The three men rode fast to the edge of the hills, and had little to say to each other, but when they reached the point where they must separate to look for the cattle, Joe and Jack, by common consent, turned to the older man and asked him for instructions. Vicente's English was extraordinary and, until one was familiar with it, not easy to understand; but, brokenly as he spoke, every one in this cow camp understood him, as indeed did every one in all the region round about, for he had lived here for a long time, and on all the range was a well-known personage. "How shall we work, Vicente?" asked Joe. "You tell us and we'll try to do as you say." "It looks to me best," Vicente answered, "that Joe rides along the edge of the hills looking up the valleys; and you, Jack, ride a mile or two back from the edge; and I'll go still farther back toward the divide, maybe up on the divide--anyhow, so as to see the heads of all the coulées. What cattle Joe finds and what cattle I find we'll drive along and turn down to Jack, and Jack will push along the bunch, while we try to get all the cows that are feeding in these ravines." "We'll do that," said Joe; "and that means that I turn off now before we've gone very far, and take in these lower hills." After they had ridden a mile farther, Joe turned to the north or northwest, while Jack and Vicente kept on until the Mexican pointed out a place where he said Jack had better start north by himself, while he went farther on. Jack sat for a moment watching the little horse swinging easily along up the hill under the erect military figure; and then, turning to his left, he started to gallop over the ridges and ravines that cut the slopes. It was killing work for a horse, up and down, up and down, up and down. As much as he could, Jack tried to save his animal by taking the hills at an angle, but even at best it was such hard work that Jack felt obliged often to stop, to let the horse rest and breathe. For some time he rode on without seeing any cattle, but presently in a narrow valley, where evidently water had stood late into the spring, he saw ten or a dozen cows and young stock feeding on a little flat from which they had nipped off all the tall grass, so that at a distance the green carpet looked as if it had been gone over by a lawn-mower. The cattle saw him almost as soon as he saw them, and seemed wilder than any he had previously come across. In a moment their heads were down, and their tails up and they were bolting across the ridges at a lively gait. Their direction was just that which Jack was taking, or perhaps they bore off a little to the left, which would bring them down more toward Joe's line. At all events, there was no reason to hurry after them, for they would certainly be gathered by one of the three men.