in the world. Then the cattle were left to themselves, and the men rode down
to their old campground, marked by empty tin-cans and a trodden place where
had been the horse corral.

Rowdy swung down and faced the men gravely. Instinctively they stood at
attention, waiting for what he had to say; they felt that the situation was
so far out of the ordinary that a few remarks pertaining to their new
relations would not be out of place.

He looked them over appraisingly, and met glances as grave as his own.
Straight, capable fellows they were, every man of them.

"Boys," he began impressively, "you all know that from to-day on you're
working under my orders. I never was boss of anything but the cayuse I
happened to have under me, and I'm going to extract all the honey there is
in the situation. Maybe I'll never be boss again--but at present I'm it. I
want you fellows to remember that important fact, and treat me with proper
respect. From now on you can call me Mr. Vaughan; 'Rowdy' doesn't go, except
on a legal holiday.

"Furthermore, I'm not going to get out at daylight and catch up my own
horse; I'll let yuh take turns being flunky, and I'll expect yuh to saddle
my horse every morning and noon, and bring him to the cook-tent--and hold my
stirrup for me. Also, you are expected, at all times and places, to
anticipate my wants and fall over yourselves waiting on me. "You're just
common, ordinary, forty-dollar cow-punchers, and if I treat yuh white, it's
because I pity yuh for not being up where I am. Remember, vassals, that I'm
your superior, mentally, morally, socially--"

"Chap him!" yelled Pink, and made for him "I'll stand for a lot, but don't