His face, which he had neglected to wash before eating, was crusted with sweat and dirt and spotted with gouts of blood; his hair was matted and dust-powdered; and in the bloodshot and haggard orbs that gazed up at him from the placid depths he saw a look that made him start. It was a cruel, vindictive look, almost inhuman in its intensity; and it came from flanking bull calves. He looked down at his hands, all swollen and crabbed from clutching, and saw that they were caked with blood. His shirt, too, and his trim-fitting trousers were dirty and spattered with gore. In fact--and here was where the grim smile came in--he could hardly be told from a real cowboy! After dinner the cutting and branding went on as before, but with this important difference--Bowles flanked only his share of the calves. There were two sets of flankers, two hot-iron men, and two ear-markers, and the calves came up as they were caught. A really ambitious flanker, out for experience, could get almost all the calves; but the only ones that Bowles ran after now were the ones that were easy to throw. If a yearling came dancing up on a rope, he stepped on his own foot and let the other man beat him to it--either that or turned him over to Buck. It was quick work; but Bowles had a college education--he had been only six hours a cowboy when he learned to malinger on the job. As for the rest of the gang, inured as they were to hard labor, the branding was no more than a picnic for them. They found time to take chews of tobacco, tell stories, and watch all the roping; and if any calf turned out to be too big for flanking they grabbed him by the neck and made him run, and bulldogged him, "California fashion." Happy Jack was best at that, and several times in a fit of emulation he shoved some puncher aside and showed him how it ought to be done--but never for Bowles. It was strange how carefully they all avoided him--never looking at him, rarely addressing him, and answering his inquiries with a word. He was an alien, a stranger among them, and--slowly the truth was borne in on him--an inferior. From the start Bowles had taken it for granted that they were abashed, tongue-tied by his obvious education, and awed by his gentlemanly bearing. But now they would not so much as laugh at him, lest it encourage him to familiarity. Never for a minute did they allow him to presume on their sufferance, and his remarks fell dead and flat. Even Henry Lee, who had the bearing and spoke the language of a gentleman, refused to encourage him by a word; and at last he retired within himself, and saved his breath for flanking and his wits for dodging work.