce along this
division Of the border that to travel
from Brownsville north along the in
ternational line n 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 a foreign tongue, and
where poems pillow their fields with
crooked sticks as did the ancient
Egyptians.
That part of the state which lies
below the Nueces river was for a time
disputed territory, and long after Tex
n 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. 1t is a part of
u 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
r 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 q 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 pio-
neers who pushed their herds into the
far pastures were 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 un%regenerate owners, so
also under "Old Ed" Austin's manage
ment did Las Palmas increase and
prosper. It comprised an expanse of
rich overland backed by miles Of
range where BOX A" 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 q different
canch now to what the old man had
known; indeed, 1t was doubtful If HI,
would have recognized it, for even the
II was new.
Alaire had some such thought in
mind us she rode up to the gate Oh
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
80 nicely fitted between their fences.
They were like clean, green squares of
mating spread for the feet Of summer.
A Mexican boy came running to care
for her horse, q Mexican woman greet
ed her as she entered the wide, cool
hall and went to her room. Dolores
fixed a bath and laid out clean clothes
with a running accompaniment of chat
ter concerned with household affairs.
She was a great gossip, and possessed
such a talent for gaining information
that through her husband, Eerito, the
Dange boss, she was able to keep her
mistress in fairly intimate touch with
ranch matters.
Alaire, as she leisurely dressed her
self, acknowledged that 1t was good to
feel the physical comforts of her own
house, even though her homecoming
gave her 10 especial joy. She made 1t
a religious practice to dress for dinner,
regardless Of Eds presence, though
aftep for weeks at a time she sat In