The winter had come and gone, vanishing amidst the howling gales of snow and sleet which never fail to herald the approach of the open season. It is almost like the last furious onslaught of a despairing and defeated foe. Now the world was abeat with swift pulsations in fibre and nerve. The wide valley of Rainbow Hill was stirring with the vigor of renewed life. Man, beast, fowl, foliage. It was the same. Spring was in the blood. Spring was in the sap. And all the world was fresh and ready for the call of the coming year. The spring round-up was in full swing with all its ceaseless toil for the ranching world. Already the pastures were crowded with stock brought in from distant valleys and grazings. Numberless calves answered their mothers' calls, and hung to their sides in panic at the commotion in the midst of which they found themselves. Already hundreds of them had endured the terrors of the searing irons which left them indelibly marked as the property of the great Obar Ranch, while hundreds more were awaiting the same process. And the irons and forges were kept going all day. Just as was the largely augmented band of cattlemen. In ones and twos these hardy ruffians, many of them "toughs" who worked at no other time of the year, scoured every hill, and valley, and plain, however remote in the vast region. Theirs it was to locate the strays to whatever ranch they belonged, and bring them in to home pastures. The sorting would be made after and the distribution. For the whole of the round-up was a commonwealth amongst the growers, and each and everybody was called upon to do his adequate share in the work. Bud was glad. Nor was it without good reason. The busy life was the life he lived for. And the busy life had been made possible and complete by the events of the previous summer. He was physically weary and yearning for the supper which was still awaiting Nan's return. But if he were physically tired the feeling did not extend beyond his muscles. His thoughts were busy as his eyes gazed out upon the scenes of life and movement which were going on. Just now he was thinking of the girl, impatient at the delay of her return from the pastures, where she was superintending the sorting for the morrow's branding. Thinking of her quickly carried him to thoughts of his partner and friend, and thus, by degrees, his mind went back to the events of the last summer which had left the present operations free from the threat which had then overshadowed all their efforts. It had been a bad time, a bad time for them all. But for Jeff--ah, it had been touch and go. How near, perhaps, it was only now, after long months had passed, and a proper perspective had been obtained, that the full extent of his narrow escape could be estimated.