, the keen, steely,
north wind rushed suddenly down upon the black clouds, from whose
edges the first spatter of rain had already spilled, and swept them
from the horizon, howling mournfully the while and wrestling with the
gaunt trees at night. In shaded places the icicles from slow-seeping
waters clung for days unmelted, and the migrant ducks, down from the
Arctic, rose up from the half-frozen sloughs and winged silently away
to the far south. Yet through it all the Dos S cattle came out
unscathed, feeding on what dry grass and browse the sheep had left on
Bronco Mesa; and in the Spring, when all hope seemed past, it rained.

Only those who have been through a drought know what music there is
hidden in rain. It puts a wild joy into the heart of every creature,
the birds sing, the rabbits leap and caper, and all the cattle and
wild horses take to roaming and wandering out of pure excess of
spirits. It was early in March when the first showers came, and as
soon as the new feed was up Creede began his preparations for the
spring _rodeo_. The Winter had been a hard one, and not without its
worries. In an interview, which tended on both sides to become heated
and personal, Jim Swope had denounced Hardy for misrepresenting his
orders to his _mayordomo_, and had stated in no uncertain terms his
firm intention of breaking even in the Spring, if there was a blade of
grass left on the upper range.

The season had been a bad one for his sheep, windy and cold, with sand
storms which buried the desert in a pall and drove many flocks to the
hills; and as the feed became shorter and shorter vagrant bands began
to drift in along the Salagua. In the battle for the range that
followed herders and punchers greeted each other with angry snarls
which grew more wolfish every day, and old Pablo Moreno, shaking his
white head over their quarrels, uttered gloomy prophecies of greater
evils to come. Sheep would die, he said, cattle would die--it was only
a question now of how many, and of which. It was a coming _ano seco_;
nay, the whole country was drying up. In Hermosillo, so they said, the
women stood by the public well all night, waiting to fill their
_ollas_; not for nine years had the rains fallen there, and now the
drought was spreading north. Arizona, California, Nevada, all were
doomed, yet _paciencia_, perhaps--and then came the rain. Yes, it was
a good rain but--and then it rained again. _Que bueno_, who would not
be made a liar f