As Carver circled the bed ground his thoughts were still concerned with the text of the rumor so recently set afloat. It was said that not only cows, but men would be ordered from the unowned lands; that every foot of fence must be removed from the range and brand owners forced to abandon home ranches. Bart Lassiter joined him. “Well, what do you think of our latest bit of news?” he asked. “Think they’ll go through with it?” “It don’t seem reasonable that they’d put over any such drastic measure,” Carver said. “They might. It will be hard on the old man if they do.” A figure rode toward him in the moonlight and the old man in question joined him as Lassiter departed. Nate too had been restless and had found himself unable to sleep. As Carver had reflected that such a move would inflict an undeserved hardship upon his employer, so Nate was wondering as to what effect it would have upon his hands, for in common with all cowmen of his type, Younger was proud of the accomplishments of his riders. Every brand owner would stand back of the men who rode for him; every rider evidenced a similar devotion to the owner’s interests,--a loyalty to the brand for which he worked. Perhaps in all history there has never been another calling which has inspired the same allegiance throughout its entire personnel. A man must be proficient in many lines to qualify as a cowhand. First of all he must be a horseman capable of mastering any horse on the range and of training his mounts to perform the various and intricate duties required of them; a roper of parts, able to front-foot a calf or to rope and hog-tie a mighty range bull with equal facility; sufficiently skilled in blacksmithing to shoe his own horses; for these and many other acquirements, working at them sixteen hours a day, he was paid a lesser sum than any unskilled laborer received for ten hours of far less gruelling work. It was the wild free life, not the pay, which held him to his chosen calling. The driving spring rains which soaked his bed roll as he slept on wet ground in the open; the shrivelling heat of summer and the shrieking blasts of winter blizzards; the congenial companionship of round-up days and the long lonely vigils at isolated winter line camps; all these he chose in preference to the softer life and greater pay of other less strenuous pursuits. “What will all the boys be doing in another season?” Younger asked. “Where’ll they all go when there’s no more range work for them to do?” “Texas maybe,” Carver predicted. “Or New Mexico.” “Both those countries are coming to be overrun with nesters,” Nate returned. “The big brands are getting their range cut up right now. They’ve been forced to reduce the size of their outfits in proportion to the decrease in their range. There’s more cowhands down there now than there are jobs to go around.” “Then maybe the Northwest range country,” Carver suggested.