The outfit, slowing so as not to frighten the devilish pintos and start them backing again, drew near; and suddenly the air became filled with darting ropes, one of which settled affectionately around Cookie’s apoplectic neck. In no time the strangling, furious dough-king was beyond the menace of the crumbling bank, flat on his back in the wagon, where he had managed to throw himself to escape the whistling hoofs that quickly turned the dashboard into matchwood. When he managed to get the rope from his neck he arose, unsteady with rage, and choked as he tried to speak before the grinning and advising outfit. Before he could get command over his tongue the happy bunch wheeled and sped on its way, shrieking with mirth unholy. They had saved him from probable death, for Cookie was too obstinate to have jumped from the wagon; but they not only forfeited all right to thanks and gratitude, but deserved horrible deaths for the conversation they had so audibly carried on while they worked out the cook’s problem. And their departing words and gestures made homicide justifiable and a duty. It was in this frame of mind that Cookie watched them go. Buck, emerging from the bunkhouse in time to see the rescue, leaned against the door and laughed as he had not laughed for one heart-breaking winter. Drying his eyes on the back of his hand, he looked at the bouncing, happy crowd tearing southward with an energy of arms and legs and lungs that seemed a miracle after the strain of the round-up. Just then a strange voice made him wheel like a flash, and he saw Billy Williams sitting solemnly on his horse near the corner of the house. "Hullo, Williams," Buck grunted, with no welcoming warmth in his voice. "What th’ devil brings _you_ up here?" "I want a job," replied Billy. The two, while never enemies nor interested in any mutual disagreements, had never been friends. They never denied a nodding acquaintance, nor boasted of it. "That Norther shore raised h—l. There ’s ten men for every job, where I came from." The foreman, with that quick decision that was his in his earlier days, replied crisply. "It’s your’n. Fifty a month, to start." "Keno. Lemme chuck my war-bag through that door an’ I’m ready," smiled Billy. He believed he would like this man when he knew him better. "I thought th’ Diamond Bar, over east a hundred mile, had weathered th’ storm lucky. You got ’em beat. They ’re movin’ heaven an’ earth to get a herd on the trail, but they did n’t have no job for _me_," he laughed, flushing slightly. "Sam Crawford owns it," he explained naïvely. Buck laughed outright. "I reckon you did n’t have much show with Sam, after that li’l trick you worked on him in Fenton. So Sam is in this country? How are they fixed?"