r years; the river cattle mostly
came out on the plains in the rainy season, and got their just deserts
there. Waiting for cars, the outfit was marking time anyhow. Any
cattle snared on the river were pure gain. The main point was to
handle the stock tenderly. From working the _bosques_ the outfit
expected few cattle and got less.--The poets babble about the bosky
dell; _bosque_, literally translated, means "woods." Yet for this
purpose if you understand the word as "jungle," you will be the less
misled.

Johnny Dines sat tailor-wise on his horse at the crest of a sandy
knoll and looked down at the day herd, spread out over a square mile
of tableland, and now mostly asleep in the brooding heat of afternoon.
About the herd other riders, six in all, stood at attention, black
silhouettes, or paced softly to turn back would-be stragglers.

Of these riders Neighbor Jones alone was a Bar Cross man. He was
captain of the day herd, a fixture; for him reluctant straymen were
detailed in turn, day by day, as day herders. Johnny represented a
number of small brands in the north end of the Black Range. His face
was sparkling, all alive; he was short, slender, black-haired,
black-eyed, two and twenty. He saw--Neighbor Jones himself not
sooner--what turmoil rose startling from a lower bench to riverward; a
riot of wild cattle with riders as wild on lead and swing and point.
As a usual thing, the day's catch comes sedately to the day herd; but
this day's catch was _bosque_ cattle--renegades and desperates of a
dozen brands.

Jody Weir, on Johnny's right, sat on the sand in the shadow of his
horses. This was not ethical; seeing him, Yoast and Ralston, leading
the riot, turned that way, drew aside to right and left, and so loosed
the charging hurricane directly at the culprit.

Weir scrambled to saddle and spurred from under. The other riders
closed in on the day herd, stirring them up the better to check the
outlaws. Half of the round-up crew followed Yoast to the right of the
now roused and bellowing day herd, bunching them; the others followed
Ralston on Johnny's side of the herd.

Cole Ralston was the Bar Cross foreman. Overtaking Johnny, he raised
a finger; the two drew rein and let the others pass by. Cole spoke to
the last man.

"Spike, when they quiet down you ride round and tell all these
day-herder waddies that if any of 'em want to write letters they can
slip in to the wagon. I'm sending a man to town soon after suppe