at he spent in the San Gabriel camp.
The ranchman had no fine theories to work out--perhaps his whole stock
of pedagogy embraced only a knowledge of horse-breaking and a belief
in heredity.

The cowpunchers saw that their boss was trying to make a man out of
the strange animal that he had sent among them; and they tacitly
organised themselves into a faculty of assistants. But their system
was their own.

Curly's first lesson stuck. He became on friendly and then on intimate
terms with soap and water. And the thing that pleased Ranse most was
that his "subject" held his ground at each successive higher step. But
the steps were sometimes far apart.

Once he got at the quart bottle of whisky kept sacredly in the grub
tent for rattlesnake bites, and spent sixteen hours on the grass,
magnificently drunk. But when he staggered to his feet his first move
was to find his soap and towel and start for the /charco/. And once,
when a treat came from the ranch in the form of a basket of fresh
tomatoes and young onions, Curly devoured the entire consignment
before the punchers reached the camp at supper time.

And then the punchers punished him in their own way. For three days
they did not speak to him, except to reply to his own questions or
remarks. And they spoke with absolute and unfailing politeness. They
played tricks on one another; they pounded one another hurtfully and
affectionately; they heaped upon one another's heads friendly curses
and obloquy; but they were polite to Curly. He saw it, and it stung
him as much as Ranse hoped it would.

Then came a night that brought a cold, wet norther. Wilson, the
youngest of the outfit, had lain in camp two days, ill with fever.
When Joe got up at daylight to begin breakfast he found Curly sitting
asleep against a wheel of the grub wagon with only a saddle blanket
around him, while Curly's blankets were stretched over Wilson to
protect him from the rain and wind.

Three nights after that Curly rolled himself in his blanket and went
to sleep. Then the other punchers rose up softly and began to make
preparations. Ranse saw Long Collins tie a rope to the horn of a
saddle. Others were getting out their six-shooters.

"Boys," said Ranse, "I'm much obliged. I was hoping you would. But I
didn't like to ask."

Half a dozen six-shooters began to pop--awful yells rent the air--Long
Collins galloped wildly across Curly's bed, dragging the saddle after
him. That was merely their way of