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All the "hands" had departed to their work, and only the occasional lowing of a solitary milch cow in one of the corrals, and the trampling feet of the horses waiting to be "broken," and the "yeps" of a few mouching dogs, afforded any sign of life outside in the ranch yards. Jim began to grow restive. "Well, boy: I've some 'breaking' to do. Maybe you'll come along. You can talk as we go."
Their raids upon the cattle in the basin took place at night; and their other depredations occurred at that time also. Harlan did not fail to hear of them, for their successes figured prominently in their daytime conversations; and he had watched the herd of cattle in the Star corrals grow in size until the enclosure grew too small to hold them comfortably.
Beautiful swallow-tailed king-birds with rosy plumage perched on the tops of the small trees, and soared and flitted in graceful curves above them. Blackbirds of many kinds scuttled in flocks about the corrals and outbuildings around the ranches.
"I didn't mean that main trail; that's a wagon road, and Thunder Pass cuts through between Sheepeater peak and this one ahead of us Gospel, you call it. What I referred to is that blind trail that takes off up the canyon behind the corrals, and crosses into the mountains the other side of Gospel." Dirk eyed him. "I dunno 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried.
They rode until they saw two tepees showing white through the willows. "We're in luck to catch them home at this hour," said Teeters, as they heard a faint tinkle from the corrals on the other side of the creek. "They've got the sheep inside must be cuttin' out. Yes," as they forded and drew closer, "there's Kate at the dodge gate."
"But those are the ranch houses and corrals." "I don't see any cows," said Nan, and this seemed to puzzle her, "The cattle are mostly out on the different fields, or 'ranges', as we call 'em, feeding," said Mr. Weston. "We drive them from place to place as they eat the grass. We don't generally keep many head of cattle right around the ranch buildings.
The few dusty right-angled streets, with their rigid and staringly new shops and dwellings, the stern formality of one or two obelisk-like meeting-house spires, the illimitable outlying plains of wheat and wild oats beyond, with their monotony scarcely broken by skeleton stockades, corrals, and barrack-looking farm buildings, were all certainly unlike the unkempt freedom of the mountain fastnesses in which I had lately lived and moved.
There is another matter which needs essential improvement. I refer now to the men who are placed as superintendents over our Government corrals and depots for animals. Many of these men know little of either the horse or the mule, and are almost entirely ignorant of what is necessary for transportation.
Evidently this was not to be a news-gathering trip, though Johnny could not see why not, now they were over here. Why just sail over a few houses and fly home? He could see the houses now, huddled against the ridge. A ranch, he guessed it, since half the huddle appeared to be sheds and corrals.
In the dim, gray light of the early morning they followed Jim Reid out of the corral, and, riding fast, crossed the valley above the meadows and approached the Cross-Triangle corrals from the west. One man in the company led a horse with an empty saddle.
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