t he thought of Mary--she seemed to be a
sister to the distant, calm and glorious moon just launching into the
sky above the serrate wall of snowy peaks to the East. There was a
powerful appeal in the vivid and changeful woman he had just met, for
her like had never touched his life before.

As he climbed back up the hill toward the corral where he had left his
horse, he was filled with a wordless disgust of the town and its people.
The night was still and cool, almost frosty. The air so clear and so
rare filled his lungs with wholesomely sweet and reanimating breath. His
head cleared, and his heart grew regular in its beating. The moon was
sailing in mid-ocean, between the Great Divide and the Christo Range,
cold and sharp of outline as a boat of silver. Lizard Head to the south
loomed up ethereal as a cloud, so high it seemed to crash among the
stars. The youth drew a deep breath and said: "To hell with the town."

Kintuck whinnied caressingly as he heard his master's voice. After
putting some grain before the horse, Mose rolled himself in his blanket
and went to sleep with only a passing thought of the princess, her
luxurious home, and her radiant and inscrutable personality.

CHAPTER XVI

AGAIN ON THE ROUND-UP

It was good to hear again the bawling of the bulls and the shouts of the
cowboys, and to see the swirling herd and the flying, guarding, checking
horsemen. Mose, wearied, weather-beaten, and somber-visaged, looked down
upon the scene with musing eyes. The action was quite like that on the
Arickaree; the setting alone was different. Here the valley was a wide,
deliciously green bowl, with knobby hills, pine-covered and abrupt,
rising on all sides. Farther back great snow-covered peaks rose to
enormous heights. In the center of this superb basin the camps were
pitched, and the roping and branding went on like the action of a
prodigious drama. The sun, setting in orange-colored clouds, brought out
the velvet green of the sward with marvelous radiance. The tents gleamed
in the midst of the valley like flakes of pearl.

The heart of the wanderer warmed within him, and with a feeling that he
was almost home he called to his pack horse "Hy-ak-boy!" and started
down the hill. As he drew near the herd he noted the great changes which
had come over the cattle. They were now nearly all grades of Hereford or
Holstein. They were larger of body, heavier of limb, and less active
than the range cattle of the pl