heard, more than once lately, to anathematize viciously the prairie-dogs for
standing on their tails and chipchip-chipping at them as they went by. And
though the Silent One did not swear, he carried rocks in his pockets,
and threw them with venomous precision at every "dog" that showed his
impertinent nose out of a burrow within range. For Pink, he vented his
spleen on the line-backed cow.

So they walked and walked and walked.

The cattle balked at another hill, and all the tincans and slickers in the
crowd could scarcely move them. The wind dropped with the sun, and the
clouds glowed gorgeously above them, getting scant notice, except that they
told eloquently of the coming night; and there were yet miles--long, rough,
heartbreaking miles--to put behind them before they could hope for the
things their tired bodies craved: supper and dreamless sleep.

When the last of the herd had sidled, under protest, down the long hill to
the flat, dusk was pushing the horizon closer upon them, mile by mile. When
they crawled sinuously out upon the welcome level, the hill loomed ghostly
and black behind them. A mile out, Wooden Shoes rode out of the gloom and
met the point. He turned and rode beside Pink.

"Yuh'll have t' swing 'em north," he greeted.

"Red Willow's dry as hell--all but in the Rockin' R field. No use askin' ole
Mullen to let us in there; we'll just go. I sent the wagons through the
fence, an' yuh'll find camp about a mile up from the mouth uh the big
coulee. You swing 'em round the end uh this bench, an' hit that big coulee
at the head. When you come t' the fence, tear it down. They's awful good
grass in that field!"