The sheriff advised Lambert to put in a bill against the county for the
loss of his horse, a proposal which Lambert considered with grave face
and in silence.

"No," he said at last, "I'll not put in a bill. I'll collect in my own
way from the one that owes me the debt."

CHAPTER XXIV

USE FOR AN OLD PAPER

Lambert was a busy man for several weeks after his last race with the
will-o'-the-wisp, traveling between Glendora and Chicago, disposing of
the Philbrook herd. On this day he was jolting along with the last of
the cattle that were of marketable condition and age, twenty cars of
them, glad that the wind-up of it was in sight.

Taterleg had not come this time on account of the Iowa boy having quit
his job. There remained several hundred calves and thin cows in the
Philbrook pasture, too much of a temptation to old Nick Hargus and his
precious brother Sim to be left unguarded.

Sitting there on top of a car, his prod-pole between his knees, in his
high-heeled boots and old dusty hat, the Duke was a typical figure of
the old-time cow-puncher such as one never meets in these times around
the stockyards of the Middle West. There are still cow-punchers, but
they are mainly mail-order ones who would shy from a gun such as pulled
down on Lambert's belt that day.

He sat there with the wind slamming the brim of his old hat up against
the side of his head, a sober, serious man, such as one would choose for
a business like this intrusted to him by Vesta Philbrook and never make
a mistake. Already he had sold more than eighty thousand dollars' worth
of cattle for her, and carried home to her the drafts. This time he was
to take back the money, so they would have the cash to buy out Walleye,
the sheepman, who was making a failure of the business and was anxious
to quit.

The Duke wondered, with a lonesome sort of pleasure, how things were
going on the ranch that afternoon, and whether Taterleg was riding the
south fence now and then, as he had suggested, or sticking with the
cattle. That was a pleasant country which he was traveling through,
green fields and rich pastures as far as the eye could reach, a land
such as he had spent the greater part of his life in, such as some
people who are provincial and untraveled call "God's country," and are
fully satisfied with in their way.

But there seemed something lacking out of it to Lambert as he looked
across the verdant flatness with pensive eyes, that great, gra