to the real, elemental man of him; to the son of Bill Thurston,
bull-whacker, prospector, follower of dim trails. He rode
silently back to camp with Bob, ate his breakfast, got into dry
clothes and went out and tied his slicker deliberately and
securely behind the cantle of his saddle, though the sun was
shining straight into his eyes and the sky fairly twinkled, it
was so clean of clouds.

Bob watched him with eyes that laughed. "My, you're an
ambitious son-of-a-gun," he chuckled. "And you've got the
slicker question settled in your mind, I see; yuh learn easy; it
takes two or three soakings to learn some folks."

"We've got to go back and help with the herd, haven't we?"
Thurston asked. "The horses are all out."

"Yep. They'll stay out, too, till noon, m'son. We hike to bed,
if anybody should ask yuh."

So it was not till after dinner that he rode back to the great
herd--with his Kodak in his pocket--to find the cattle split up
into several bunches. The riders at once went to work
separating the different brands. He was too green a hand to do
anything but help hold the "cut," and that was so much like
ordinary herd-ing that his interest flagged. He wanted, more
than anything, to ride into the bunch and single out a Lazy
Eight steer, skillfully hazing him down the slope to the cut, as
he saw the others do.

Bob told him it was the biggest mix-up he had ever seen, and Bob