h of enemies. Down these grassy gulches, around
these sugar-loaf mesas, the giant brown cattle of the plains had crawled
in long, dark, knobby lines. On the green bottoms they had mated and fed
and fought in thousands, roaring like lions, their huge hoofs flinging
the alkaline earth in showers above their heads, their tongues curling,
their tails waving like banners.

Mose was already deeply learned in all these dramas. All that he had
ever heard or read of the wild country remained in his mind. He cared
nothing about the towns or the fame of cities, but these deep-worn
trails of shaggy beasts filled him with joy. Their histories were more
to him than were the wars of Cyrus and Hannibal. He questioned all the
men he met, and their wisdom became his.

Slowly the movers wound their way up the broad, sandy river which came
from the wilder spaces of the West. The prairie was gone. The tiger
lily, the sweet Williams, the pinks, together with the luxuriant
meadows and the bobolinks, were left behind. In their stead, a
limitless, upward shelving plain outspread, covered with a short, surly,
hairlike grass and certain sturdy, resinous plants supporting flowers of
an unpleasant odor, sticky and weedy. Bristling cacti bulged from the
sod; small Quaker-gray sparrows and larks were the only birds. In the
swales blue joint grew rank. The only trees were cottonwoods and cutleaf
willow, scattered scantily along the elbows in the river.

At last they came to the home of the prairie dog and the antelope--the
buffalo could not be far away! So wide was the earth, so all-embracing
the sky, they seemed to blend at the horizon line, and lakes of water
sprang into view, filling a swale in the sod--mystic and beautiful, only
to vanish like cloud shadows.

The cattle country was soon at hand. Cowboys in sombreros and
long-heeled boots, with kerchiefs knotted about their necks, careered
on swift ponies in and out of the little towns or met the newcomers on
the river road. They rode in a fashion new to Mose, with toes pointed
straight down, the weight of their bodies a little on one side. They
skimmed the ground like swallows, forcing their ponies mercilessly.
Their saddles were very heavy, with high pommels and leather-covered
stirrups, and Mose determined to have one at once. Some of them carried
rifles under their legs in a long holster.

Realizing that those were the real "cow-punchers," the youth studied
their outfits as keenly as a cou