When he came to that turbulent river, in a valley traversed by the first transcontinental railway to cross the Northwest, he found eight men with a mixed herd at a fording place. They were a weary lot. Eight men to twelve hundred cattle was a short trail crew. They had left Kansas early that spring, they told Rock. They had made fast time, and their horses bore the trace, being gaunt and leg weary, although the cattle were in fair flesh. And the men were even more tired than their stock. Of the scores of trailed herds Rock had passed, this was the first that was short-handed. A trail outfit left the South with a full crew. Barring accident or death, the riders stayed with the herd to the journey’s end. It was equivalent to desertion in the face of the enemy for a trail hand to quit for a whim. In all that bovine pilgrimage, there was no place where riders could be secured, no more than a ship can replace its crew a thousand miles offshore. “I can use you plenty,” the trail boss said, as soon as he sized Rock up, “if you hanker to be usefully employed.” “Where you bound for?” Rock asked. “Canada. Old Man River in the Fort MacLeod country,” the man said. “In the home of the mounted police, eh?” Rock drawled. “We go through the Blackfeet country. That’s about as far North as cattle range, isn’t it?” “Just about; although, if this Northern drive keeps extendin’ itself, there’ll be longhorns winterin’ at the north pole, it looks like,” the wagon boss replied. “If you want to see some new country, here’s a chance.” “From Mexico to Canada, personally conducted!” Rock laughed. “All right, I’m with you.” * * * * * Thus did he come into the foothills of the Rockies, north of 49°, in the month of September. They crossed the Missouri where Chief Joseph had forded it with his braves ten years earlier, with U. S. cavalry in hot pursuit. They plodded west and north to their destination, leaving the Bear Paws to the right, Sweet Grass Hills on their left, sweeping across a country where grass grew to their stirrups, driving before them twelve hundred cattle of divers age and sex, marked with a brand on the left ribs, called a steering wheel. Rock looked once or twice to the westward before they reached the boundary line. Somewhere in that great empty area the Marias River split the plains. Somewhere on the Marias was the headquarters of the Maltese Cross. The Cross would keep. He had given his word to go through with the Steering Wheel. In the winter or in the spring he would drift into Fort Benton, and he would contrive to make himself familiar with the ways and works of Buck Walters. For the present----