fierceness, "it's a terrible place for man or beast to stay in,
unless the object to be attained is great enough to justify
enduring the hardships."

"You said a mouthful, Cash. Well, can you leave your seven
radishes and three hunches of lettuce and pull out--say at
daybreak?" Bud turned to him with some eagerness.

Cash grinned sourly. "When it's time to go, seven radishes
can't stop me. No, nor a whole row of 'em--if there was a
whole row."

"And you watered 'em copiously too," Bud murmured, with the
corners of his mouth twitching. "Well, I guess we might as well
tie up the livestock. I'm going to give 'em all a feed of
rolled oats, Cash. We can get along without, and they've got to
have something to put a little heart in 'em. There's a moon to-
night--how about starting along about midnight? That would put
us in the Bend early in the forenoon to-morrow."

"Suits me," said Cash. "Now I've made up my mind about going, I
can't go too soon."

"You're on. Midnight sees us started." Bud went out with ropes
to catch and tie up the burros and their two saddle horses. And
as he went, for the first time in two months he whistled; a
detail which Cash noted with a queer kind of smile.

Midnight and the moon riding high in the purple bowl of sky
sprinkled thick with stars; with a little, warm wind stirring the