“No; we’ll fix him out with bedding. We’ve some extra quilts at the house, Mr. Majors. I’ll get them on our way out.” “Can you go out with him, Billy, and tell him what to do? Number two herd is out six miles. You can find it. Stop at the fort and tell Mr. Russell to furnish him a mule.” “Yes, sir.” “All right. You take him and post him.” Mr. Majors extended his hand to Davy, who shook with him. “Do your duty, and a little more whenever you have the chance; don’t curse, don’t learn to drink, keep Sunday as much as you can, read the Bible, and look people in the face. Don’t do anything your mother wouldn’t want you to do. I hope to hear a good report of you. We need the right kind of men in the west, and the boy like you will make the man of to-morrow.” “Yes, sir,” said Davy. “I’ll try.” He followed Billy out; and they remounted their ponies. “Good,” remarked Billy, as they rode away up the thronged street. “Mr. Majors is a queer sort, but he’s the right stuff. He’s a crank on swearing and drinking. We all have to sign that pledge, and if he hears a man swearing he goes straight to him and makes him quit. But everybody likes Mr. Majors, and they all try to keep the pledge. Mr. Russell isn’t so strict, though he backs up Mr. Majors. That’s a new wrinkle to the plains――that pledge business.” Davy nodded. “There’s no sense in swearing, anyhow,” mused Billy. “Jiminy, but my mother hated to have me start out bull whacking. It’s a tough life, and some of the teamsters, too, are about as tough as you make ’em. Ma saw Mr. Russell and Mr. Majors and they talked with her and said they’d look out for me: and she read the pledge, and so she let me go. Lew Simpson is a hard looker, you know. She didn’t like him until she found out from Mr. Russell that he wasn’t half as bad as he seemed. I’m mighty glad I’m here to post you on that herding business. It’s no easy job herding a thousand cattle. But you’ll make good. All you have to do is to tend to your job. Mother’ll fix you up with bedding, and if you need any clothes that we haven’t got, you can get them on the company account and they’ll take it out of your pay. See?” So, Billy chatting and Davy listening, they trotted along on the road up to the fort. Mr. Russell was still at the quartermaster’s building busy loading a bull train and checking it up. Billy reported to him, and he nodded. “All right,” he said. “On your way out you tell Buck Bomer to give you a mule from his outfit.” They found Buck in the wagon camp outside the fort. He turned over to them a little mouse-colored mule, with a rawhide bridle and an old stock saddle. The bridle had rope lines and the saddle was worn and ragged, and the saddle-blanket was a piece of sacking. Altogether the equipment looked rather sorry, but Davy said not a word. He made up his mind that he would be better than his outfit.