in her hands, and the sound of her
sobs alone broke the stillness.

The man offered no comment. He made no movement. He lay there with
his clear eyes gazing at the silhouette of that still dark figure
against the mysterious sheen of night. His look gave no key to his
thoughts or emotions. His own physical sufferings even found no
expression in them. But thoughts were stirring, deep thoughts and
emotions which were his alone, and would remain his alone until the end.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE ROUND-UP

Bud's great bulk blocked the window opening on to the veranda. It was
his favorite vantage point in leisure. The after breakfast pipe
usually found him there. His evening pipe, when the sun was dipping
toward the glistening, fretted peaks of the hills, rarely found him
elsewhere. It was the point from which, in a way, he was able to view
the whole setting of the life that was his.

The winter had come and gone, vanishing amidst the howling gales of
snow and sleet which never fail to herald the approach of the open
season. It is almost like the last furious onslaught of a despairing
and defeated foe. Now the world was abeat with swift pulsations in
fibre and nerve. The wide valley of Rainbow Hill was stirring with the
vigor of renewed life. Man, beast, fowl, foliage. It was the same.
Spring was in the blood. Spring was in the sap. And all the world was
fresh and ready for the call of the coming year.

The spring round-up was in full swing with all its ceaseless toil for
the ranching world. Already the pastures were crowded with stock
brought in from distant valleys and grazings. Numberless calves
answered their mothers' calls, and hung to their sides in panic at the
commotion in the midst of which they found themselves. Already
hundreds of them had endured the terrors of the searing irons which
left them indelibly marked as the property of the great Obar Ranch,
while hundreds more were awaiting the same process.

And the irons and forges were kept going all day. Just as was the
largely augmented band of cattlemen. In ones and twos these hardy
ruffians, many of them "toughs" who worked at no other time of the
year, scoured every hill, and valley, and plain, however remote in the
vast region. Theirs it was to locate the strays to whatever ranch they
belonged, and bring them in to home pastures. The sorting would be
made after and the distribution. For the whole of the round-up was a
commonweal