A dozen round-up crews made up the picture, for this was a coöperative move by all the outfits ranging in the Strip, the great final combing of stock from the unowned lands. Far up the valley, a mere speck in the distance, the Half Diamond H wagon led the way while the others trailed at intervals. Two hundred riders, the personnel probably including the most efficient body of cowhands in the world, straggled up the bottoms in irregular formation. The extra horses, if combined into one _cavayado_ would number over two thousand head. A group of riders hovered near the last wagon, it having encountered difficulties in making the crossing of the Cimarron, resuming their way as the quick-sands relinquished their sucking hold upon the wheels and the floundering horses snaked the lumbering vehicle out upon the solid shore. A band of twenty Cherokees flanked the _cavalcade_ and dashed from one outfit to the next, begging food from each wagon boss in turn. Midway of the procession a detachment of cavalry rode in double file while the officer in command conferred with the man in charge of that particular wagon. As Carver watched they dropped back abreast of the next in line and he knew the message delivered to each one in turn by the soldiery,--the instructions to make a thorough sweep and clear every head of stock from the Cherokee Strip. The Indians, having gathered contributions sufficient for the moment, including a steer which was pointed out to them by the owner of the brand worn by the animal, hazed this moveable meat supply to the crest of an adjacent knoll and there dropped it with an accompaniment of rifle shots. Younger waved a hand toward the scene spread out before him. “That’s the way I saw the Old West first,” he said. “The picture is mighty near identical; the wagons rolling along just like that, only drawn up in more tight formation; the _cavayado_ trailing under guard, holding all the extra horses of the settlers; maybe a band of marauding reds clustered off to one side like them that are hacking up that steer; sometimes a little escort of troopers helping us at bad crossings where the Kiowas and Comanches was most liable to jump us while a part of the train was bogged down in the sand. The wagons was more likely dragged by bulls than horses then, and buffalo was scattered round the landscape in place of range cows, but on the whole the picture tallies close enough.” The old man turned his gaze away. “That’s the way we was first ushered into the Old West, son. Maybe it’s fitting that we’re being similarly ushered out of the last bit that’s left for us.”