the crude map of one who
had taken a herd north and had returned with a tale of vast plains and
no rivals. Always through the day the dust cloud hung over the backs of
the cattle, settled into the clothes of those who followed, grimed the
pink aprons of Buddy and his small sister Dulcie so that they were no
longer pink. Whenever a stream was reached, mother searched patiently
for clear water and an untrampled bit of bank where she might do the
family washing, leaving Ezra to mind the children. But even so the crust
and the wear and tear of travel remained to harass her fastidious soul.

Buddy remembered that drive as he could not remember the comfortable
ranch house of his earlier babyhood. To him afterward it seemed that
life began with the great herd of cattle. He came to know just how low
the sun must slide from the top of the sky before the "point" would
spread out with noses to the ground, pausing wherever a mouthful of
grass was to be found. When these leaders of the herd stopped, the
cattle would scatter and begin feeding. If there was water they would
crowd the banks of the stream or pool, pushing and prodding one another
with their great, sharp horns. Later, when the sun was gone and dusk
crept out of nowhere, the cowboys would ride slowly around the herd,
pushing it quietly into a smaller compass. Then, if Buddy were not too
sleepy, he would watch the cattle lie down to chew their cuds in deep,
sighing content until they slept. It reminded Buddy vaguely of when
mother popped corn in a wire popper, a long time ago-before they all
lived in a wagon and went with the herd. First one and two-then there
would be three, four, five, as many as Buddy could count-then the whole
herd would be lying down.

Buddy loved the camp-fires. The cowboys would sit around the one where
his father and mother sat--mother with Dulcie in her arms--and they
would smoke and tell stories, until mother told him it was time little
boys were in bed. Buddy always wanted to know what they said after he
had climbed into the big wagon where mother had made a bed, but he never
found out. He could remember lying there listening sometimes to the
niggers singing at their own campfire within call, Ezra always singing
the loudest,--just as a bull always could be heard above the bellowing
of the herd.

All his life, Ezra's singing and the monotonous bellowing of a herd
reminded Buddy of one mysteriously terrible time when there weren't
any rivers o