Car after car was jammed full of the frightened creatures as the men
moved from pen to pen, threw open and shut the big gates, and hustled the
stock up the chutes. Dave had begun work at six in the morning. A glance
at his watch showed him that it was now ten o'clock.

A middle-aged man in wrinkled corduroys and a pinched-in white hat drove
up to the fence. "How're they coming, Sam?" he asked of the foreman in
charge.

"We'd ought to be movin' by noon, Mr. West."

"Fine. I've decided to send Garrison in charge. He can pick one of the
boys to take along. We can't right well spare any of 'em now. If I knew
where to find a good man--"

The lean Arizona-born youth slid from the fence on his prod-pole and
stepped forward till he stood beside the buckboard of the cattleman.

"I'm the man you're lookin' for, Mr. West."

The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand looked him over with
keen eyes around which nets of little wrinkles spread.

"What man?" he asked.

"The one to help Mr. Garrison take the cattle to Denver."

"Recommend yoreself, can you?" asked West with a hint of humor.