and the dried
little man grinned back companionably.

"Say, old-timer, what's gone with all the cattle and all the punchers?"
Luck demanded with a mild querulousness.

The dried little man straightened from the truck handles and regarded
Luck strangely.

"My gorry, son, plumb hazed off'n this section the earth, I reckon.
Farmers and punchers, they don't mix no better'n sheep and cattle. Why, I
mind the time when--"

The train was late, anyway, and the dried little man sat down on the
truck, and fumbled his cigarette book, and began to talk. Luck sat down
beside him and listened, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and
a cold cigarette in his fingers. It was not of this part of the country
that the dried little man talked, but of Montana, over there to the west.
Of northern Montana in the days when it was cowman's paradise; the days
when round-up wagons started out with the grass greening the hilltops,
and swung from the Rockies to the Bear Paws and beyond in the wide arc
that would cover their range; of the days of the Cross L and the Rocking
R and the Lazy Eight,--every one of them brand names to glisten the eyes
of old-time Montanans.

"Where would you go to find them boys now?" the dried little man
questioned mournfully. "The Rocking R's gone into sheep, and the old boys
have all left. The Cross L moved up into Canada, Lord knows how they're
making out; I don't. Only outfit in northern Montana I know that has hung
together at all is the Flying U. Old man Whitmore, he's hangin' on by his
eyewinkers to what little range he can, and is going in for
thoroughbreds. Most of his boys is with him yet, they tell me--"

"What they doing? Still riding?" Luck let out a long breath and lighted
his cigarette. A little flare of hope had come into his eyes.

"Riding--yes, what little there is to do. Ranching a little too, and
kicking about changed times, same as I'm doing. Last time I saw that
outfit they was riding, you bet!" The dried little man chuckled, "That
was in Great Falls, some time back. They was all in a contest, and
pulling down the money, too. I was talking to old man Whitmore all one
evening. He was telling me--"

From away out yonder behind a hill came the throaty call of the coming
train. The dried little man jumped up, mumbled that it did beat all how
time went when yuh got to talking over old days, and hustled two trunks
out of the baggage room. Luck got his grip out of the office, settled
himse