ve an
approximate knowledge of the dust raised by a thousand steers. Their
long-drawn, shrieking bellow had a sinister note. Horns, hoofs, tails beat
the air, their bloodshot eyes looked menacingly in every direction; but a
handful of cow-boys kept them in check, circling round and round them on
ponies who did their work without waiting for quirt or rowel.

The noonday sun looked down upon a scene that to the eye unskilled in
these things was as confusion worse confounded. Cow-boys dashed from
nowhere in particular and did amazing things with a bit of rope, sending
it through the air with snaky undulations after flying cattle. The rope,
taking on lifelike coils, would pursue the flying beast like an aerial
reptile, then the noose would fall true, and the thing was done. A second
later a couple of cow-boys would be examining the disputed brand on the
prone animal.

The smell of burning flesh and hair rose from the branding-pen and mingled
with the stench of the herds in one noisome compound. The yells of the
cow-punchers, each having its different bearing on the work in hand, were
all but lost in the dull, steady roar of the cattle, bellowing in a chorus
of fear, rage, and pain. And still the work of sorting, branding,
cutting-out, went steadily on. Though an outsider would not have perceived
it, the work was as crisp-cut and exact in its methods as the work in a
counting-house. One of the cow-boys, in hot pursuit of a fractious heifer,
encountered a gopher-hole, and horse and rider were down in a heap. In a
second a dozen helping hands were dragging him from under the horse. He
limped painfully, but stooped to examine his horse. The beast had broken a
leg, and turned on the man eyes almost human in their pain.

"Bob, Bob!" The cow-puncher went down on his knees and put his arms about
the neck of his pet. "My God!" he said, "me and Bob was just like
brothers. Everybody knowed that." He uncinched the saddle with clumsy
tenderness; not a man thought a whit less of him because he could not see
well at the moment. He turned his head away, that he might not see the
well-aimed shot that would release his pet from pain. Then he limped away
after another horse--it was all in the day's work.

The beef contract called for a thousand steers, four and five years old,
and these having been well and duly counted, and some dozen extra head
added in case of accident, they were immediately started on the trail, as
they could accomplis