?"

"Why, then, he went back to ranchin'. He owns the Bar X horse outfit
over on the White Mud. This here, Owen--that was his brother's
name--was just like a son to him. Jim tried to steer him straight, but
the kid was just naturally a bad egg. Feelin' it the way he does, a
lesser man might of squinted down the muzzle of his own gun, or gone
the whiskey route. But not him. To all appearances he's the same as
he always was. But some of us that know him best--we can see that he
ain't _quite_ the same as before--an' he never will be."

There were tears in the girl's eyes as the man finished.

"Oh, it's all wrong! It's cruel, and hard, and brutal, and wrong!"

"No. It ain't wrong. It's hard, an' it's cruel, maybe, an' brutal.
But it's right. It ain't a country for weaklings--the cow country
ain't. It's a country where, every now an' then, a man comes square up
against something that he's got to do. An' that something is apt as
not to be just what he don't want to do. If he does it, he's a man,
an' the cow country needs him. If he don't do it, he passes on to
where there's room for his kind--an' the cow country don't miss him. A
man earns his place here, it ain't made for him--often he earns the
name by which he's called. I reckon it's the same all over--only this
is rawer."

"Here's the water! And it is cold and sweet," called Endicott who had
been busily removing the loose rock fragments beneath which the spring
lay concealed.

The Texan's interest centred on matters at hand: "You Bat, you make a
fire when you've finished with the horses." He turned again to the
girl: "If you'll be the cook, Win an' I'll mud up a catch-basin an'
rustle some firewood while Bat makes camp. We got to do all our
cookin' at night up here. A fire won't show above the rim yonder, but
in the daytime someone might see the smoke from ten mile off."

"Of course, I'll do the cooking!" assented the girl, and began to carry
the camp utensils from the pack that the half-breed had thrown upon the
ground. "The dough-gods are all gone!" she exclaimed in dismay,
peering into a canvas bag.

"Mix up some bakin'-powder ones. There's flour an' stuff in that brown
sack."

"But--I don't know how!"

"All right. Wait 'til I get Win strung out on this job, an' I'll make
up a batch."

He watched Endicott arrange some stones: "Hey, you got to fit those
rocks in better'n that. Mud ain't goin' to hold without a good
backin'."

Th