Dave listened and gloomed and finally took a great resolution. He might just as well be honest with himself--the round-up would never be the same without Sam. The cook had been a cowhand in his time and he hadn’t trailed cattle up through the Panhandle for nothing. Therefore he would not match his speed against the wild horses. “Say, Mister McVey, I want to git a month off.” “Where’re you going now? This isn’t another trip to Doghole?” “I hoped you’d done forgot that,” Dave answered severely. “No, sir, I want to go and git Hell-on-Wheels.” “How could you catch him? I’ve tried; all the boys have tried. And you haven’t ridden in ten years.” “You let me try and you’ll see.” Dave tried to draw in his waist and appear athletic as the manager ran his eye over his two hundred and fourteen pounds. “You couldn’t get that mule in a thousand years. Unless”--as an afterthought--“you spread breadpans all over the range and set traps.” “There’s where you’re wrong, Mister McVey, sir. I ain’t rode much since I took to cookin’, but I’m pretty active. You gimme that month and you’ll see.” “Go ahead. I’d just as soon pay the reward to you as to anybody else--sooner.” Sam was the first of the band to sight the enemy trudging through the sand of the plain toward them. Far behind a burro followed, led by another man on foot. This truly was interesting. The mule advanced for a closer inspection and the others awaited his verdict, having implicit confidence in him as a sentinel. Thus it happened that Dave gained to within three hundred yards before Sam flagged his tail and departed. The horses massed swiftly into a compact body and followed, but they did not run as they would have run from mounted men. Instinctively they knew that this thing on two legs could not catch them, so it was at a swinging trot that they breasted a hill. On its crest the mustangs slowed down; they dropped to a walk and turned to look back at what pursued. There plodded old Dave, apparently paying them no special attention, but nevertheless coming in their direction. Once more Sam waited until the cook came within shouting distance, then, the buckskin raising the alarm, they cantered off. So it went all the afternoon. Dave made no attempt to get close up with them; he did not conceal his approach; he did not stalk them; and he was especially cautious not to alarm to an extent that would send them fleeing for miles. Instead, he was satisfied merely to keep them in sight. Sometimes he paused to wipe the sweat from his face and neck, but he betrayed no impatience. Far behind a burro followed, led by another man on foot, and when the cook changed his course so did the burro, still maintaining its distance.