ilent One was not always
silent, and he was quick to observe the weak points in those around him,
and keen at repartee. When it pleased him so to do, he could handle the
English language in a way that was perfectly amazing--and not always
intelligible to the unschooled. At such times Pink frankly made no
attempt to understand him; Rowdy, having been hustled through grammar
school and two-thirds through high school before he ran away from a
brand new stepmother, rather enjoyed the outbreaks and Pink's consequent
disgust.

Not one of them loved particularly the line camp, and Rowdy least of
all, since it put an extra ten miles between Miss Conroy and himself.
Rowdy had got to that point where his mind dwelt much upon matters
domestic, and he made many secret calculations on the cost of
housekeeping for two. More than that, he put himself upon a rigid
allowance for pocket-money--an allowance barely sufficient to keep
him in tobacco and papers. All this without consulting Miss Conroy's
wishes--which only goes to show that Rowdy Vaughan was a born optimist.

The Silent One complained that he could not keep supplied with
reading-matter, and Pink bewailed the monotony of inaction. For, beyond
watching the river to keep the cattle from miring in the mud lately
released from frost grip, there was nothing to do.

According to the calendar, spring was well upon them, and the prairies
would soon be flaunting new dresses of green. The calendar, however, had
neglected to record the rainless heat of the summer gone before, or
the searing winds that burned the grass brown as it grew, or the winter
which forgot its part and permitted prairie-dogs to chip-chip-chip above
ground in January, when they should be sleeping decently in their cellar
homes.

Apart from the brief storm which Rowdy had brought with him, there had
been no snow worth considering. Always the chill winds shaved the barren
land from the north, or veered unexpectedly, and blew dry warmth from
the southwest; but never the snow for which the land yearned. Wind, and
bright sunlight, and more wind, and hypocritical, drifting clouds, and
more sun; lean cattle walking, walking, up-hill and down coulee, nose to
the dry ground, snipping the stray tufts where should be a woolly carpet
of sweet, ripened grasses, eating wildrose bushes level with the sod,
and wishing there was only an abundance even of them; drifting uneasily
from hilltop to farther hilltop, hunger-driven and