“The Judge is doing a right smart o’ business this year,” he began, very casually indeed, so that I knew this was important. Besides bells and coal smoke, the smell and crowded sounds of cattle rose in the air around us. “Hyeh’s our first gather o’ beeves on the ranch,” continued the Virginian. “The whole lot’s shipped through to Chicago in two sections over the Burlington. The Judge is fighting the Elkhorn road.” We passed slowly along the two trains,--twenty cars, each car packed with huddled, round-eyed, gazing steers. He examined to see if any animals were down. “They ain’t ate or drank anything to speak of,” he said, while the terrified brutes stared at us through their slats. “Not since they struck the railroad they’ve not drank. Yu’ might suppose they know somehow what they’re travellin’ to Chicago for.” And casually, always casually, he told me the rest. Judge Henry could not spare his foreman away from the second gather of beeves. Therefore these two ten-car trains with their double crew of cow-boys had been given to the Virginian’s charge. After Chicago, he was to return by St. Paul over the Northern Pacific; for the Judge had wished him to see certain of the road’s directors and explain to them persuasively how good a thing it would be for them to allow especially cheap rates to the Sunk Creek outfit henceforth. This was all the Virginian told me; and it contained the whole matter, to be sure. “So you’re acting foreman,” said I. “Why, somebody has to have the say, I reckon.” “And of course you hated the promotion?” “I don’t know about promotion,” he replied. “The boys have been used to seein’ me one of themselves. Why don’t you come along with us far as Plattsmouth?” Thus he shifted the subject from himself, and called to my notice the locomotives backing up to his cars, and reminded me that from Plattsmouth I had the choice of two trains returning. But he could not hide or belittle this confidence of his employer in him. It was the care of several thousand perishable dollars and the control of men. It was a compliment. There were more steers than men to be responsible for; but none of the steers had been suddenly picked from the herd and set above his fellows. Moreover, Chicago finished up the steers; but the new-made deputy foreman had then to lead his six highly unoccupied brethren away from towns, and back in peace to the ranch, or disappoint the Judge, who needed their services. These things sometimes go wrong in a land where they say you are all born equal; and that quarter of a nod in Colonel Cyrus Jones’s eating palace held more equality than any whole nod you could see. But the Virginian did not see it, there being a time for all things.