use. Across the road from the house stood a large grove of cottonwoods; a little beyond that, in the valley, a deep pond had been dug, into which flowed the outlets from the

ought. In the afternoon José was set to work cutting out and bunching the two- and three-year-old steers and later at helping with the branding. Conrad watched his handling of the branding irons, and he and all the rest stopped their work to follow his movements with

one sort or another-from Texas, Colorado, the Northwest, and the Middle West. All felt toward him the contemptuous scorn born of difference in race and consequent conviction of superior merit. They had no scruples about making known their prejudice, and more than once his face flushed and his hand darted toward the

they received him upon an equality with themselves which was only slightly grudged. He told them, in English more precise than any of them could speak, of Conrad's encounter with Rutherf

midnight bites from the prowling animals, believing hydrophobia a sure consequence, usually preferred to sleep inside the houses, on bunks filled with alfalfa hay. If they ventured to sleep out-of-doors, they kept small cans of coal oil ready and, whenever a wake

he west and the moon bounded up from behind the eastern hills, he made his memoranda, wrote a letter to be sent to the post-office by the first chance comer, and lost himself for an hour in a volume of Shakespeare. When he

to turn in. Take whatever bunks you like, if you

ers didn't get inside and wake me up smellin' of my ear. I was some skeered of him stinkin' up the place so it couldn't be slept in for a year, so I jest had to lay low and wait for him to go outside, an

ly he could be left alone with the moonlight and the plain. "I'll sleep with my boots on, and my cheeks are not as fat as

ouses. Conrad had gone out to the herd to speak with the man on patrol and to make sure that all was well. When he returned the men had disappeared. "Good!"

pace, and leave the huge white globe suspended there in brooding majesty just above the plain. With long legs outstretched and muscles relaxed, he lay as still as if asleep, his eyes on its glowing disk. He knew all that science had discovered or guessed about the moon's character and history. But it had companioned him on so many a silent ride across lo

," he thought, "and I'm bound to lay him out sooner or later. Lord, but it will be a satisfaction to face him finally! And he'll not get the drop on me first, either, unless Providence takes as good care of rascals as they say it does of fools." He recalled himself now and then to list

f the horse, and the cowboy's lullaby. He recognized the voice as that of Peters, who was to have the third watch, and so knew that it must be well on toward morning. He was about to sink into slumber again when his gaze fell upon a small black and white animal nosing among some rocks near by. "Poor little devil! If it wakens any of the boys it will get a taste of hell out of proportion to its sins," he thought, and decided that he would drive it a

h sleepy surprise that José was not facing toward the animal but was coming toward him. Then, before he had time to speak, the Mexican turned, a flying something shone in the moonlight

as a wonderful thr

ooped to draw out the knife and wipe it on the