We rode out the watch together. On returning to Flood’s camp, they had found Don Lovell awake. The old man was pleased with the report, but sent me no special word except to exercise my own judgment. The cattle were tired after their long tramp of the day before, the outfit were saddle weary, and the first rays of the rising sun flooded the mesa before men or animals offered to arise. But the duties of another day commanded us anew, and with the cook calling us, we rose to meet them. I was favorably impressed with Tupps as a segundo, and after breakfast suggested that he graze the cattle over to the North Platte, cross it, and make a permanent camp. This was agreed to, half the men were excused for the day, and after designating, beyond the river, a clump of cottonwoods where the wagon would be found, seven of us turned and rode back for Ogalalla. With picked mounts under us, we avoided the other cattle which could be seen grazing northward, and when fully halfway to town, there before us on the brink of the mesa loomed up the lead of a herd. I soon recognized Jack Splann on the point, and taking a wide circle, dropped in behind him, the column stretching back a mile and coming up the bluffs, forty abreast like an army in loose marching order. I was proud of those “Open A’s;” they were my first herd, and though in a hurry to reach town, I turned and rode back with them for fully a mile. Splann was acting under orders from Flood, who had met him at the ford that morning. If the cattle were in the possession of any deputy sheriff, they had failed to notify Jack, and the latter had already started for the North Platte of his own accord. The “Drooping T” cattle were in the immediate rear under Forrest’s segundo, and Splann urged me to accompany him that forenoon, saying: “From what the boys said this morning, Dave and Paul will not be given a hearing until two o’clock this afternoon. I can graze beyond the North Fork by that time, and then we’ll all go back together. Flood’s right behind here with the ‘Drooping T’s,’ and I think it’s his intention to go all the way to the river. Drop back and see him.”