The two old partners sat down on their heels close together, cowpuncher fashion, to a long pow-wow. Hilda, looking on, thought how different they were. Uncle Hank, not more than ten or twelve years the elder, looked like Tracey’s father; indeed, he looked like the father of all the world, with those kind, shrewd, tolerant eyes, that benignant brow, that air of paternal solicitude. Jacox was the typical soldier of fortune, the gamester, light-hearted and reckless—a thoroughbred cowpuncher. Hilda’s eyes continued to dwell upon him with pleasure until the sheriff hove in sight, coming slowly around the corner of the building, coughing apologetically. Jacox stood up and spoke out loud to Pearsall, with emphasis: “You have the contract drawn like I tell you—hear? Why, great Scott! I’d stand to lose the whole herd—fixed like I am—less’n I had an honest man and a mighty good friend to hold ’em and pertect my interests. You make a good thing out of it? Well, you needn’t fret about that—I want you to.” “All right, Trace.” Uncle Hank’s answer was lower, but the little girl heard it. “Well, that’s settled,” said Jacox. “Come on, Berry; we can finish our game now. Me an’ Pearsall’s all done.” Uncle Hank and Hilda went back to the Three Sorrows outfit, which camped on the fifth night at the Lazy W., three miles beyond Capitan. The cattle were all rounded into a fenced pasture for tally. With a little sack of pink Mexican beans, Hilda, on her pony, was stationed to one side of the gate, while Uncle Hank, pencil and paper in hand, held Buckskin quiet on a rise a little way inside the pasture. As the boys drove the cattle up and strung them out through the gate in single file, Hank put down a straight, upright mark for what he called “every cow-brute” that passed him. When the same cow-brute got to Hilda, she dropped a bean from the full sack into an empty one she held on the saddle horn before her. When Uncle Hank had marked down ten animals he drew a slanting line through the ten upright ones. His record was going to look a good deal like a picket fence. Hilda kept no record of tens. She was only the checker. When the herd was through into the other pasture, where the boys were rushing the road-branding, Uncle Hank would add up his tens into hundreds, and then Hilda would sit down in some quiet spot, if she could find any such, and count her beans one by one. She was very proud of coming out within three of Uncle Hank’s reckoning. She had made it three more than he did, and she told him she believed they got by him that time the new hand interrupted their work with a call from the branding-pen. He agreed, and said they’d give Trace the benefit of her count, not his. Ten new hands had been hired for the work, and on the second day the big herd was put in motion; one of the new men drove the grub wagon, and after herd, riders and wagon were all started, Uncle Hank and Hilda rode out side by side.