ly make out specks moving
on that huge background of space, and presently his horse neighed and put
fresh spirit into his gait, recognizing his fellows in moving dots on the
vast perspective. And being a beast of some intelligence, for all his
heavy-footed failings, he reasoned that food and rest would soon be his
portion. Peter had no further use for the rowel.

Breakfast was already well under way when he reached camp. The outfit,
seated on saddles in a semicircle about the chuck wagon, ate with that
peculiar combination of haste and skill that doubtless the life of the
saddle counteracts, as digestive troubles are apparently unknown among
plainsmen. The cook, in handing Peter his tin plate, cup, spoon, and
black-handled fork, asked him if "he would take overland trout or
Cincinnati chicken, this morning?" The cook never omitted these jocular
inquiries regarding the various camp names for bacon. He seemed to think
that a choice of alias was as good as a change of menu. There was little
talk at breakfast, and that bearing chiefly on the day's work. Every one
was impatient for an early start. The horse wrangler had his string
waiting, the cook was scouring his iron pots, saddles were thrown over
horses fresh from a long night's good grazing, cinches were tightened,
slickers and blankets were adjusted, and camp melted away in a troup of
horsemen winding away through the gray of early morning.

The scene of the beef round-up was a mighty plain, affording limitless
scope for handling the cattle of a thousand hills. In the distance rose
the first undulations of the mountains, that might be likened to the
surplusage of space that rolled the length of the sweeping levels, then
heaped high to the blue. The specks in the far distance began to grow as
if the screw of a field-glass were bringing them nearer, turning them into
horsemen, bunches of cattle, "chuck-wagons" of the different outfits,
reserves of horses restrained by temporary rope-corrals, all the equipment
of a great round-up. Dozens of men, multitudes of horses, hordes of
cattle--the mighty plain swallowed all the little, prancing, galloping,
bellowing things, and still looked mighty in its loneliness. Fling a
handful of toys from a Noah's Ark--if they make such simple toys now--in an
ordinary field, and the little, wooden men, horses and cows, will suggest
the round-up in relation to its background. Men darted hither and thither,
yelling shrilly; cows--born apparent