ith work to be done, three circles to be thrown in a day and with
a string of fresh horses for every hand, the paramount issue of the
circle is the saving of time rather than the saving of mounts. As they
reached the head of the first draw that led back down into the valley
Harris waved an arm.

"Carp," he called, and a middle-aged man named Carpenter, abbreviated
to Carp, wheeled his horse from the group and headed down the draw.

A half-mile farther on they reached the head of another gulch.

"Hanson!" the new foreman called, and the man who repped for the
Halfmoon D dropped out. One man was detailed to work each draw and
when some five miles up the divide there were but half the crew left.
Harris dropped down a long ridge and crossed the bottoms. Far down the
valley the wagon showed through the thin, clear air. The foreman led
the way to the opposite divide and doubled back, sending a man down
every gulch.

The girl rode with him. Down in the bottoms they could see the riders
detailed on the opposite side hazing the cows out of their respective
draws and heading them toward the wagon. The first few men left their
cows in the flat and veered past them to station themselves near the
wagon and block the valley, sitting their horses at hundred-yard
intervals across it.

Harris and the girl worked the last draw themselves and when they drove
their cows out of the mouth of it they found a herd already milled, two
hundred yards above the wagon. Harris left her and circled the bunch,
estimating it.

A few belated riders were bringing their quotas to swell the herds.
Frequently a bunch of cows made a break to leave and many were allowed
to make good their escape to the safety of the broken slopes. But
these were only marked stuff previously branded and any attempt
including a cow with an unbranded calf was instantly blocked. Each
rider noted the brands of any cows which he let escape and more
particularly still he scanned them with an eye for the presence of a
"slick," an animal missed in previous round-ups and wearing no brand.
Slick cows were fair prey for any man who first put his rope on them
and he was entitled to run his own brand on a slick or to mark it with
the brand for which he rode and draw down a certain scale of premiums
at the end of the round-up season.

Harris changed mounts, throwing his saddle on the paint-horse. When
the last rider appeared with his bunch and threw it into the herd
Harri