d hold this herd, I'll
go and get something to eat. When I come to this outfit t' work, I
naturally s'posed yuh was cow-punchers. Yuh ain't. Yuh couldn't hold
a bunch uh sick lambs inside a high board corral with the gate shut and
locked on the outside. When it comes t' cow-science, you're the limit.
Yuh couldn't earn your board on a ten-acre farm in Maine, driving one
milk-cow and a yearling calf t' pasture and back. You're a hot bunch
uh rannies--I don't think! Up on Milk River they'd put bells on every
dam' one uh yuh t' keep yuh from getting lost going from the mess-house
t' the corral and back. And, Mr. Weary, next time yuh give a man a
horse t' fall off from, for the Lord's sake don't put him on a gentle
old skate that would be pickings for a two-year-old kid. I thought
this here Glory'd give a man something to do, from all the yawping I've
heard done about him. I heard uh him when I was on the Cross L; and I
will say right now that he's the biggest disappointment I've met up
with in many a long day. He's punk. Come and get him and let me have
something alive. I'm weary uh trying to delude myself into thinking
that this red image is a horse."

The Happy Family, huddled ten paces before him, stared. Pink slid out
of the saddle and came forward, smiling, and dimpling. He held out a
gloved hand to the first man he came to, which was Weary himself. "Are
yuh happy to meet Milk River Pink?" he wanted to know.

The Happy Family, grinning sheepishly, crowded close to shake him by
the hand.

THE SPIRIT OF THE RANGE

Cal Emmett straightened up with his gloved hand pressed tight against
the small of his back, sighed "Hully Gee!" at the ache of his muscles
and went over to the water bucket and poured a quart or so of cool,
spring water down his parched throat. The sun blazed like a furnace
with the blower on, though it was well over towards the west; the air
was full of smoke, dust and strong animal odors, and the throaty
bawling of many cattle close-held. For it was nearing the end of
spring round-up, and many calves were learning, with great physical
and mental distress, the feel of a hot iron properly applied. Cal
shouted to the horse-wrangler that the well had gone dry--meaning the
bucket--and went back to work.

"I betche we won't git through in time for no picnic," predicted
Happy Jack gloomily, getting the proper hold on the hind leg of a
three-months-old calf. "They's three hundred to de