"I should think," Pink ventured hesitatingly, "it would be hard to find its mother. I don't see how you could tell." "Well," said Cal gravely, sliding sidewise in the saddle, "it's this way. A calf is always just like its mother, hair for hair. This calf had white hind feet, one white ear, and the deuce uh diamonds on its left side. All I had to do was ride the range till I found the cow that matched." "Oh!" Pink looked thoughtful and convinced. Weary, smiling to himself, rode off to take his station at the other side of the herd. Even the Happy Family must place duty a pace before pleasure, and Cal, much as he would liked to have continued the conversation, resisted temptation and started down along the nearest edge of the bunch. Pink showed inclination to follow. "You stay where you're at, sonny," Cal told him, over his shoulder. "What must I do?" Pink straightened his tie and set his panama more firmly on his yellow curls, for a brisk wind was blowing. Cal's voice came back to him faintly: "Just dub around here and don't do a darn thing; and don't bother the cattle." "Good advice, that," Pink commented amusedly. "Hits day-herding off to a T." He prepared for a lazy afternoon, and enjoyed every minute. On his way back to camp at suppertime, Pink rode close to Cal and looked as if he had something on his mind. Cal and Weary exchanged glances. "I'd like to ask," Pink began timidly, "how you fed that calf--before you found his mother. Didn't he get pretty hungry?" "Why, I carried a bottle uh milk along," Cal lied fluently. "When the bottle went empty I'd catch a cow and milk it." "Would it stand without being tied?" "Sure. All range cows'll gentle right down, if yuh know the right way to approach 'em, and the words to say. That's a secret that we don't tell anybody that hasn't been a cowboy for a year, and rode fourteen broncos straight up. Sorry I can't tell yuh." Pink went diplomatically back to the calf. "Did you carry it in your arms, or--" "The calf? Sure. How else would I carry it?" Cal's big, baby-blue eyes matched Pink's for innocence. "I carried that bossy in my arms for three days," he declared solemnly, "before I found a cow with white hind feet, one white ear, and the deuce uh--er--clubs----" "Diamonds" corrected Pink, drinking in each word greedily. "That's it: diamonds, on its right hind--er--shoulders----" "The calf's was on its left side," reminded Pink reproachfully. "I don't believe you found the right mother, after all!" "Yeah, I sure did, all right," contended Cal earnestly. "I know, 'cause she was that grateful, when she seen me heave in sight over a hill a mile away, she come up on the gallop, a-bawling, and--er--licked my hand!" That settled it, of course. Pink dismounted stiffly and walked painfully to the cook-tent. Ten months out of saddle--with a new, unbroken one to begin on again--told, even upon Pink, and made for extreme discomfort.