“You ain’t got no gall hardly, have you?” rejoined Jim Nabours. “Well, keep in mind there’s sever’l you ain’t swep’ yet, ner ain’t apt to. Laigs is better’n whiskers in the cow game. Keep yore eye on that Sinker kid! He’ll make a cow hand.” As to this prophecy of the old foreman, events bade fair verification. All the remainder of the day the bed-ground holding increased, and late in the afternoon came a last drove of trotting longhorns, urged on by the ambitious Cinquo, who had relieved faithful Sanchez, found watching a considerable bunch grazing while he himself awaited help. “You’re living up to them hair pants, son,” was the foreman’s comment. The full complement of hands now was in camp. The cook’s fire was glowing in its trench. Men were eating three meals in one—beans, corn bread, molasses. They talked, mouths full, contented. Not a man lost; maybe not over ten per cent of the herd gone; they thought the scrape well over. Even Nabours began to talk. It was these last comers, however, who had brought the biggest news. “It was Sanchez found him,” broke in Cinquo in his repeated explanation. “When I seen him, too, he was daid, plumb daid. He ain’t none of our hands. He got kotched in the run where they piled over the bank.” “That so, Sanchez? _Quien es?_” demanded Nabours of the old Mexican. “_Es verdad_,” replied Sanchez. “_Quien es? Yo no sais._ Me, I dunno.” He shrugged a thin shoulder indifferently. “Now, he was a heavy-set man, with sort o’ red face, maybe—sandy, anyhow—an’ he didn’t look like no real cow hand.” Cinquo was more explicit. “No, but I’ll bet he was a real cow thief,” growled Nabours. “I’ll bet they was all around our camp, outside the herd, last night. Fools for luck. Well, anyhow, that makes two. Leave him lay where he’s at, the damned thief! I only wish it was Sim Rudabaugh or Mr. Dan McMasters!” * * * * * The losses, thanks to good cow work, bade fair to be far less than the morning had promised. Nabours thought next day the main herd could be pushed on northward, slowly, while a few men were held back, detailed for a last combing of the broken ground where the run gradually had faded out. True, the herd might tally out two or three hundred short—probably less than that. But a cow was only a cow. Besides that, a number of cows had come in that did not show the Fishhook road brand, as Del Williams mentioned to Nabours. “You mean they don’t show it yet,” remarked that veteran. “We’re working for a orphant. A cow is only a cow, and these men in here wouldn’t mind ef oncet they seen the orphant.” “I gathered them strays, er some,” broke in Cinquo. “Er me an’ Sanchez did. We brung in Ol’ Alamo, that big dun lead steer, an’ he brung in a lot o’ strays follerin’ him.” “I got a damn good lead steer,” said Jim Nabours solemnly, helping himself to coffee. “Sinker, you got the nacherl makings of a cowman in you.”