erience. He
liked to do what his rider wanted him to do.

A hundred or more horses grazed in the grassy meadow, and as Jean rode
on among them it was a pleasure to see stallions throw heads and ears
up and whistle or snort. Whole troops of colts and two-year-olds raced
with flying tails and manes.

Beyond these pastures stretched the range, and Jean saw the gray-green
expanse speckled by thousands of cattle. The scene was inspiring.
Jean's brothers led him all around, meeting some of the herders and
riders employed on the ranch, one of whom was a burly, grizzled man
with eyes reddened and narrowed by much riding in wind and sun and
dust. His name was Evans and he was father of the lad whom Jean had met
near the village. Everts was busily skinning the calf that had been
killed by the wolves. "See heah, y'u Jean Isbel," said Everts, "it
shore was aboot time y'u come home. We-all heahs y'u hev an eye fer
tracks. Wal, mebbe y'u can kill Old Gray, the lofer thet did this job.
He's pulled down nine calves as' yearlin's this last two months thet I
know of. An' we've not hed the spring round-up."

Grass Valley widened to the southeast. Jean would have been backward
about estimating the square miles in it. Yet it was not vast acreage
so much as rich pasture that made it such a wonderful range. Several
ranches lay along the western slope of this section. Jean was informed
that open parks and swales, and little valleys nestling among the
foothills, wherever there was water and grass, had been settled by
ranchers. Every summer a few new families ventured in.

Blaisdell struck Jean as being a lionlike type of Texan, both in his
broad, bold face, his huge head with its upstanding tawny hair like a
mane, and in the speech and force that betokened the nature of his
heart. He was not as old as Jean's father. He had a rolling voice,
with the same drawling intonation characteristic of all Texans, and
blue eyes that still held the fire of youth. Quite a marked contrast
he presented to the lean, rangy, hard-jawed, intent-eyed men Jean had
begun to accept as Texans.

Blaisdell took time for a curious scrutiny and study of Jean, that,
frank and kindly as it was, and evidently the adjustment of impressions
gotten from hearsay, yet bespoke the attention of one used to judging
men for himself, and in this particular case having reasons of his own
for so doing.

"Wal, you're like your sister Ann," said Blaisdell. "Which you