way, which I don't intend to do. The banks admit
that cattle are a slow sale and a shade lower this spring, and are not
as free with their money as a year or two ago. My bankers detained me
over an hour until they could send for a customer who claimed to have a
very fine lot of beeves for sale in Lasalle County. That he is anxious
to sell there is no doubt, for he offered them to me on my own time, and
agrees to meet any one's prices. I half promised to come back next week
and go down with him to Lasalle and look his cattle over. If they show
up right, there will be no trouble in buying them, which will complete
our purchases. It is my intention, Jim, to give you the herd to fill
our earliest delivery. Our next two occur so near together that you will
have to represent me at one of them. The Buford cattle, being the last
by a few weeks, we will both go up there and see it over with. There are
about half a dozen trail foremen anxious for the two other herds, and
while they are good men, I don't know of any good reason for not pushing
my own boys forward. I have already decided to give Dave Sponsilier and
Quince Forrest two of the Buford herds, and I reckon, Tom, the last one
will fall to you."

The darkness in which we were standing shielded my egotism from public
view. But I am conscious that I threw out my brisket several inches
and stood straight on my bow-legs as I thanked old man Don for the
foremanship of his sixth herd. Flood was amused, and told me afterward
that my language was extravagant. There is an old superstition that if
a man ever drinks out of the Rio Grande, it matters not where he roams
afterward, he is certain to come back to her banks again. I had watered
my horse in the Yellowstone in '82, and ever afterward felt an itching
to see her again. And here the opportunity opened before me, not as a
common cow-hand, but as a trail boss and one of three in filling a five
million pound government beef contract! But it was dark and I was afoot,
and if I was a trifle "chesty," there had suddenly come new colorings to
my narrow world.

On the arrival of the train, several other westward-bound cowmen boarded
it. We all took seats in the smoker, it being but a two hours' run to
our destination. Flood and I were sitting well forward in the car, the
former almost as elated over my good fortune as myself. "Well, won't old
Quince be all puffed up," said Jim to me, "when the old man tells him
he's to have a herd. No