sore.
He was more glad than he was willing to confess even to himself when
he saw the corrals ahead. For now, he assured himself, there could be
little to do but jog along after a slow-moving body of cattle.

The three big corrals were crowded with a bellowing, churning,
restless mass of cattle, big, long-horned steers for the most part,
and vicious-looking. In a much smaller inclosure were a few
saddle-horses--half-broken colts, to look at them--thrusting their
long noses above their fence to stare at the seething jam of cattle,
or, with tails and manes flying, to run here and there snorting. Two
men on horseback were sitting idly near the corrals, seeming to have
nothing in all the world to do but smoke cigarettes and watch the
milling cattle.

Conniston drew rein with his companions as they stopped for a word
with the two men from the Lone Dog. And then he followed them when
they turned and rode to the little corral. The horses in it bunched
up, quick-eyed, alert, at the far side of the inclosure. Rawhide Jones
and Toothy as they rode were taking down the ropes coiled upon their
saddles.

"We're goin' to change hosses here," Rawhide said, shortly. "Pick out
one for yourse'f, Conniston."

They had ridden into the corral, their ropes in their hands, each man
dragging a wide loop at his right side. Toothy rode swiftly into the
knot of horses, scattered them, and, as they shot across the corral,
sent his rope flying out over their heads. The long loop widened into
a circle, hissed through the air, and settled about the neck of a
little pinto mare, tightening as it fell. A quick turn about the horn
of his saddle, and Toothy set up his own horse. The pinto mare,
checked in her headlong flight, swung about, confronting her captor
with quivering nostrils and belligerent, flashing eyes. Almost at the
same instant Rawhide's rope obeyed Rawhide's hand as Toothy's had
done, settling unerringly about the neck of a second horse. And
Conniston, with grave misdoubtings and a thumping heart, took his own
rope into his hand and rode among the untamed brutes, one of which he
was to ride.

Here was another thing which seemed, upon the face of it, so simple
and which was simple--to the range born and bred. He knew that there
were four men watching him as he fumbled awkwardly with his rope. He
knew that in spite of their grave faces they were laughing inwardly.
He found that to hold the coil of rope in his left hand while that
sa