pe. In the afternoon he would "ride
circle" again, over the hills; and at night, from ten to twelve, he
would again be on guard, riding round the cattle, humming some eerie
lullaby. It was always the same song that he sang, but what the words
were or the melody is a secret that belongs to the wind.

[Footnote 16: Roosevelt gives an admirable description
of a round-up in his _Ranch Life and the Hunting
Trail_.]

When utterly tired, it was hard to have to get up for one's
trick at night-herd [Roosevelt wrote in his
"Autobiography"]. Nevertheless on ordinary nights the two
hours round the cattle in the still darkness were pleasant.
The loneliness, under the vast empty sky, and the silence in
which the breathing of the cattle sounded loud, and the
alert readiness to meet any emergency which might suddenly
arise out of the formless night, all combined to give one a
sense of subdued interest.

As he lay on the ground near by, after his watch, he liked to listen
to the wild and not unmusical calls of the cowboys as they rode round
the half-slumbering steers. There was something magical in the strange
sound of it under the stars. Now and then a song would float through
the clear air.

"The days that I was hard up,
I never shall forget.
The days that I was hard up--
I may be well off yet.
In days when I was hard up,
And wanted wood and fire,
I used to tie my shoes up
With little bits of wire."

It was a favorite song with the night-herders.

One night, early in the round-up, Roosevelt failed satisfactorily to
identify the direction in which he was to go in order to reach the
night-herd. It was a pitch-dark night, and he wandered about in it for
hours on end, finding the cattle at last only when the sun rose. He
was greeted with withering scorn by the injured cowpuncher who had
been obliged to stand double guard because Roosevelt had failed to
relieve him.

Sixteen hours of work left little time for social diversions, but even
when they were full of sleep the cowboys would draw up around the
camp-fire, to smoke and sing and "swap yarns" for an hour. There were
only three musical instruments in the length and breadth of the Bad
Lands, the Langs' piano, a violin which "Fiddling Joe" played at the
dances over