im eagerly.

"Did they go around?" he asked incredulously. "Jasp and all?"

"Sure," said Hardy. "Why?"

For a long minute Creede was silent, wrinkling his brows as he
pondered upon the miracle.

"Well, that's what _I_ want to know," he answered ambiguously. "But
say, you've got a fresh horse; jest take my place here while me and
Uncle Bill over there show them ignorant punchers how to cut cattle."

He circled rapidly about the herd and, riding out into the runway
where the cattle were sifted, the beef steers being jumped across the
open into the hold-up herd and the cows and calves turned back, he
held up his hand for the work to stop. Then by signals he sent the
galloping horsemen back to the edge of the herd and beckoned for old
Bill Johnson.

For a few minutes he sat quietly on his horse, waiting for the
harassed cattle to stop their milling. Then breaking into a song such
as cowboys sing at night he rode slowly in among them, threading about
at random, while old Bill Johnson on his ancient mare did likewise,
his tangled beard swaying idly in the breeze. On the border of the
herd they edged in as if by accident upon a fat steer and walked him
amiably forth into the open. Another followed out of natural
perversity, and when both were nicely started toward the beef cut the
two men drifted back once more into the herd. There was no running, no
shouting, no gallant show of horsemanship, but somehow the right
steers wandered over into the beef cut and stayed there. As if by
magic spell the outlaws and "snakes" became good, and with no breaks
for the hills the labor of an afternoon was accomplished in the space
of two dull and uneventful hours.

"That's the way to cut cattle!" announced Creede, as they turned the
discard toward the hills. "Ain't it, Bill?"

He turned to Johnson who, sitting astride a flea-bitten gray mare that
seemed to be in a perpetual doze, looked more like an Apache squaw
than a boss cowboy. The old man's clothes were even more ragged than
when Hardy had seen him at Bender, his copper-riveted hat was further
reinforced by a buckskin thong around the rim, and his knees were
short-stirruped almost up to his elbows by the puny little boy's
saddle that he rode, but his fiery eyes were as quick and piercing as
ever.

"Shore thing," he said, straightening up jauntily in his saddle,
"that's my way! Be'n doin' it fer years, while you boys was killin'
horses, but it takes Jeff hyar to see the p'int.