"Jest wait till I take you to the White Mountains," said Brig, as he rode by his side. "This country has all been fed off till they's nothin' much left but the rocks--no game nor nothin'. But the Sierra Blancas are different--that's them over that far ridge." He pointed at a filmy point of white, half lost between the blue of the pine-clad mountains and the blue of the sky beyond, and Bowles' heart leaped up at the sight. At last he was in the Far West--that strange, elusive country of which so many speak and which is yet so hard to find--and the untrod wilderness lay before him. The Sierra Blancas, home of the deer and the bear and the wolf and the savage Apache Indians! Even in his age and time, there was still a wilderness to conquer and the terrors of the old frontier to stir the blood. "How far is it?" he inquired, his eyes questing out the way; and when Brig told him he reached over and clutched his hand. "Brig," he cried, "I want to go there. I'd like to go right now!" He looked across at his partner, but Brigham did not answer, and Bowles knew what was in his mind. "Of course, now that you're made foreman----" he began; but Brig smiled a cynical smile. "Don't you let that worry you none," he growled. "The way these Texicans is takin' on, I don't reckon I'll last very long. Hardy Atkins is the leader of this bunch, and he's bound to git his job back--I'm jest holdin' on fer spite." "But how can he get it back?" protested Bowles. "Mr. Lee told me you were one of the best cowmen he ever knew, and you certainly know the range all right----" "Yes, but that ain't it," put in Brig. "Here's the proposition. Henry Lee is gittin' old--he can't be his own wagon-boss forever, and he's lookin' round for a man. The man that gits the job will git more than that--he'll marry Dixie Lee." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Bowles. "Why should he?" "Don't know why," answered Brigham doggedly. "Only that's the way it always goes--and Hardy, he wants Dixie." "But surely, after the way he conducted himself down at Chula Vista----" "Oh, that's nothin'," asserted Brigham. "You think she would marry him?" "Don't know," grumbled Brig. "She's got us all a-guessin'. All I know is, I won't last long as a straw-boss. You wait till we git up in the mountains where old Henry can't git no more hands, and then watch the fur begin to fly. Didn't they all eat dirt to git took back fer green hands? Didn't you see 'em talkin' it over? All they got to do now is to git _us_ fired, and then _they'll_ be the top hands. Huh! That's easy!"