"Let 'em roar," he said. "It's no skin off my nose. Them fellers has been cavin' round and givin' off head long enough--I sure capped 'em in on that, all right. Well, let 'em rough-house me if they want to--they's two can play at that game. I never seen the Texan yet that looked bad to me. And if they git too gay the boss will fire the whole caboodle. I ain't lookin' fer trouble, but no bunch of ignorant Texicans can run it over _me_! Umph-umm!" So the feud went on, and when Dixie rode into camp with the mail she smelled war in the very air. The men walked past each other with the wary glances of fighting dogs, and even her little comedy at the delivering of the letters failed to visibly lighten the gloom. A private interview with the cook, who carefully kept out of the ruction and gave neither side comfort nor succor, revealed the fact that the situation was serious; and with the success of the round-up at stake, Dixie May was quick to act. When her father returned to his dog tent at supper-time he found her war-bag inside, and with a mount of horses cut out for her, Dixie Lee took on for a cowboy. They were up on the cedar ridges of the mountains now, driving down wild steers from the upper pastures, and a woman was as good as a man. Dixie was better than most, for she had ridden those rough mesas before and could drift off a ridge like a blacktail. Her desperate rivalry in the chase fired the hearts of the most malingering, and more than one moss-headed old outlaw found himself outgeneraled and flogged into the herd. And a steer is a steer these days--he is worth as much as a horse. Every morning as the punchers set out on the long circle Dixie May picked out a man to dare, and several prairie-bred Texans failed to follow her over the rocks. Mounted on the best horses in the remuda, knowing the ways of wild cattle and the lay of the land ahead, she took after the first puff of dust she saw and followed it till she smelled smoke. If her steer turned back, she ran him down and roped him, and if her escort did not show up by that time, she hog-tied her catch and went on. It was a wild, free life, and she threw herself into it recklessly, glorying in the unholy joy of beating them at their own game. She rode with Brigham, and Hardy Atkins; uncouth mountain men, and raw-boned nester kids; and finally, when the time was ripe, she picked out Bowles. Bowles was mounted on his top horse, Wa-ha-lote, and he rode proudly along behind Brigham, for in the rough and tumble of cross-country running he was holding his own with the best. A bunch of wild cattle sprang up suddenly from their hiding place on a far point; for a moment they stood staring, their ears silhouetted against the sky, and the keen eyes of the straw-boss read their earmarks like a book. "They's two Bat Wing steers in that bunch," he said. "Head 'em off, Bowles, and drive 'em down the canon!"