“Oh, I’m no outlaw. My folks has a one-horse outfit down on a fork of Sand Coulee. Nothin’ much for me at home, so I ride round-up. I been up in the Sun River Basin breakin’ horses all winter.” “Sand Coulee, eh.” Charlie glanced at the letter in his hand. It was a friendly suggestion from the Block S that the Wineglass come down and work with them and the Picador, as northwesterly blizzards had drifted several thousand Wineglass cattle to the heart of that range. And there was mention of this place in the letter. “That the Sand Coulee down on the Sutherland range?” “Uh-huh. I worked for the Block S two seasons back,” the boy answered. “Good outfit,” Charlie commented. “Sure. They say the Wineglass is a good outfit to ride for, too,” the other said. “I could go to work for Sutherland again, I guess. Thought I’d try you.” “I guess I can use you,” Charlie said on impulse. He could. A good man always fitted in, and somehow this boy in three sentences and a look impressed him as being more than capable. Horses _did_ fall on men. Occasionally a rider yearned for distant pastures and left. “What’s your name?” “Bill Mather.” “All right, Bill,” Charlie nodded. “I guess you know how to make yourself at home in a bunk house.” Mather nodded and withdrew. At ten o’clock Charlie looked out before he went to bed. All white, and more falling. A foot of snow in mid-April. Erratic weather. It continued to be erratic. The Wineglass floundered in a white world for thirty-six hours. A touch of frost. Then warm rain. Dirty slush. More rain, like ice water on the bare face, slashing out of a lowering sky. Then the sun, smiling wanly, as if conscious of some seasonal aberration, and new grass slowly thrusting up green blades to surround the blue windflowers that spread petals bravely before the snow was fairly gone. The Wineglass gathered the last of its saddle stock, and moved across the sodden plains to join the Block S south of the Bear Paws by the tenth of May, in a spring the like of which none of the old-timers recalled. Snow, rain, hail and sunshine--all in a twenty-four-hour day. Riders were crabbed, horses fractious. The plains wind whipped their faces and their tempers raw. But while a wheel could roll from one creek to another and cattle be bunched on a round-up ground, work went on. Bill Mather lived up to Charlie Shaw’s first estimate. He more than held up his end. Did it with a peculiar sort of concentration on the job. For a youngster he was uncommonly self-contained. He would answer with a nod or a smile rather than a word. The rough joking of a round-up crew slid off him as rain off a slicker. In camp he would sit staring at nothing, chin in hand, his lean, dark face as impassive as a Buddha’s. Charlie learned more about him from the Block S.