thousand dollars--ner ten," sneered
Creede. "Why don't you bet yearlings? If you'd blow some of that hot
air through a tube it'd melt rocks, I reckon. But talk cow, man; we
can all savvy that!"

"Well, where's the horse that can beat me?" demanded Lightfoot,
bristling.

"That little sorrel out in the pasture," answered Creede laconically.

"I'll bet ye!" blustered Lightfoot. "Aw, rats! He ain't even broke
yet!"

"He can run, all right. I'll go you for a yearling heifer. Put up or
shut up."

And so the race was run. Early in the morning the whole _rodeo_ outfit
adjourned to the _parada_ ground out by the pole corrals, the open
spot where they work over the cattle. Hardy danced his sorrel up to
the line where the gray was waiting, there was a scamper of feet, a
streak of dust, and Bill Lightfoot was out one yearling heifer. A
howling mob of cowboys pursued them from the scratch, racing each
other to the finish, and then in a yell of laughter at Bill Lightfoot
they capered up the canyon and spread out over The Rolls--the _rodeo_
had begun.

As the shadow of the great red butte to the west, around which the
wagon road toiled for so many weary miles, reached out and touched the
valley, they came back in a body, hustling a bunch of cattle along
before them. And such cattle! After his year with the Chiricahua
outfit in that blessed eastern valley where no sheep as yet had ever
strayed Hardy was startled by their appearance. Gaunt, rough, stunted,
with sharp hips and hollow flanks and bellies swollen from eating the
unprofitable browse of cactus and bitter shrubs, they nevertheless
sprinted along on their wiry legs like mountain bucks; and a peculiar
wild, haggard stare, stamped upon the faces of the old cows, showed
its replica even in the twos and yearlings. Yet he forbore to ask
Creede the question which arose involuntarily to his lips, for he
knew the inevitable answer.

Day after day, as they hurriedly combed The Rolls for what few cattle
remained on the lower range, the cowmen turned their eyes to the river
and to the canyons and towering cliffs beyond, for the sheep; until at
last as they sat by the evening fire Creede pointed silently to the
lambent flame of a camp fire, glowing like a torch against the
southern sky.

"There's your friends, Rufe," he said, and the cowmen glanced at Hardy
inquiringly.

"I might as well tell you fellers," Creede continued, "that one reason
Rufe come up here was to see if he