Between the runs we shogged forward across the great reaches of rolling prairie in the bright sunlight. The air was wonderfully clear, and any object on the sky-line, no matter how small, stood out with startling distinctness. There were few flowers on these dry plains; in sharp contrast to the flower prairies of southern Texas, which we had left the week before, where many acres for a stretch would be covered by masses of red or white or blue or yellow blossoms—the most striking of all, perhaps, being the fields of the handsome buffalo clover. As we plodded over the prairie the sharp eyes of the punchers were scanning the ground far and near, and sooner or later one of them would spy the motionless form of a coyote, or all would have their attention attracted as it ran like a fleeting gray or brown shadow among the grays and browns of the desolate landscape. Immediately dogs and horses would stretch at full speed after it, and everything would be forgotten but the wild exhilaration of the run. [Illustration: ABERNETHY AND COYOTE From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D. ] It was nearly noon when we struck the chuck wagon. Immediately the handy round-up cook began to prepare a delicious dinner, and we ate as men have a right to eat, who have ridden all the morning and are going to ride fresh horses all the afternoon. Soon afterward the horse-wranglers drove up the saddle band, while some of the cow-punchers made a rope corral from the side of the wagon. Into this the horses were driven, one or two breaking back and being brought into the bunch again only after a gallop more exciting than most coyote chases. Fresh ponies were roped out and the saddle band again turned loose. The dogs that had been used during the morning then started campward with the chuck wagon. One of the punchers was riding a young and partially broken horse; he had no bridle, simply a rope around the horse’s neck. This man started to accompany the wagon to the camp.