he one which rankled most in Rowdy's memory,
was the cutting of Rowdy's latigo just before a riding contest, in which
the purse and the glory of a championship-belt seemed in danger of going
to Rowdy.

Rowdy had got a fall that crippled him for weeks, and Harry had won the
purse and belt--and the enmity of several men better than he. For though
morally sure of his guilt, no one could prove that he had cut the strap,
and so he got off unpunished, except that Pink thrashed him--a bit
unscientifically, it is true, since he resorted to throwing rocks toward
the last, but with a thoroughness worthy even of Pink.

But in moods less ugly he shrank from the hurt that must be Jessie's
if she should discover the truth. Jessie's brother a convicted thief
serving his sentence in Deer Lodge! The thought was horrible; it was
brutal cruelty. If he could only know where to look for that lad, he'd
help him out of the country. It was no good shutting him up in jail;
that wouldn't help him any, or make him better. He hoped he would get
off--go somewhere, where they couldn't find him, and stay there.

He wondered where he was, and if he had money enough to see him through.
He might be no good--he sure wasn't!--but he was Jessie's brother, and
Jessie believed in him and thought a lot of him. It would be hard lines
for that little girl if Harry were caught. Bill Brown, the meddlesome
old freak!--he didn't blame Jessie for not wanting to stop there that
night. She did just the right thing.

With all this going round and round, monotonously persistent in his
brain, and with the care of four thousand lean kine and more than a
hundred saddle-horses--to say nothing of a dozen overworked, fretful
cow-punchers--Rowdy acquired the "corrugated brow" fast enough without
any cultivation.

The men were as the Silent One had predicted. They made drives that
lasted far into the night, stood guard, and got along with so little
sleep that it was scarce worth mention, and did many things that shaved
close the impossible--just because Rowdy looked at them straightly, with
half-closed lids, and asked them if they thought they could.

Pink began to speak of their new foreman as "Moses"; and when the
curious asked him why, told them soberly that Rowdy could "hit a rock
with his quirt and start a creek running bank full." When Rowdy heard
that, he thought of the miles of weary searching, and wished that it
were true.

They had left the home ranch a day's