In that high eagerness of absorption, a man "working for the brand" did not, could not, center all thoughts on self; he trusted his fellows, counted upon them, joyed in their deeds. And to forget self in the thought of others is for so long to reach life at its highest. * * * * * The Bar Cross had worked the northern half of the range, getting back to Engle, the center and the one shipping point of the Jornada, with fifteen hundred steers--finding there no cars available, no prospect of cars for ten days to come. To take those steers to the south and back meant that they would be so gaunted as to be unfit for shipment. So the wagon led on softly, drifting down to the river, to a beating of _bosques_ for outlaw cattle and a combing of half-forgotten ridges and pockets behind Christobal Mountain. It was a work which because of its difficulty had been shirked for years; the river cattle mostly came out on the plains in the rainy season, and got their just deserts there. Waiting for cars, the outfit was marking time anyhow. Any cattle snared on the river were pure gain. The main point was to handle the stock tenderly. From working the _bosques_ the outfit expected few cattle and got less.--The poets babble about the bosky dell; _bosque_, literally translated, means "woods." Yet for this purpose if you understand the word as "jungle," you will be the less misled. Johnny Dines sat tailor-wise on his horse at the crest of a sandy knoll and looked down at the day herd, spread out over a square mile of tableland, and now mostly asleep in the brooding heat of afternoon. About the herd other riders, six in all, stood at attention, black silhouettes, or paced softly to turn back would-be stragglers. Of these riders Neighbor Jones alone was a Bar Cross man. He was captain of the day herd, a fixture; for him reluctant straymen were detailed in turn, day by day, as day herders. Johnny represented a number of small brands in the north end of the Black Range. His face was sparkling, all alive; he was short, slender, black-haired, black-eyed, two and twenty. He saw--Neighbor Jones himself not sooner--what turmoil rose startling from a lower bench to riverward; a riot of wild cattle with riders as wild on lead and swing and point. As a usual thing, the day's catch comes sedately to the day herd; but this day's catch was _bosque_ cattle--renegades and desperates of a dozen brands. Jody Weir, on Johnny's right, sat on the sand in the shadow of his horses. This was not ethical; seeing him, Yoast and Ralston, leading the riot, turned that way, drew aside to right and left, and so loosed the charging hurricane directly at the culprit.