The Big Snake winced and crooked his neck sullenly; then, as the twister snapped up the stirrup and uncinched the saddle with his free hand, he sighed and hung his head. With a deft jerk the puncher stripped off saddle and blanket; he reached up between his ears and laid hold of the headstall, then with a heave he tore off the bridle and landed his boot in the Snake's ribs. "Git, you owl-headed old skate!" he yelled; and the Snake cow-kicked at him like a flash of light. "Hah!" laughed the twister, stepping dexterously aside; and, swinging the bridle as he ducked, he brought the heavy reins down across his mount's rump. Again there was a flash of light as the Snake lashed out from behind; and then he limped off to one side, his eyes glowing with impotent rage and hate. Bowles looked at him as he lay wearily down in the sand, and then at the man who had conquered him, and a glow crept into his own eyes--a glow very much like the Big Snake's. He had entered a new world, with a different standard of courage and hardihood, and the first look at it frightened and awed him. But though he knew he could not meet its standards nor measure up to its tests, he scorned the man who could, and hated him for his rude strength--and his sympathy went out to Big Snake, the outlaw. CHAPTER IX REDUCED TO THE RANKS The last place in the world for a humanitarian is around a cow camp, for everything there seems to savor of cruelty and blood. The only anti-cruelty-to-animals man who ever made a winning in the cattle business was good old Dr. Maverick, of Texas, who, when they made up the first brand book, swore he could not bring himself to cut an ear or burn a brand and craved the privilege of letting his cattle run unmarked. So, when it came to the round-up, the old doctor received his reward, for he claimed every maverick in the bunch and took them home for his own. This was a long time ago, in the age of myth and fable, and the doctor's herd has been sadly decimated since by rustlers and ruthless brand blotchers. A brand that can't be burned over is more precious than rubies now; and the bigger it is, the better. The Bat Wing was an old brand, dating back to some Mexican Manuel Ortega, or Mariano Ortiz, who had writ his initials large on the left hip of his steers, M above O, connected. With years the O had shrunk and the M spraddled out until it looked like a winged disk--and had taken on different names: Money-bug, from its resemblance to a dollar on the wing; Bat-out-o'-hell, from a similar frontier fancy; until finally it settled down to plain Bat Wing. But whatever else happened to the Bat Wing brand, the iron never got any smaller; in fact, the reason the M grew so big that it flew away with the O was because a calf's hip widens out at the top and if the whole space is securely covered there will be no room left for illicit alterations.