sleeperin' for all we knew. Three other cases of the same kind
we happened across that same spring.

So far, so good. Sleepers runnin' in such numbers was a little
astonishin', but nothin' suspicious. Cattle did well that
summer, and when we come to round up in the fall, we cut out
maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle that had strayed out of that
Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven
yearlin's.

"My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these
youngsters comin' over our way."

But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old
one that's got his range established, we didn't lay no great
store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's
all there was to it.

Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we
came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but
Buck, who was with me, had somethin' on his mind. Finally he
turned back and roped her, and threw her.

"Look here, Jed," says he, "what do you make of this?"

I could see where the hind legs below the hocks had been burned.

"Looks like somebody had roped her by the hind feet," says I.

"Might be," says he, "but her heels lame that way makes it look