Heretofore their joshing had not bothered him. In fact, he had rather
enjoyed the distinction of going unarmed, and he had added to this
distinction by acquiring a skill with the rope that occasioned much
natural jealousy among his fellows. To be top-hand with a rope among
such men as Blaze Andrews, Slim Trivet, Red Bender, and High-Chin Bob,
the foreman, was worth all the patient hours he had given to persistent
practice with the reata.

But to-day he questioned himself. His mother had made him promise to go
unarmed because she feared he would become like his father. Why hadn't
she told him more about it all? He felt that she had taken a kind of
mean advantage of his unwavering affection for her. He was a man, so far
as earning his wage was concerned. And she was the best woman in the
world--but then women didn't understand the unwritten customs of the
range.

On a sandy ridge he reined up and gazed at the desert below. The bleak
flats wavered in the white light of noon. The farthest hills to the
south seemed but a few miles away.

For some time he focused his gaze at the Notch, from which the road
sprang and flowed in slow undulations to a vanishing point in the blank
spaces of the west. His pony, Gray Leg, head up and nostrils working,
twitched back one ear as Lorry spoke: "You see it, too?"

Gray Leg continued to gaze into the distance, occasionally stamping an
impatient forefoot, as though anxious to be off. Lorry lowered his glass
and raised it again. In the circle of the binoculars he saw a tiny,
distant figure dismount from a black horse and walk back and forth
across the road directly below the Notch. Lorry wiped his glasses and