w-hued silk handkerchief if I want to look the
part," Thurston bantered.

"If yuh don't want your darned neck blistered, yuh mean," Park flung
over his shoulders. "Your wages and schooling start in to-morrow at
sunup."

It was early in the morning when the first train arrived, hungry,
thirsty, tired, bawling a general protest against fate and man's mode
of travel. Thurston, with a long pole in his hand, stood on the narrow
plank near the top of a chute wall and prodded vaguely at an endless,
moving incline of backs. Incidentally he took his cue from his
neighbors, and shouted till his voice was a croak-though he could
not see that he accomplished anything either by his prodding or his
shouting.

Below him surged the sea of hide and horns which was barely suggestive
of the animals as individuals. Out in the corrals the dust-cloud hung
low, just as it had hovered every day for more than two weeks; just as
it would hover every day for two weeks longer. Across the yards near the
big, outer gate Deacon Smith's crew was already beginning to brand. The
first train was barely unloaded when the second trailed in and out
on the siding; and so the third came also. Then came a lull, for the
consignment had been split in two and the second section was several
hours behind the first.

Thurston rode out to camp, aching with the strain and ravenously hungry,
after toiling with his muscles for the first time in his life; for his
had been days of physical ease. He had yet to learn the art of working
so that every movement counted something accomplished, as did the
others; besides, he had been in constant fear of losing his hold on the
fence and plunging headlong amongst the trampling hoofs below, a fate
that he shuddered to contemplate. He did not, however, mention that
fear, or his muscle ache, to any man; he might be green, but he was not
the man to whine.

When he went back into the dust and roar, Park ordered him curtly to
tend the branding fire, since both crews would brand that afternoon and
get the corrals cleared for the next shipment. Thurston thanked Park
mentally; tending branding-fire sounded very much like child's play.

Soon the gray dust-cloud took on a shade of blue in places where the
smoke from the fires cut through; a new tang smote the nostrils: the
rank odor of burning hair and searing hides; a new note crept into the
clamoring roar: the low-keyed blat of pain and fright.

Thurston turned away his head from