ing off,
we could see with the naked eye signs of life at the meeting-point.
The wagon sheets of half a dozen chuck-wagons shone white in the dim
distance, while small bands of saddle horses could be distinctly seen
grazing about.

When we halted at noon that day to change our mounts, we sighted to
the northward some seven miles distant an outfit similar to our own.
We were on the lookout for this cavalcade; they were supposed to be
the "Spade" outfit, on their way to attend the round-up in the middle
division, where our pasture lay. This year, as in years past, we had
exchanged the courtesies of the range with them. Their men on our
division were made welcome at our wagon, and we on theirs were
extended the same courtesy. For this reason we had hoped to meet them
and exchange the chronicle of the day, concerning the condition of
cattle on their range, the winter drift, and who would be captain this
year on the western division, but had traveled the entire day without
meeting a man.

Night had almost set in when we reached the camp, and to our
satisfaction and delight found the Spade wagon already there, though
their men and horses would not arrive until the next day. To hungry
men like ourselves, the welcome of their cook was hospitality in the
fullest sense of the word. We stretched ropes from the wagon wheels,
and in a few moments' time were busy hobbling our mounts. Darkness
had settled over the camp as we were at this work, while an occasional
horseman rode by with the common inquiry, "Whose outfit is this?" and
the cook, with one end of the rope in his hand, would feel the host in
him sufficiently to reply in tones supercilious, "The Coldwater Pool
men are with us this year."

Our arrival was heralded through the camp with the same rapidity with
which gossip circulates, equally in a tenement alley or the upper
crust of society. The cook had informed us that we had been inquired
for by some Panhandle man; so before we had finished hobbling, a
stranger sang out across the ropes in the darkness, "Is Billy Edwards
here?" Receiving an affirmative answer from among the horses' feet, he
added, "Come out, then, and shake hands with a friend."

Edwards arose from his work, and looking across the backs of the
circle of horses about him, at the undistinguishable figure at the
rope, replied, "Whoever you are, I reckon the acquaintance will hold
good until I get these horses hobbled."

"Who is it?" inquired "Mouse" from