At the end of that time it was worth it.
Had you lived anywhere within fifty miles of Sundown Ranch you would
have heard of it. It possessed a quantity of jet-black hair, a pair
of extremely frank, deep-brown eyes and a laugh that rippled across
the prairie like the sound of a hidden brook. The name of it was
Rosita McMullen; and she was the daughter of old man McMullen of the
Sundown Sheep Ranch.
There came riding on red roan steeds--or, to be more explicit, on a
paint and a flea-bitten sorrel--two wooers. One was Madison Lane,
and the other was the Frio Kid. But at that time they did not call him
the Frio Kid, for he had not earned the honours of special
nomenclature. His name was simply Johnny McRoy.
It must not be supposed that these two were the sum of the agreeable
Rosita's admirers. The bronchos of a dozen others champed their bits
at the long hitching rack of the Sundown Ranch. Many were the
sheeps'-eyes that were cast in those savannas that did not belong to
the flocks of Dan McMullen. But of all the cavaliers, Madison Lane
and Johnny McRoy galloped far ahead, wherefore they are to be
chronicled.
Madison Lane, a young cattleman from the Nueces country, won the race.
He and Rosita were married one Christmas day. Armed, hilarious,
vociferous, magnanimous, the cowmen and the sheepmen, laying aside
their hereditary hatred, joined forces to celebrate the occasion.
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