orld was
good.

At Miles City he found himself in the midst of a small army, the
regulars of the range---which grew hourly larger as the outfits rolled
in. The rattle of mess-wagons, driven by the camp cook and followed by
the bed-wagon, was heard from all directions. Jingling cavvies (herds of
saddle horses they were, driven and watched over by the horse wrangler)
came out of the wilderness in the wake of the wagons. Thurston got out
his camera and took pictures of the scene. In the first, ten different
camps appeared; he mourned because two others were perforced omitted.
Two hours later he snapped the Kodak upon fifteen, and there were four
beyond range of the lens.

Park came along, saw what he was doing and laughed. "Yuh better wait
till they commence to come," he said. "When yuh can stand on this little
hill and count fifty or sixty outfits camped within two or three miles
uh here, yuh might begin taking pictures."

"I think you're loading me," Thurston retorted calmly, winding up the
roll for another exposure.

"All right--suit yourself about it." Park walked off and left him
peering into the view-finder.

Still they came. From Swift Current to the Cypress Hills the Canadian
cattlemen sent their wagons to join the big meet. From the Sweet Grass
Hills to the mouth of Milk River not a stock-grower but was represented.
From the upper Musselshell they came, and from out the Judith Basin;
from Shellanne east to Fort Buford. Truly it was a gathering of the
clans such as eastern Montana had never before seen.

For a day and a night the cowboys made merry in town while their foremen
consulted and the captains appointed by the Association mapped out the
different routes. At times like these, foremen such as Park and Deacon
Smith were shorn of their accustomed power, and worked under orders as
strict as those they gave their men.

Their future movements thoroughly understood, the army moved down upon
the range in companies of five and six crews, and the long summer's work
began; each rider a unit in the war against the chaos which the winter
had wrought; in the fight of the stockmen to wrest back their fortunes
from the wilderness, and to hold once more their sway over the
range-land.

Their method called for concerted action, although it was simple enough.
Two of the Lazy Eight wagons, under Park and Gene Wasson (for Hank that
spring was running four crews and had promoted Gene wagon-boss of one),
joined forces