aten all day. They would probably eat until their silly eyes closed
in sleep. He was not sure they wouldn't continue to chew their cud
amidst their bovine dreams. Each cow was already balloon-like, but the
inflation was still going on. And each beast was still ready to horn
the others off in its greediness.

He thought, whimsically, that the humbler hog was not given a fair
position in the ranks of gluttony. Surely the bovine was the "limit"
in that basest of all passions. One cow held his attention more
particularly than the others. She was small, and black and white, and
her build suggested Brittany extraction. She ran a sort of free lance
piracy all round the corral. Her sharp horns were busy whenever she
saw a sister apparently enjoying herself too cordially. And in every
case she drove the bigger beast out and seized upon her choicest
morsel.

Nor could he help thinking how little was the difference between man
and beast. It was only in its objective. The manner was much the same.
Yes, and the very means employed created in him an impression
favorable to the hapless quadruped. Surely their battle for existence
was more honest, more natural.

His mood was pessimistic, even for a man who sees the traffic which is
his keenest interest threatened by a marauding gang of land pirates.
Maybe it was the wearing hours of McLagan's nagging that caused his
mood. Maybe it was an inclination brought about by the long train of
disappointments that had been his as he trod his one-way trail. Maybe,
as the cynical might suggest, his liver was out of order. However,
whether it was sheer pessimism, or even the shadow cast by approaching
events, he felt it would be good when the evening was past, and he
could forget things in the blessed unconsciousness of sleep.

But his meditations were suddenly disturbed. The ranch dogs started
their inharmonious chorus, and experience taught him that there are
only two things which will stir the lazy ranch dog to vocal protest;
the advent of the disreputable sun-downer, and the run of driven
cattle.

He quickly discovered, at sight of a thick rising dust to the westward
of the ranch, that the present disturbance was not caused by any
ragged "bum." Cattle were coming in to the yards, and it needed
little imagination on his part to guess that some of the boys on
special duty were running in lost stock.

His pessimism vanished in a moment, and in its place a keen enthusiasm
stirred. If it wer