morally sure of his guilt, no one could prove that he had cut the strap, and
so he got off unpunished, except that Pink thrashed him--a bit
unscientifically, it is true, since he resorted to throwing rocks toward the
last, but with a thoroughness worthy even of Pink.

But in moods less ugly he shrank from the hurt that must be Jessie's if she
should discover the truth. Jessie's brother a convicted thief serving his
sentence in Deer Lodge! The thought was horrible; it was brutal cruelty. If
he could only know where to look for that lad, he'd help him out of the
country. It was no good shutting him up in jail; that wouldn't help him any,
or make him better. He hoped he would get off--go somewhere, where they
couldn't find him, and stay there.

He wondered where he was, and if he had money enough to see him through. He
might be no good--he sure wasn't!--but he was Jessie's brother, and Jessie
believed in him and thought a lot of him. It would be hard lines for that
little girl if Harry were caught. Bill Brown, the meddlesome old freak!--he
didn't blame Jessie for not wanting to stop there that night. She did just
the right thing.

With all this going round and round, monotonously persistent in his brain,
and with the care of four thousand lean kine and more than a hundred
saddle-horses--to say nothing of a dozen overworked, fretful
cow-punchers--Rowdy acquired the "corrugated brow" fast enough without any
cultivation.

The men were as the Silent One had predicted. They made drives that lasted
far into the night, stood guard, and got along with so little sleep that it
was scarce worth mention, and did many things that shaved close the
impossible--just because Rowdy looked at them straightly, with half-closed