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"Only a hundred or so different reasons," Evans returned indifferently. "Then beef-tops brought ten dollars a head and they're worth three times that now; then you bought a brand on the hoof, come as they run, for round five dollars straight through, exclusive of calves; now it's based at ten on the round-up tally.
Long ago Helen's fancies had been ensnared by the big picturesque ranch; long ago her heart had gone out to a fine saddle horse. No longer did she seek to hold her interest in check; she asked him quick questions about everything that he had overlooked telling her and exclaimed with delighted anticipation when he suggested that she and her father ride down and watch at the round-up.
"And I declare!" cried Helen, as they rolled on through one of the suburbs of the city, "there is one of the sights, sure enough. See that billboard, girls?" "Oh!" cried Wonota, who possessed quite as sharp eyes as anybody in the party. "We can't escape that man," sighed Jennie, as she read in towering letters the announcement of "Dakota Joe's Wild West and Frontier Round-Up."
Alaire smiled in tacit assent; then when the two friends had completely established their intimacy she mounted her own horse and led the way to the round-up. Dave's unbounded delight filled the mistress of Las Palmas with the keenest pleasure. He laughed, he hummed snatches of songs, he kept up a chatter addressed as much to the mare as to his companion, and under it Montrosa romped like a tomboy.
It takes days to try Silver Phil, an' marshals an' sheriff gents is two weeks squanderin' about gettin' witnesses; an' all to as much trouble an' loss of time an' dinero as would suffice to round-up the cattle of Cochise county.
"And it was afternoon, you say, before it occurred to you that they might possibly have been stealing my horses. In the meantime, you were up this way, playing hell with the round-up." "Yes, sir, that's about the way it stacks up." "What are you going to do?" "I don't know. Try and get back what horses I can, I guess." Johnny did not speak as though he had much faith.
When the round-up outfits came in for the summer, the beef shipping began. In the first two contingents of cattle purchased in securing the good will of the original range, we now had five thousand double wintered beeves. It was my intention to ship out the best of the single wintered ones, and five separate outfits were ordered into the saddle for that purpose.
No light showed from the cabin in which the cowboys lived; he had not yet come in from the round-up. She unsaddled, and turned Pronto loose in the pasture. The windows of the long, low ranch-house were bright squares in the blackness, sending cheerful rays afar. Columbine wondered in trepidation if Jack Belllounds had come home. It required effort of will to approach the house.
She unhesitatingly authorized him to use his own discretion absolutely in anything connected with her interests and he immediately ordered a round-up with that end in view. He had already arranged for the sale of the cattle, he somewhat abashedly confessed to her secret amusement, and at a price rather above current quotations.
"But here's the yarn." Thereupon, having turned his pony out to graze with the Indian's, Yellin' Kid told the boys what had happened. "We started some of the cattle from th' round-up brandin' over to th' railroad," the cowboy stated, "an' followin' th' usual preliminaries we all settled down for th' night, after you fellows rode off. An' let me tell you I was glad t' hit my bunk!