When he introduced himself, I cordially greeted him, but at the
first intimation of disappointment from his lips, I checked him.

Using the best diplomacy at my command, I said, "Well, I'm sorry
to cause you this long ride when it might have been avoided. You
see, we are receiving cattle from both this and Dimmit County. In
fact, we are holding our herd across the line just at present. On
starting, we expect to go up the river to the first creek, and
north on it to the Leona River. I have partially promised the
work to an inspector from Dimmit. He inspected our herd last
year, and being a personal friend that way, you couldn't meet his
figures. Very sorry to disappoint you, but won't you come over to
the wagon and stay all night?"

But Dr. Beaver, who understood my motive, claimed the privilege
of entertaining the deputy at Los Lobos, and I yielded. We now
had a few over twenty-four hundred beeves, of which nineteen
hundred were in the Los Lobos brand, the others being mixed.
There was a possibility of fully a hundred more coming in with
the neighboring cattle, and Dr. Beaver was delighted over the
ranch delivery. The outside contingents were in four bunches,
then encamped in different directions and within from three to
five miles of the ranch. Taking Vick Wolf with me for the
afternoon, I looked over the separate herds and found them
numbering more than fifteen hundred. They were the same uniform
Nueces Valley cattle, and as we lacked only a few over a
thousand, the offerings were extremely liberal. Making
arrangements with three of the four herds to receive the next
day, Vick and I reached our camp on the county line about sunset.
The change was a decided advantage; wood, water, and grass were