Had there been any place where the mates could have turned out of the mob with their young, they would undoubtedly have done so; but the way was narrow and those behind pushed the others on. After all, Nan secretly thought, it was a cruel way to treat the animals.
She did not set herself in judgment upon the method of handling the horses, for she knew she was utterly ignorant of the conditions. Yet she was sorry for them, and especially pitied the mothers and their young.
The stream of horses was nearly an hour in passing the observation point Rhoda Hammond had selected. The creatures kept on at a swinging canter; never at a walk. Hurrying, snorting, sweating with fear of they knew not what! The odor and dust that rose from the seemingly endless stream of animals finally became rather unpleasant in the nostrils of the onlookers. But they were held there until all should have passed.
By and by the last clattering hoof of the herd was gone, the rear brought up by a bunch of the very young and their mothers, as well as some few lame ones. Then Dan MacCormack, red-bearded and black-eyed, rode by with the rest of the herdsmen, raising his sombrero to Rhoda and her friends.
At the extreme tail of the procession came the chuck wagons of the four outfits, each drawn by four mules with flopping ears and shaved tails, the drivers smoking corncob pipes, and the cooks lolling beside them on the seats, their arms folded.
"Now we'll go," said Rhoda, it being possible to speak in an ordinary tone once again and be heard. "When we get out of the canyon we'll circle around the herd and precede it to Rolling Spring Valley, where the branding pens are set up."
Grace rubbed her gloved hand tenderly over the scar on her pony's hip and said to him:
"Did it hurt you very much when they burned you with the nasty old iron?" He pricked his ears forward and whisked his tail, so Bess said, in a most knowing way, as though he remembered the indignity clearly. "I don't believe I want to see the branding done," she added. "That ugly 'XL' doesn't improve his appearance."
"That is 'Cross L' not 'XL'; and the brand is not so disfiguring as some," Rhoda said. "It helps sell a lot of horses for daddy. His brand is known all over the country."
"That fact doesn't make it any the less cruel," Grace said, with some spirit. "How would you like to be branded, Rhoda Hammond?"