kets.

"Everything, including the fact that he got lost the night of the March
drift, while going home after a pack horse. Wouldn't trust poor old
Dog-toe, but run on the rope himself! Landed down the creek here a few
miles. News to you? Well, he admits that the horse forgot more than he
himself ever knew. That's a hopeful sign. As long as a man hearkens to
his horse, there is no danger of bad counsel being thrust on him."

The boys were catching, at first hand, an insight into the exacting
nature of trail work. Their friends were up with the dawn, and while
harnessing in the team, Forrest called Joel's attention to setting the
ranch in order to water the passing herds.

"I was telling Dell yesterday," said he, "the danger of Texas fever
among wintered cattle, and you must isolate your little herd until
after frost falls. Graze your cattle up around Hackberry Grove, and keep
a dead-line fully three miles wide between the wintered and through
trail herds. Any new cattle that you pick up, cripples or strays, hold
them down the creek--between here and the old trail crossing. For fear
of losing them you can't even keep milk cows around the ranch, so turn
out your calves. Don't ask me to explain Texas fever. It's one of the
mysteries of the trail. The very cattle that impart it after a winter in
the north catch the fever and die like sheep. It seems to exist, in a
mild form, in through, healthy cattle, but once imparted to native or
northern wintered stock, it becomes violent and is usually fatal. The
sure, safe course is to fear and avoid it."

The two foremen were off at an early hour. Priest was again in charge of
Lovell's lead herd, and leaving the horse that he had ridden to the
Republican River in care of the boys, he loitered a moment at parting.

"If my herd left Dodge at noon yesterday," said he, mentally
calculating, "I'll overtake it some time to-morrow night. Allowing ten
days to reach here--"

He turned to the boys. "This is the sixteenth of June. Well, come out on
the divide on the morning of the twenty-fifth and you will see a dust
cloud in the south. The long distance between waters will put the herd
through on schedule time. Come out and meet me."

The brothers waved the buckboard away. The dragging days were over. The
herds were coming, and their own little ranch promised relief to the
drover and his cattle.

"Mr. Quince says the usual price for watering trail herds is from one to
three cents a hea