"All right, Ben," Jake said, feeling deflated. He wandered back into the kitchen, where Felice was churning butter. She didn't look up, when he came in--Felice was careful never to raise her eyes to him, anymore. But now he felt lonely--he had been turned out. He would have liked a smile from Felice; he had a sense that she felt he had treated her bad, though he had only done what he had been told to do by the Captain's wife. Felice had no cause to turn her head every time he entered the room.

"Well, I guess the Missus ain't up," he said, idling for a moment. "I'd sure like a glass of buttermilk before I go to work." Felice got up without a ^w and poured him a tumbler full of buttermilk from the big crock where they kept it. Captain Scull too liked buttermilk--he had been known to drink off a quart, on days when he came in with a thirst for buttermilk.

Jake thanked Felice, thinking it might melt her reserve, but Felice went back to her churning without even a nod.

Jake was sitting on the back step, drinking buttermilk and wondering what he could find to do all day, when Inez Scull strode out of the house. She had on her riding habit and was pulling on a glove. When she saw Jake sitting on the step with the tumbler of buttermilk she did not look pleased.

"Who told you to sit on my stoop and guzzle my buttermilk?" she asked, her black eyes snapping. Jake was taken aback by her look, which was icy, and her tone, which was hot. He jumped to his feet in embarrassment.

"I suppose you got the buttermilk from that yellow bitch," she said. "I'll quirt her soundly when I get back." "Why, the crock was full, I thought I could drink one glass," Jake said, very nervous.

"That's the Captain's buttermilk, it's not for common use," Inez said. "I instructed the butler to inform you that we didn't need you around here anymore. I suppose I'll have to whack that old sot a time or two, if he forgot to tell you." "He told me, I was just resting a minute," Jake said, confused by the coldness in Madame Scull's tone. Only yesterday she had pressed hot affections on him--td she acted as if she scarcely knew him.

"Get off my step, I told you," Inez said. "I don't want you around here--and stay away from that yellow bitch, too. I don't want you indulging in any irregularities with the servants." Madame Scull poked him, not gently, with the toe of her riding boot. Jake jumped up and hurried down the steps. Then he remembered that he still had the tumbler in his hand.

"I thought you liked me!" he blurted out.

Madame Scull's lip curled. "Like you?

A common thing such as yourself? I've stooped to many follies but I doubt I'd allow myself to like a common farm boy," she said.

Jake sat the tumbler on the step, where Felice would find it and take it in.

He was walking slowly and sadly back down the main street of Austin, trying to puzzle out why he had been welcome one day and shunned the next, when he heard a horse galloping close behind him. Madame Scull was coming, on her fine thoroughbred, Lord Nelson. The horse was worth as much as a house, some of the rangers claimed.

Two men stood guard over Lord Nelson, all night, at the Scull stables, lest Indians try to sneak in and steal him. Madame Scull raced Lord Nelson over the prairies at full speed, usually alone.

As Inez Scull came abreast of Jake she drew rein and ran her quirt lightly through his hair, which she herself had just cut, the day before, with her scissors, after their sweaty sport.

"It was the curls, Jakie," Inez said, the ice still in her voice. She flicked her quirt again through his short hair.

"The curls," she said. "I suppose I found them briefly appealing. But then I cut them off. So that's all done now, ain't it?" Then she put the spurs to Lord Nelson and went galloping straight out of town.

Kicking Wolf could move without sound. When he decided to steal the Buffalo Horse he only took Three Birds with him--except for himself, Three Birds was the quietest warrior in the band. Fast Boy and Red Badger were brave fighters, but clumsy. They could not approach a horse herd in the soundless way that was required if a tricky theft was being contemplated. Kicking Wolf prayed every night that he could keep his grace with animals--few Comanches could go into a horse herd at night without alarming the horses.

Buffalo Hump could not do such delicate work, not at all. He was a great raider, Kicking Wolf acknowledged. Buffalo Hump could run off many horses, and kill whatever white men or Mexicans got in his way. But he could not go into a horse herd at night and steal a mare or a stallion--he was too impatient, and he did not bother to disguise his smell. Mainly, he was a fighter, not a thief.

Kicking Wolf, though, was very careful about his smell, and he had instructed Three Birds how to eliminate his odor before going into a horse herd.

Kicking Wolf would eat little, for a day or two before a raid. He wanted his body to empty out its smells. Then he gathered herbs and rubbed them on himself, on his armpits, on his privates, on his feet. He chewed sweet roots to make his breath inoffensive. He prepared carefully, but mainly it was his grace, his ability to move without sound, that enabled him to go into a herd of strange horses at night and not alarm them. He wanted to be able to move close to the horses and stroke them--he wanted the stroking to begin before the horse was even aware that a man was there. Once he had the horse's trust he could move through the herd seeing that all the horses stayed calm. It was important to start with a horse that had calmness in him--often Kicking Wolf would study a horse herd for a few days, until he had selected the horse that he would approach first--it had to be a horse with calmness in it, a horse unlikely to panic.

Once Kicking Wolf had chosen the first horse, he would pray in the morning that his grace would not desert him; then he could move into the herd with confidence and stroke the lead horse. He liked a night that was cloudy but not entirely moonless, when he went to steal horses. He wanted to be able to see where the ground was--and so would the horses. In complete darkness a horse might brush up against a thornbush and panic if it rattled. A whole herd might break into a run in an instant, if they heard a strange sound.

Kicking Wolf was proud of being the best of the Comanche horse thieves--he had honed his skills for many years. Simply stealing many horses had never been enough for him; he only wanted to steal the best horses--the horses that would run the fastest, or make the best studs. He wanted to steal the horses that the Texans would miss most. Plow horses he never touched.

Invariably, when he got back to camp with the horses he had stolen, the other warriors would be jealous. Even Buffalo Hump was a little jealous, although he pretended not to notice Kicking Wolf and his horses.