As for Bowles, his face was peeled and swollen, his eyes half-blinded by dust and wind, his body chilled through in spite of his clothes, and he saw himself in that company like a child among grown-up men. Half of the cowboys left their coats on the wagon until the day of the blizzard; and Brigham was still in his shirt-sleeves, having rolled up his coat with his bed and forgotten to bring his slicker. Yet none of them railed at the weather; no one quit; it was their life. Perhaps from their earliest boyhood they had braved the Texas northers or endured the continual sandstorms of high and windy plains. They were used to it, like the horses that bore them; but Bowles was a more delicate plant. All he could do was to live on from day to day, wondering at their courage and hardihood, and marveling at his own presumption in thinking he could play at their game. A week passed, and the wind grew warmer, though it still swept in from the southeast. The outfit reached the limit of its circle and turned toward home, sending its cuts of dogies on before it. On the first of May they were contracted to be delivered at Chula Vista, there to be shipped to Colorado and the Texas Panhandle and fattened into steers. But feed was short, for the cold had set back the grass, and Henry Lee had wired that he could deliver on the twentieth. So while he waited for an answer he sent his cattle ahead of him, and every day as he rode he watched for a messenger from home. Nor was he alone in this, for the messenger would be Dixie; but no one said a word. It was part of the patience of these rugged sons of the desert that they should make no sign. They were camped in a grove of sycamores beneath the shelter of a hill, and the outfit was gathered about the fire, when she rode in at the end of the day. Each man of them regarded her silently as she carried the word to her father; and then, when he nodded his satisfaction, they stirred in expectation of her greeting. "Howd-do, boys?" she said, vaulting lightly off her horse and coming nearer. "'Evening, Mr. Mosby; what's the chance for a little supper?" She looked them all over casually as she drew off her gloves by the fire, and for a few minutes the conversation was confined to news. Then she went back to her saddle, and returned with a bundle of letters.