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Dozens of men, multitudes of horses, hordes of cattle—the mighty plain swallowed all the little, prancing, galloping, bellowing things, and still looked mighty in its loneliness. Fling a handful of toys from a Noah’s Ark—if they make such simple toys now—in an ordinary field, and the little, wooden men, horses and cows, will suggest the round-up in relation to its background.
Wherefore, he had let himself be badgered good-naturedly into trying a fall with these famous buckers. As the heavy work of the round-up was almost over, Dillon was glad to relax discipline enough to give the boys a little fun. The remuda was driven up while the outfit was at breakfast. His friends guyed Steve with pleasant prophecy. "He'll be hunting leather about the fourth buck!"
Carson, when the cattle, their thirst slaked, were willing to be driven on. "I'll move all my stock to some place where Molick can't kill them off. Then I'll fight him to the last ditch!" "Hurrah!" cried Dave. "Hurrah for the round-up I" yelled the cowboys. It meant hard work, but it meant excitement, too, and that was a large part of their lives.
The sales at the round-up had been large, and Ted and the boys sat up late that night, after those guests who had elected to remain over for the festivities of the next day were safely in bed, counting the money and going over the books. "It has been a mighty good year for us, boys," said Ted, as he contemplated the total of their sales.
From habit our eyes swept the surrounding country, and in a moment we observed other groups of mounted men, an equal distance apart and traveling in the same general direction like a round-up sweeping over a cattle-range. "They're out for somebody. I shouldn't be surprised if they have smelled out our friends," said MacRae.
For her the sun rose and set in Ed Wetherford. She'd leave you any day, and go on the round-up with him. It nigh about broke her up in business when Ed hit the far-away trail." The girl perceived that in her visitor she had one of these self-oiled human talking-machines "with tongue hung in the middle," as the old saying goes, and she was dimly conscious of having heard her many times before.
To-day, when I am low in my mind, I take that cowgirl hat from its retreat and read its inscription: "Give 'er pep and let 'er buck." It is a whole creed. Somewhere among my papers I have the programme of that round-up at Kalispell. It was a very fine round-up. There was a herd of buffalo; there were wild horses and long-horned Mexican steers. There was a cheering crowd.
Her big range hat would have gone sailing had it not been tied under her chin with buckskin strings. Usually she sang as she hurtled through space, but to-day the pintos missed her voice. Five miles out on the range she overtook the sheriff and Aleck Douglas riding to the round-up.
"Those scratches are new ones they were made by the burglar," declared the girl, whom Nort and Dick thought the prettiest they had ever seen. "I know, for I dusted your office, Dad, the day the round-up ended, and the door was as shiny then as a new penny." "Then the burglar did it," decided Bud.
"You can all go to the Rodeo," Old Heck interposed, not feeling just right in his conscience about sending Parker away in advance of the time expected, and wishing to make amends," Parker and all of you. You can 'break' the round-up for a few days during the Rodeo and what cattle you've got gathered by then can be turned into the big pasture and held there till it's over.
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