"I know th' scamp," sang Gardner, returning the plug. "He's had one gosh-awful time today keepin' out of a lickin'. I'm sayin' he earned a dozen." Soon he made out Lefferts' song, who mourned a long-lost love. _Her hair was th' color of 'lasses,_ _As soft as a bundle of wire;_ _An' birds made their nests in its fastness:_ _If they didn't I shore am a liar._ Gardner was stirred by the melody and burst into song out of sympathy: _Her eyes was as bright as old saddles,_ _An' crossed on th' end of her nose;_ _Her hands was as shapely as paddles_ _An' hung down almost to her toes._ Lefferts retaliated promptly: _Her cheeks was as smooth as th' cactus,_ _An' pink as a big hunk of mud;_ _At primpin' she was allus in practice,_ _An' she was daintily shaped, like a tub._ From across the herd came Reilly's natural tenor, a little ragged, but still a tenor: _Her voice was as sweet as a longhorn's,_ _It sounded as soft as a scream;_ _I'm scared to roll up in my blankets_ _For fear that of her I will dream._ The song was too much for the coyote, and he paused to yield to the craving for harmony reawakened in him. "He's imitatin' you, Jim," chanted Gardner as he passed Lefferts. "Which same I says is well done." "Go to th' devil, an' join yore tribe," sang Jim in delicate repartee, and forthwith began the mournful lay of Clementine: _In a hut a-mong th' bushes, all a-long th' foamin' brine,_ _Lived a min-er, 'forty nin-er, an' his daugh-ter, Clementine._ _She was fair-er than th' ros-es, an' her for-m-m, it was di-vine;_ _Two dry-goods box-es, without their top-ses, made gaiters for-r my Clementine._ At half-past eleven Gardner rode in to the wagon, aroused the next shift, sought his blankets and was sound asleep before his three shift companions reached the camp. At three o'clock the second shift was relieved by the third, and last, which would stay with the herd until it was taken over by all the others, after breakfast.