"Roll out!" he bawled. "Feet in the trough!" There was instant activity, the jingle of belts and spurs and in five minutes every man was fully clothed and splashing at the creek. It was showing rose and gray in the east when the meal was finished and the cook's voice was once more raised. "All set! Ru-un-n 'em in!" he called, and there came the rumble of hoofs as the nighthawk acted on this order and headed the remuda toward the wagon. Two men mounted the horses that had been picketed close at hand throughout the night and stationed themselves on either side of the open end of the rope corral to guide the horse herd into it. The horses could not be seen until almost upon them, looming suddenly out of the dim gray of early morning and surging into the corral. The nighthawk and the two men already mounted rode around it, driving back any horse that showed a disposition to leave the corral by a downward slash of a doubled rope across his face and ears. The men went in and scattered through the milling herd, each one watching his chance to put his noose on a circle horse of his own string. When most of the men were mounted Billie urged Papoose over near Harris's horse. "Do you know how to throw a circle?" she asked. "After a fashion," he said. "I've bossed one or two in the past." "Then we'd better be off," she suggested. "Since you're the Three Bar foreman it's for you to say when." "I only preempted that job for ten minutes or so," he explained with evident embarrassment. "You surely didn't think I was trying to boost myself into the foreman's job for keeps?" "No," she said. "But you're half-owner--and you can handle men. I'm giving you free rein to show what you can do." Harris straightened in his saddle and motioned to the men. "Let's go!" he ordered, and headed his horse for the left-hand flank of the valley. They ascended the first slopes, picked a long ridge and followed it to the crest of the low divide between that valley and the next. Harris increased the pace and they swept up-country along the divide at a steady lope. When traveling or making a long day's ride on a single horse the cowhand saves his mount and travels always at a trail-trot, but with work to be done, three circles to be thrown in a day and with a string of fresh horses for every hand, the paramount issue of the circle is the saving of time rather than the saving of mounts. As they reached the head of the first draw that led back down into the valley Harris waved an arm. "Carp," he called, and a middle-aged man named Carpenter, abbreviated to Carp, wheeled his horse from the group and headed down the draw. A half-mile farther on they reached the head of another gulch.