* * * * * This gave him a good excuse in April for leaving. When he told Wells, that individual looked thoughtful. “I sho’ don’t need eight riders right along,” he said. “I kept yo’ boys over the winter, mostly because I didn’t want to turn yo’ loose in a country where they’s no chance for a job. I’m aimin’ to let four of yo’ go. But not for a spell. I’d like for yo’ to stay on three-fo’ weeks yet. I got to take a pasear after some stock. If yo’ drift back across the line in May, yo’ll still be able to get on as hands with some round-up.” Rock agreed. May would do as well as April. He had written once to Uncle Bill Sayre, and had received a reply. If he got around to the Maltese Cross range that summer, it would be good enough. Immediately thereafter, Dave Wells flung his men out on a horse-gathering expedition. The Steering Wheel ponies were brought in by tens and dozens. They ranged uniformly within ten miles of the ranch. Most of the cattle grazed in the same area. And, as soon as forty horses were in the pasture, Wells organized a pack outfit, took four men with him, and vanished. He left a red-headed youth in nominal charge. The duties of the riders left at home were to build an extension of the pole pasture and to gather the rest of the Steering Wheel saddle stock. Thereafter they were to scout around the outer fringes of the range and throw all cattle close home. “The old he-coon gone South for another trail herd?” Billy Gore asked the deputy foreman, once he was in Rock’s hearing. “Naw,” the red-headed one divulged the first information. “Said he was goin’ somewhere after a bunch of doggies.” “Doggy” in range parlance meant farm cattle, scrubs, nondescript stock generally, sometimes cheaply bought to help stock a range. Rock recalled that remark three weeks later, when Wells and his four riders rode into the ranch. They had left with forty saddle horses. These mounts were ridden to a standstill. The five men were heavy-eyed and obviously weary. Wells kept his own counsel, as did the four who had ridden with him. They appeared at noon, turned loose their horses, ate, and then slept still sunrise of the next day. After breakfast Dave Wells called the four riders who had stayed on the ranch, told them courteously that he would have to let them go, and paid them off in gold. The discharged quartet rode south, leading pack horses, within two hours. They discovered, once clear of the ranch and free to air their personal views, that they were mutually eager to be away to a real cow country. They had had enough of comparative isolation. They were all Texans. Three of them were for home, via Butte and south over the Oregon Short Line to the Union Pacific. They had had enough of the North for the present. Only Rock proposed to linger, and he would keep them company until they were well into Montana.