Four thousand weary cattle crawled up the long ridge which divides Chin
Coulee from Quitter Creek. Pink, riding point, opposite the Silent One,
twisted round in his saddle and looked back at the slow-moving river of
horns and backs veiled in a gray dust-cloud. Down the line at intervals rode
the others, humped listlessly in their saddles, their hat brims pulled low
over tired eyes that smarted with dust and wind and burning heat.

Pink sighed, and wished lonesomely that it was Rowdy riding point with him,
instead of the Silent One, who grew even more silent as the day dragged
leadenly to mid-afternoon; Pink could endure anything better than being left
to his thoughts and to the complaining herd for company.

He took off his hat, pushed back his curls--dripping wet they were and
flattened unbecomingly in pasty, yellow rings on his forehead--and eyed with
disfavor a line-backed, dry cow, with one horn tipped rakishly toward her
speckled nose; she blinked silently at wind and heat, and forged steadily
ahead, up-hill and down coulee,always in the lead, always walking, walking,
like an automaton. Her energy, in the face of all the dry, dreary days,
rasped Pink's nerves unbearably. For nearly a week he had
ridden left point, and always that line-backed cow with the down-crumpled
horn walked and walked and walked, a length ahead of her most intrepid
followers.

He leaned from his saddle, picked up a rock from the barren, yellow
hillside, and threw it at the cow spitefully. The rock bounced off her lean
rump; she blinked and broke into a shuffling trot, her dragging hoofs
kicking up an extra amount of dust, which blew straight into Pink's face.

"Aw, cut it out!" he shouted petulantly. "You're sure the limit, without