"She's o-only a bird in a gil-ded cage,

A beautiful sight to see-e-e;

You may think she seems ha-a-aappy and free from ca-a-re.."

The singer passed on and away, and only the high notes floated
across to Thurston, who whistled softly under his breath while
he listened. Then, as they neared again on the second round,
the words came pensively:

"Her beauty was so-o-o1d

For an old man's go-o-old, She's a bird in a gilded ca-a-age."

Thurston rode slowly like one in a dream, and the lure of the
range-land was strong upon him. The deep breathing of three
thousand sleeping cattle; the strong, animal odor; the black
night which grew each moment blacker, and the rhythmic ebb and
flow of the clear, untrained voice of a cowboy singing to his
charge. If he could put it into words; if he could but picture
the broody stillness, with frogs cr-ekk, er-ekking along the
reedy creek-bank and a coyote yapping weirdly upon a distant
hilltop! From the southwest came mutterings half-defiant and
ominous. A breeze whispered something to the grasses as it
crept away down the valley.

"I stood in a church-yard just at ee-eve,

While the sunset adorned the west."