A cool haze, almost a mist, lay before dawn on the prairie lands. Now, when morning came on the Del Sol range, a sea of wide horns moved above the tall grass. With comfortable groans the bedded herd arose one by one, in groups, by scores and hundreds, stretching backs and tails. The night riders ceased their circles, the cattle began to spread out slowly, away from the bed ground, a little eminence covered with good dry grass and free of hillocks, holes and stones, chosen by men who knew the natural preferences of kine. A clatter of hoofs came as the young night herd—the boy Cinquo Centavos, vastly proud of his late promotion—drove up his remuda to the rope corral. A blue smoke rose where the cook pushed mesquite brands together again. It was morning on the range. Aye, and it was morning of a new, great day for unknown Texas and the unknown West that lay waiting far above her. The two great trails—that running east and west, that running north and south—now were about to approach and to meet at a great crossroads, the greatest and most epochal crossroads the world has even seen. Here was the vague beginning of a road soon to be bold and plain; almost as soon to be forgotten. Slow and tousled, men and boys kicked out of the cotton quilts which had made their scant covering, each taking from under his saddle pillow the heavy gun and such hat as he had. Few had need to hunt for boots, for most had slept in them. Bearded, hard, rude, unbrushed, they made a wild group when they stumped up to the morning fire, where each squatted on one knee while using tin cup and tin plate. Cutlery was scanty, but each man had some sort of knife. Sugar there was none, but a heavy black molasses did for sweetening to the coffee, which itself largely was made of parched grain. A vessel of great red beans had been hidden in the hot ashes overnight; there was plenty of bacon aswim in the pans for spearing; and of corn pones, baked before the fire, many lay about. Of this provender Buck, the negro cook, made them all free by his call to “Come an’ git it!” Of the regular chuck wagon of the well-appointed later trail outfits, of the rough but better abundance, there was no more than faint prophecy here in the rude high-wheeled Mexican cart. In truth, the Del Sol outfit was poor, bitterly poor. Here was a _noli-me-tangere_ assembly of truculent men whose adventure into unknown lands bordered close upon the desperate.