t rolled his bed.

The bobtail rode off at a laughing gallop. Daylight grew. The horse
herd drew near with a soft drumming of trotting feet in the sand.
Johnny rustled tools from the stacked tin plates and cups; he stabbed
a mighty beefsteak with his iron fork; he added hot sour-dough
biscuit, a big spoonful of hot canned corn; he poured himself a cup of
hot black coffee, sat down on one of his own feet in the sand, and
became a busy man.

Others joined that business. The last guard came in; the chattering
circle round the fire grew with surprising swiftness. Each, as he
finished, carried cup, plate and iron cutlery to the huge dishpan by
the chuck box, turned his night horse loose, and strode off to the
horse herd, making a noose in his rope. They made a circle round the
big horse herd, a rope from each to each by way of a corral on three
sides of it; night wrangler and day wrangler, mounted, holding down
the fourth side. Grumbling dayherders caught their horses, saddled
with miraculous swiftness and departed to take over the herd. The
bobtail was back before the roping out of horses was completed. While
the bobtail roped out their horses, Johnny and the two wranglers lured
out the four big brown mules for the chuck wagon and the two small
brown mules for the bed wagon, tied them to convenient soapweeds and
hung a nose bag full of corn on each willing brown head. Last of all
the horse wrangler caught his horse. The night wrangler was to ride
the bed wagon, so he needed no horse.

The circle of men melted away from about the horse herd; there was a
swift saddling, with occasional tumult of a bucking rebel; the horse
herd grazed quietly away; the wranglers went to breakfast; even as
they squatted cross-legged by the fire the last horse was saddled,
the Bar Cross outfit was off to eastward to begin the day's drive,
half a dozen horses pitching enthusiastically, cheered by ironical
encouragement and advice bestowed on their riders. The sun would not
be up for half an hour yet. Forty men had dressed, rolled their beds,
eaten, roped out their day's horses in the half light from a dodging
mob of four hundred head, saddled and started. Fifty minutes had
passed since the first call of beds. The day herd was a mile away,
grazing down the long road to Preisser Lake; at the chuck box the cook
made a prodigious clatter of dish washing.

The Bar Cross had shipped the north drive of steers from Engle; the
wagon had then wandered