The breeding ranches of Texas and New Mexico now gathered their steers as two-year-olds and sold them to the intermediate beef-brands operating in the Strip, the short-grass plains of Western Kansas and the Sandhill country of Nebraska. Here they were ranged on grass till they had turned four-year-olds, then resold to the feeders of Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, who corn-fed and fattened and finished them for market. Except for one breeding ranch confined to a great fenced-in pasture, there was only beef stuff in the whole expanse of the Strip, which rendered the round-up a comparatively simple affair. This last event in particular was simplified by the orders which had just gone forth from governmental sources, and every head of stock gathered in each circle was held in the day herd. The rope corral was dismantled, ropes and stakes loaded on the bed wagon which promptly headed up country, trailed by the wrangler with the _remuda_, and Carver led all the hands except those detailed with the day herd up the bottoms toward the new stand of the cook wagon. It was but ten o’clock when they dropped from their horses and fell ravenously upon a hot meal which the cook had already prepared, for while the cowhand’s day begins an hour before dawn his nooning comes at ten and his knock-off time is seldom later than five P. M. The second circle of the day was completed in the late afternoon. The hands feasted to repletion and lolled about for an hour, buzzing angrily over a new rumor which had just reached camp. The men spread their bed rolls on the ground and retired with the setting sun. Carver dropped instantly asleep but contrary to his usual custom he waked within an hour and sleep would not come to him as he tossed restlessly in his blankets. The turmoil of the round-up, the hoarse bawls emanating from the throats of five hundred steers, the shrill yelps of riders, the stifling dust of daytime activities; all these had been superseded by the night sounds of the cow camp in the open. A cool breeze stole across the range which now seemed mysteriously hushed. Occasionally some night horse on picket or tied to the stake ropes shifted uneasily and stamped a restless foot. The night hawk held the _cavayado_ on good grass somewhere down the bottoms and his voice drifted faintly to Carver as he sang to while away the lonely hours. The night guards on duty with the herd were likewise singing to soothe their charges on the bed ground a few hundred yards above the wagon, and fragmentary snatches of their melodies floated down to Carver’s ears as he blinked sleeplessly up at the stars. He remained awake till the hour came to stand his turn on second guard and he rolled out, mounted his night horse and rode with several others to relieve the weary riders who had stood the first shift of the night after a fourteen-hour day in the saddle.