The Texan did not lift his eyes from the trail: "Earnt, I reckon, would be a better word. An' I don't know as it's pessimism, at that, to look in under the crust of your pie before you bite it. If you'd et flies for blueberries as long as I have, you'd----" "I'd ask for flies, and then if there were any blueberries the surprise would be a pleasant one." "Chances are, there wouldn't be enough berries to surprise you none pleasant. Anyhow, that would be kind of forcin' your luck. Follerin' the same line of reasoning a man ort to hunt out a cactus to set on so's he could be surprised pleasant if it turned out to be a Burbank one." "You're hopeless," laughed the girl. "But look--the moonlight on the peaks! Isn't it wonderful! See how it distorts outlines, and throws a mysterious glamour over the dark patches of timber. Corot would have loved it." The Texan shook his head: "No. It wouldn't have got _to him_. He couldn't never have got into the feel of stuff like that. Meakin did, and Remington, but it takes old Charlie Russell to pick it right out of the air an' slop it onto canvas." Alice regarded the man in wonder. "You do love it!" she said. "Why should you be here if you didn't love it?" "Bein' a cow-hand, it's easier to make a livin' here than in New York or Boston. I've never be'n there, but I judge that's the case." "But you are a cow-hand from choice. You have an education and you could----" "No. All the education I've got you could pile onto a dime, an' it wouldn't kill more'n a dozen men. Me an' the higher education flirted for a couple of years or so, way back yonder in Austin, but owin' to certain an' sundry eccentricities of mine that was frowned on by civilization, I took to the brush an' learnt the cow business. Then after a short but onmonotonous sojourn in Las Vegas, me an' Bat came north for our health. . . . Here's Johnson's horse pasture. We've got to slip through here an' past the home ranch in a quiet an' onobstrusive manner if we aim to preserve the continuity of Winthrup's spinal column." "Can't we go around?" queried the girl. "No. The coulee is fenced clean acrost an' way up to where even a goat couldn't edge past. We've got to slip through. Once we get past the big reservoir we're all right. I'll scout on ahead." The cowboy swung to the ground and threw open the barbed-wire gate. "Keep straight on through, Bat, unless you hear from me. I'll be waitin' by the bunk-house. Chances are, them salamanders will all be poundin' their ear pretty heavy, bein' up all last night to the dance." He galloped away and the others followed at a walk. For an hour no one spoke. "I thought that fence enclosed a pasture, not a county," growled Endicott, as he clumsily shifted his weight to bear on a spot less sore.