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King James patted the breech of his shot-gun warningly.

Old man Ellison rode on to the camp of Incarnacion. He sighed many times, and the wrinkles in his face grew deeper. Rumours that the old order was about to change had reached him before. The end of Free Grass was in sight. Other troubles, too, had been accumulating upon his shoulders. His flocks were decreasing instead of growing; the price of wool was declining at every clip; even Bradshaw, the storekeeper at Frio City, at whose store he bought his ranch supplies, was dunning him for his last six months’ bill and threatening to cut him off. And so this last greatest calamity suddenly dealt out to him by the terrible King James was a crusher.

When the old man got back to the ranch at sunset he found Sam Galloway lying on his cot, propped against a roll of blankets and wool sacks, fingering his guitar.

“Hello, Uncle Ben,” the troubadour called, cheerfully. “You rolled in early this evening. I been trying a new twist on the Spanish Fandango to-day. I just about got it. Here’s how she goes — listen.”

“That’s fine, that’s mighty fine,” said old man Ellison, sitting on the kitchen step and rubbing his white, Scotch-terrier whiskers. “I reckon you’ve got all the musicians beat east and west, Sam, as far as the roads are cut out.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sam, reflectively. “But I certainly do get there on variations. I guess I can handle anything in five flats about as well as any of ’em. But you look kind of fagged out, Uncle Ben — ain’t you feeling right well this evening?”

“Little tired; that’s all, Sam. If you ain’t played yourself out, let’s have that Mexican piece that starts off with: ‘Huile, huile, palomita.’ It seems that that song always kind of soothes and comforts me after I’ve been riding far or anything bothers me.”

“Why, seguramente, senor,” said Sam. “I’ll hit her up for you as often as you like. And before I forget about it, Uncle Ben, you want to jerk Bradshaw up about them last hams he sent us. They’re just a little bit strong.”

A man sixty-five years old, living on a sheep ranch and beset by a complication of disasters, cannot successfully and continuously dissemble. Moreover, a troubadour has eyes quick to see unhappiness in others around him — because it disturbs his own ease. So, on the next day, Sam again questioned the old man about his air of sadness and abstraction. Then old man Ellison told him the story of King James’s threats and orders and that pale melancholy and red ruin appeared to have marked him for their own. The troubadour took the news thoughtfully. He had heard much about King James.

On the third day of the seven days of grace allowed him by the autocrat of the range, old man Ellison drove his buckboard to Frio City to fetch some necessary supplies for the ranch. Bradshaw was hard but not implacable. He divided the old man’s order by two, and let him have a little more time. One article secured was a new, fine ham for the pleasure of the troubadour.

Five miles out of Frio City on his way home the old man met King James riding into town. His majesty could never look anything but fierce and menacing, but to-day his slits of eyes appeared to be a little wider than they usually were.

“Good day,” said the king, gruffly. “I’ve been wanting to see you. I hear it said by a cowman from Sandy yesterday that you was from Jackson County, Mississippi, originally. I want to know if that’s a fact.”

“Born there,” said old man Ellison, “and raised there till I was twenty-one.”