g glimpse of the black, hornless herd whose
pastures these were. But only disappointment met him on every side.
The beautiful, sleek, Aberdeen-Angus herd, which was his joy and pride,
had vanished. They had gone, he knew. They had gone the same way
that, during the last five years, hundreds of head of his stock had
gone. It was the last straw.

"Say, Lew Hank," he said, in a voice of something approaching an
emotion he possessed no other means of displaying, "it's beat me bad.
It's beat me so bad I don't seem able to think right. We'd a hundred
head running on this station. As fine a bunch as ever were bred from
the old country's strain. I just feel that mad I could set right in to
break things."

Then, after a long pause during which the station foreman waited silent:

"And only last night, while these guys was raising the mischief right
here, I was setting around doping out big talk, and raising a mighty
big wad for the round-up of the whole darnation gang. Can you beat it?
I'm sore. Sore as hell. Say, tell it me again. I don't seem to have
it clear."

He passed one great muscular hand across his moist forehead, and the
gesture was rather one of helplessness.

Lew Hank regarded him with measuring eyes. He knew him so well. In
the ten years and more he had worked for him he had studied his every
mood. This phase in the great cattleman's character was something new,
something rather startling. Dug's way was usually volcanic. It was
hot and fierce for a while, generally to hollowed by a hearty laugh,
rather like the passing of a summer storm. But this, in Lew's opinion,
was a display of weakness. A sign he neither liked nor respected. The
truth was Dug McFarlane had been hit in a direction of which his
subordinate had no understanding. That herd of Aberdeen-Angus cattle
had been his plaything. His hobby. He had been devoted to it in a way
that would have been absurd to any one but a cattleman. Hank decided
this unaccustomed weakness must be nipped in the bud.

"Say, boss, it ain't no use in squealin'," he grumbled, in the hard
tones of a man who yields to no feelings of sympathy. His
weather-stained face was set and ugly in its expression. "Wher's the
use in it anyway?" he demanded. "Get a look around. There's miles of
territory, an' all of it runs into them blamed hills. I got three boys
with me. They're right boys, too. I don't guess there's a thing you
or me could tell 'em 'bout th