Look at the cattle. Do you remember when we drove in heah first? It seems long. But it’s only seven years. Seven years! They were heaven compared to the years of the war, and long before…. You know my story, Britt. How I came through heah in 1855 with a caravan on the way to Santa Fe. How I won Carlotta Valverde and took her back to Texas with me. How old Don Carlos cast her off and did not forgive her for many years…. Look at my herds of cattle dottin’ the range. Like the buffalo. Fifty thousand head, so you say, and half a thousand horses. I could sell ten thousand head—twenty thousand head and be rich…. What is wrong with the times, Britt?”

“Wal, you ain’t told it all yet. Go on.”

“Oh, I know what you’re drivin’ at…. But listen, Cap. The war is long past. Texas has come through, and her cattle have built this empire. Just as the trappers did, the gold-seekers had their day, so had the freighters. The caravans are slowin’ up, Britt, and those that roll by down there on the Old Trail are loaded up with pioneers. A new day is dawnin’—the day of the settled West.”

“Shore. But a hell of a lot can happen in a day, Kurnel. Yore hope is father to yore belief…. This heah year of our Lawd, seems fine an’ fair to you, Kurnel, ’cause white men an’ red men alike, ootlaws an’ robbers, all the good an’ the bad of the plains air yore friends. As the house of Don Carlos was open to all, so has yore house been…. But I say, fer you if you live, an’ fer all of us who live heah, the hardest an’ bloodiest, the wust times air yet to come.”

“Kit Carson said that years ago. But I never believed it. And his prophecy has not been verified.”

“Yes, Kit swore thet, settin’ right heah where I set now…. Kurnel, I reckon men like you an’ Maxwell an’ Chisum know more aboot cows than anythin’ else. It’s men like me an’ Carson who have vision. We never was blinded by great possessions.”

“Britt, I bow to that vision,” replied Ripple, solemnly.