"Hanson!" the new foreman called, and the man who repped for the Halfmoon D dropped out. One man was detailed to work each draw and when some five miles up the divide there were but half the crew left. Harris dropped down a long ridge and crossed the bottoms. Far down the valley the wagon showed through the thin, clear air. The foreman led the way to the opposite divide and doubled back, sending a man down every gulch. The girl rode with him. Down in the bottoms they could see the riders detailed on the opposite side hazing the cows out of their respective draws and heading them toward the wagon. The first few men left their cows in the flat and veered past them to station themselves near the wagon and block the valley, sitting their horses at hundred-yard intervals across it. Harris and the girl worked the last draw themselves and when they drove their cows out of the mouth of it they found a herd already milled, two hundred yards above the wagon. Harris left her and circled the bunch, estimating it. A few belated riders were bringing their quotas to swell the herds. Frequently a bunch of cows made a break to leave and many were allowed to make good their escape to the safety of the broken slopes. But these were only marked stuff previously branded and any attempt including a cow with an unbranded calf was instantly blocked. Each rider noted the brands of any cows which he let escape and more particularly still he scanned them with an eye for the presence of a "slick," an animal missed in previous round-ups and wearing no brand. Slick cows were fair prey for any man who first put his rope on them and he was entitled to run his own brand on a slick or to mark it with the brand for which he rode and draw down a certain scale of premiums at the end of the round-up season. Harris changed mounts, throwing his saddle on the paint-horse. When the last rider appeared with his bunch and threw it into the herd Harris signaled all hands to change mounts. Half the men repaired to the rope corral and caught up cow horses while the balance of the crew held the herd, each one relieving some other as soon as he had saddled a fresh horse. When the hands commenced working the herd the Three Bar girl watched the trained cow horses with an interest that was always fresh, for from long experience they thoroughly understood every move of the game. A sagebrush fire was burning fifty yards above the wagon and each man rode past it, leaned from his saddle and dropped his running iron in the flame.