Half a mile from this camp he came on a small herd of cattle grazing under the eye of a solitary rider. Perhaps a hundred head of cows, aged, scraggy, culls in fair flesh. He marked three or four different brands from the Judith Basin.
“Camp beef?” he asked the herder.
“Yeah,” the fellow drawled. He was a pimply-faced youngster with a visible swagger. “Beef for the bohunks.”
“Butchered as needed, I suppose?” Charlie commented.
“Sure. This is a headquarters commissary. Big layout. Feeding two or three camps from here.”
Charlie passed on. On a bit of good grass along the creek bottom he staked his horses and cooked his supper. Grading camps offered none of the hospitality the range afforded. No casual wayfarer got anything there unless he paid his way. They were there to build a grade for the Great Northern, for the profit of the contractors, and it was a grubby, driving business.
Charlie ate his supper by the fire, watched the men and teams string in at six o’clock. It was a big camp. He estimated four hundred men. Four hundred men ate a lot of beef. And two other camps drew supplies from there. He looked at the camp and at the grazing herd, and then he did a lot of thinking. He still lay thinking, looking up at the stars, long after he turned in. With the tarpaulin drawn up to his chin, he stared at the Big Dipper, the North Star, and at many a constellation glittering in its appointed place. But his mind was not on the stars in their courses—upon the cosmic wonder of an October night. No. More practical matters engaged his busy brain. And not until the sharp nip of the autumn frost made him draw his head under the canvas did he fall asleep.
In the morning, with his own matutinal coffee bestowed where it would do the most good, and the grading crews stringing out to work in a cold dawn, Charlie walked into the camp and sought the head cook.
“Who does the beef buying for this outfit?” he asked.
The man pointed to a small tent-roofed wooden shack. “Chief’s office,” he said and turned to his work.