"Tell us about yore gran'mother's cat!" snorted Bill Sage. "That can wait: Nelson's goin' to stay here a couple of nights, anyhow." He looked around. "I'm beginnin' to see through th' holes in th' ladder; an' I'm honin' to listen to why th' SV don't show no mavericks, when it ain't had a spring round-up for three years. Does it sleeper?" "Not an earnotch," interjected Tom Wilkes. "You ought to know that, you flathead; you've seen enough SV cattle, anyhow." "Mebby Nelson can explain it," suggested the foreman. "I'm willin' to talk it over, anyhow," said Johnny. "In th' first place, there's natural enemies." "Then you can leave 'em in th' first place," laughed Slim. "There ain't none, that I knows of, down here." "Well, then, there's them quicksands," continued Johnny, gravely. "Cattle are plumb fascinated by quicksands----" "Huh!" snorted Cimarron, "you ain't figgerin' them sands are takin' th' increase of three whole years, are you?" "Or pickin' mavericks, as a choice?" grunted Matt Webb. "They'd be so full of bones if they got three years' calves," said Bud, "that you could build a shack on 'em, an' never feel a quiver." "Well, then, there's th' freezin' cold an' th' ice on th' grass," suggested Johnny, grinning. "We all know that cattle ain't got sense enough to paw through ice to get at th' grass under it." "Shore!" snorted Slim. "Did we have a freeze-up last winter?" he asked the crowd. "Not so no cows was killed," replied Cimarron. "An' I didn't see no driftin' herds at all." "What's th' matter with you fellers?" indignantly demanded Johnny. "Here I'm tryin' to explain a mystery, an' you keep pullin' me out of th' saddle as fast as I climb up. That ain't fair. Then how about this one: Th' SV wasn't no good for winter range, bein' all et off?" "Yo're down again," laughed Art French. "Th' SV is good winter range, an' summer, too." "An' spring an' fall, an' th' Fourth of July, as well as Christmas," supplemented Bud. "You fellers are shore ornery," complained Johnny. "Then mebby th' mavericks, bein' different than marked animals, all got th' travel itch an' left that arid valley for th' thick, green grass down south of 'em, or for th' juicy scrub an' clean rocks north of 'em." "'Arid valley' is purty near as good as 'thick, green grass south of 'em,'" chuckled Cimarron. "Was you ever over on that luxuriant south range?" he asked, ironically. "I wasn't, but Ol' Buffalo was," answered Johnny. "Shore, but he don't eat grass," retorted Cimarron; "an' what's more, he don't stop on it at all." "Well, I'll try once more," said Johnny, in simulated desperation. "Mebby cow-hawks flew away with 'em seein' that there wasn't no brands to prove nothin'."