e to the north."

Heads it was, and Bud leaned from the saddle and recovered the coin,
Smoky turning his head to regard his rider tolerantly. "Right hand
goes--and we camp at the first good water and grass. I can grain the
three of you once more before we hit a town, and that goes for me, too.
G'wan, Smoke, and don't act so mournful."

Smoky went on, following the trail that wound in and out around the
butte, hugging close its sheer sides to avoid a fifty-foot drop into the
creek below. It was new country--Bud had never so much as seen a map
of it to give him a clue to what was coming. The last turn of the
deep-rutted, sandy road where it left the river's bank and led straight
between two humpy shoulders of rock to the foot of a platter-shaped
valley brought him to a halt again in sheer astonishment.

From behind a low hill still farther to the right, where the road forked
again, a bluish haze of smoke indicated that there was a town of
some sort, perhaps. Farther up the valley a brownish cloud hung low-a
roundup, Bud knew at a glance. He hesitated. The town, if it were a
town, could wait; the roundup might not. And a job he must have soon, or
go hungry. He turned and rode toward the dust-cloud, came shortly to a
small stream and a green grass-plot, and stopped there long enough to
throw the pack off Sunfish, unsaddle Smoky and stake them both out to
graze. Stopper he saddled, then knelt and washed his face, beat the
travel dust off his hat, untied his rope and coiled it carefully,
untied his handkerchief and shook it as clean as he could and knotted it
closely again. One might have thought he was preparing to meet a girl;
but the habit of neatness dated back to his pink-apron days and beyond,
the dirt and dust meant discomfort.

When he mounted Stopper and loped away toward the dust-cloud, he rode
hopefully, sure of himself, carrying his range credentials in his eyes,
in his perfect saddle-poise, in the tan on his face to his eyebrows, and
the womanish softness of his gloved hands, which had all the sensitive
flexibility of a musician.

His main hope was that the outfit was working short-handed; and when he
rode near enough to distinguish the herd and the riders, he grinned his
satisfaction.

"Good cow-country, by the look of that bunch of cattle," He observed
to himself. "And eight men is a small crew to work a herd that size. I
guess I'll tie onto this outfit. Stopper, you'll maybe get a chance to
turn a cow t