Johnny gave thanks and ate; he rolled a substantial lunch in a clean flour sack and tied it in his slicker behind the saddle. He rode to the horse herd; Pat rounded up the horses and Johnny snared his Twilight horse for the trip. Twilight was a _grullo_; that is to say, he was precisely the color of a Maltese cat--a sleek velvet slaty-blue; a graceful, half-wild creature, dainty muzzled, clean legged as a deer. Pat held Twilight by bit and bridle and made soothing statements to him while Johnny saddled. Johnny slid into the saddle, there was a brief hair-stirring session of bucking; then Twilight sneezed cheerfully and set off on a businesslike trot. Johnny waved good-by, and turned across the gray plain toward Upham. Looking back, he saw the van of the day herd just showing up, a blur in the southeast. Six miles brought him to Upham--side track, section house, low station, windmill tower and tank; there was a deep well here. He crossed the old white scar of the Santa Fé trail, broad, deep worn, little used and half forgotten. A new and narrow road turned here at right angles to the old trail and led ruler-straight to the west. Johnny followed this climbing road, riding softly; bands of cattle stirred uneasily and made off to left or right in frantic run or shuffling trot. The road curved once only, close to the hills, to round the head of a rock-walled, deep, narrow gash, square and straight and sheer, reaching away toward Rincon, paralleling the course of the mountains. No soft water-washed curves marked that grim gash; here the earth crust had cracked and fallen apart; for twenty miles that gray crack made an impassable barrier; between here and the bare low hills was a No Man's Land. Midway of the twisting pass Johnny came to a gate in a drift fence strung from bluff to bluff; here was a frontier of the Bar Cross country. He passed the outpost hills and came out to a rolling open park, a big square corral of cedar pickets, an earthen dam, a deep five-acre tank of water. About this tank two or three hundred head of cattle basked comfortably in the warm sun, most of them lying down. They were gentle cattle; Johnny rode slowly among them without stirring up excitement. "River cattle--nester cattle," said Johnny. There were many brands, few of which he had seen before, though he had heard of most of them.