onsignment
arrived. Thurston haunted the stockyards with his Kodak, but after the
first two or three days he took no pictures. For every day was but a
repetition of those that had gone before: a great, grimy engine shunting
cars back and forth on the siding; an endless stream of weary, young
cattle flowing down the steep chutes into the pens, from the pens to the
branding chutes, where they were burned deep with the mark of their new
owners; then out through the great gate, crowding, pushing, wild to flee
from restraint, yet held in and guided by mounted cowboys; out upon the
green prairie where they could feast once more upon sweet grasses and
drink their fill from the river of clear, mountain water; out upon the
weary march of the trail, on and on for long days until some boundary
which their drivers hailed with joy was passed, and they were free at
last to roam at will over the wind-brushed range land; to lie down in
some cool, sweet-scented swale and chew their cuds in peace.

Two weeks, and then came a telegram for Park. In the reading of it he
shuffled off his attitude of boyish irresponsibility and became in a
breath the cool, business-like leader of men. Holding the envelope still
in his hand he sought out Thurston, who was practicing with a rope. As
Park approached him he whirled the noose and cast it neatly over the
peak of the night-hawk's teepee.

"Good shot," Park encouraged, "but I'd advise yuh to take another
target. You'll have the tent down over Scotty's ears, and then you'll
think yuh stirred up a mess uh hornets.

"Say, Bud, our cattle are coming, and I'm going to be short uh men. If
you'd like a job I'll take yuh on, and take chances on licking yuh into
shape. Maybe the wages won't appeal to yuh, but I'm willing to throw in
heaps uh valuable experience that won't cost yuh a cent." He lowered an
eyelid toward the cook-tent, although no one was visible.

Thurston studied the matter while he coiled his rope, and no longer.
Secretly he had wanted all along to be a part of the life instead of an
onlooker. "I'll take the job, Park--if you think I can hold it down."
The speech would doubtless have astonished Reeve-Howard in more ways
than one; but Reeve-Howard was already a part of the past in Thurston's
mind. He was for living the present.

"Well," Park retorted, "it'll be your own funeral if yuh get fired.
Better stake yourself to a pair uh chaps; you'll need 'em on the trip."

"Also a large, rainbo