k on
their faces. A boy of eighteen, plainly the son of one of the other two,
was hanging up the saddles. The whole group appeared low-spirited and
tired. The men responded to the visitors by a brief nod only. The latter
there-upon sat down just inside the circle of lamplight and smoked in
silence. Presently Jim arose stiffly, frying pan in hand.

"It's done," he announced.

They ate in silence, consuming great quantities of half-cooked
flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee.
When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with
the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown
paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a time George Pollock
remarked:

"We ain't washed up."

The statement resulted in no immediate action. After a few moments more,
however, the boy arose slowly, gathered the dishes clattering into a
kettle, filled the latter with water, and set it in the fire. Jim and
his brother, too, bestirred themselves, disappearing in the direction of
the spring with a bar of mottled soap, an old towel, and a battered pan.
They returned after a few moments, their faces shining, their hair
wetted and sleeked down.

"Plumb too lazy to wash up." George addressed the silent visitors by way
of welcome.

"Drove far?" asked an old ranchman.

"Twin Peaks."

"How's the feed?" came the inevitable cowman's question.

"Pore, pore," replied the mountaineer. "Ain't never seen it so short. My
cattle's pore."

"Well, you're overstocked; that's what's the matter," spoke up some one
boldly.

George Pollock turned his face toward this voice.

"Don't you suppose I know it?" he demanded. "There's a thousand head too
many on my range alone. I've been crowded and pushed all summer, and I
ain't got a beef steer fit to sell, right now. My cattle are so pore
I'll have to winter 'em on foothill winter feed. And in the spring
they'll be porer."

"Well, why don't you all get together and reduce your stock?" persisted
the questioner. "Then there'll be a show for somebody. I got three packs
and two saddlers that ain't fatted up from a two weeks' trip in August.
You got the country skinned; and that ain't no dream."

George Pollock turned so fiercely that his listeners shrank.

"Get together! Reduce our stock!" he snarled, shaken from the customary
impassivity of the mountaineer, "It ain't us! We got the same number of
cattle, all we mountain men, that our