The cowboy dropped stirrup from saddle horn and came forward
stiff-leggedly, leading his horse. His sun-baked face, grimed with the
dust of the herd, was aglow with heat, and his eyes showed gratitude.
A cup of water from the hand of the boss's wife was worth a gallon from
the barrel slip-slopping along in the lurching chuck-wagon.

"How's the kids makin' out, Mis' Birnie?" Frank inquired politely when
he had swallowed the last drop and had wiped his mouth with the back of
his hand. "It's right warm and dusty t'day."

"They're asleep at last, thank goodness," she answered, glancing back
at a huddle of pink calico that showed just over the crest of a pile
of crumpled quilts. "Buddy has a hard time of it. He's all man in his
disposition, and all baby in size. He's been teasing to walk with the
niggers and help drive the drag. Is my husband calling?"

Her husband was, and Frank rode away at a leisurely trot. Haste had
little to do with trailing a herd, where eight miles was called a good
day's journey and six an average achievement. The fallen ox was unyoked
by the mellow-voiced but exasperated Ezra, and since he would not rise,
the three remaining oxen, urged by the gad and Ezra's upbraiding,
swung the wagon to one side and moved it a little farther after the
slow-moving herd, so that the exhausted animal could rest, and the
raw recruit be yoked in where he could do the least harm and would the
speediest learn a new lesson in discomfort. Mrs. Birnie glanced again
at the huddle of pink in the nest of quilts behind a beloved chest of
drawers in the wagon, and sighed with relief because Buddy slept.

An ambitious man-child already was Buddy, accustomed to certain phrases
that, since he could toddle, had formed inevitable accompaniment to his
investigative footsteps. "L'k-out-dah!" he had for a long time believed
to be his name among the black folk of his world. White folk had varied
it slightly. He knew that "Run-to-mother-now" meant that something he
would delight in but must not watch was going to take place. Spankings
more or less official and not often painful signified that big folks did
not understand him and his activities, or were cross about something.
Now, mother did not want him to watch the wild cow run and jump at the
end of a rope until finally forced to submit to the ox-yoke and help
pull the wagon. Buddy loved to watch them, but he understood that mother
was afraid the wild cow might step on him. Why she