Pratt at once said: "I don't blame ye fer pullin' out, Mose. I done the best I could, considerin'. Co'se I can't begin fer to pay ye the wages Delmar can, but be keerful; trouble is comin', shore pop, and I'd hate to have ye killed, on the wimmen's account. They 'pear to think more o' you than they do o' me." Jennie's eyes filled with tears when Mose told her of his new job. She looked very sad and wistful and more interesting than ever before in her life as she came out to say good-by. "Well, Mose, I reckon you're goin' for good?" "Not so very far," he said, in generous wish to ease her over the parting. "You'll come 'round once in a while, won't ye?" "Why, sure! It's only twenty miles over to the camp." "Come over Sundays, an' we'll have potpie and soda biscuits fer ye," she said, with a feminine reliance on the power of food. "All right," he replied with a smile, and abruptly galloped away. His heart was light with the freedom of his new condition. He considered himself a man now. His wages were definite, and no distinction was drawn between him and Delmar himself. Besides, the immense flock of sheep interested him at first. His duties were simple. By day he helped to guide the sheep gently to their feeding and in their search for water; by night he took his turn at guarding from wolves. His sleep was broken often, even when not on guard. They were such timid folk, these sheep; their fears passed easily into destructive precipitances. But the night watch had its joys. As the sunlight died out of the sky and the blazing stars filled the deep blue air above his head, the world grew mysterious and majestic, as well as menacing. The wolves clamored from the buttes, which arose on all sides like domes of a sleeping city. Crickets cried in the grass, drowsily, and out of the dimness and dusk something vast, like a passion too great for words, fell upon the boy. He turned his face to the unknown West. There the wild creatures dwelt; there were the beings who knew nothing of books or towns and toil. There life was governed by the ways of the wind, the curve of the streams, the height of the trees--there--just over the edge of the plain, the mountains dwelt, waiting for him. Then his heart ached like that of a young eagle looking from his natal rock into the dim valley, miles below. At such times the youth knew he had not yet reached the land his heart desired. All this was only resting by the way. At such times, too, in spite of all, he thought of Mary and of Jack; they alone formed his attachments to the East. All else was valueless. To have had them with him in this land would have put his heart entirely at rest. CHAPTER IX WAR ON THE CANNON BALL The autumn was very dry, and as the feed grew short on his side of the Cannon Ball, Delmar said to his boss herder, "Drive the herd over the trail, keeping as close to the boundary as you can. The valley through which the road runs will keep us till November, I reckon."