astes.
The hill cattle he was driving were as wild as deer. A dozen times some
lean steer had bolted and gone racing down a precipitous hillside like a
rabbit. As often Four Bits had wheeled in its tracks and pounded through
clutching cholla and down breakneck inclines after the escaping
three-year-old. Fierce cactus thorns had torn at the leather chaps as
horse and rider had ripped through them, zigzagging across the steep
mountain slope at a gallop, the pony now slithering down the shale with
braced forelegs, now taking washes and inclines with the surefooted
litheness of a cat.

Now stars by millions roofed the velvet night. A big moon had climbed
out of a crotch of the purple hills and poured a silvery light into a
valley green and beautiful with the magic touch of spring. A grove of
suhuaro rose like ghostly candelabra from the hillside opposite. The
mesquite carried a wealth of dainty foliage. Even the flat-leafed
prickly pear blended into the soft harmony of the mellow night.

Los Robles was still half a dozen miles away and the cattle were weary
from the long drive. For an hour they had seemed to smell water and the
leaders made a bee-line for it, bellowing with stretched necks as they
hurried forward. It was late when at last they reached the water-hole.

"Time to throw off. We'll make camp in the cool of the morning," Yeager
called to Shorty.

They built a fire of dead ironwood upon which they boiled coffee and
fried bacon. Bread they had brought with them. After eating, they lay at
ease and smoked.

There was little danger of the tired cattle straying, but Yeager
divided his party so that they should take turn about night-herding. He
took the first watch himself.

The stillness of the desert night was a thing to wonder at. The silence
of the great outdoors, of vast empty space, subdued the restlessness of
the cattle. Many a time before the range-rider had felt the fascination
of it creep into his blood as he had circled the sleeping herd murmuring
softly a Spanish love-song. By day the desert was often a place of
desolation and death, but under the mystic charm of night it was
transformed to a panorama of soft loveliness.

He thought of many episodes in his short, turbid life. They flashed upon
the screen of his memory as did the pictures of the Lunar Company upon
the canvas. In his time he had mushed in Alaska, fought in Mexico,
driven stage at the Nevada gold-fields, and wandered into many a lawless