Across the herd from him a battered old-time cowboy sat, crooked-legged, on his horse. On the day before a bronk had thrown him by treachery and kicked him as he dragged—even turned around and jumped on him and stamped him in the face. A great bruise, red and raw, ran up from his brows to his bald-spot where the iron shoe had struck; but still the old-timer was content.
"A cowboy don't need no haid above his eyebrows, nohow," he had said. "Jest think if he had hit me on the jaw!" Yes, indeed, but what if he had hit him in the temple or trampled him to death! Or suppose, just for instance, that Mr. Bowles, of New York, had been on the bronk instead of Uncle Joe, the veteran—would he have had sense enough to get his foot out of the stirrup? That was the trouble with standing day-herd—it gave the imagination a chance to work.
Bowles looked out over the plain again and noticed every little thing—the rattleweed, planted so regularly on the sandy flat; the dogholes, each with its high-topped mound to keep out the rain and floods; the black line of mesquite brush against the distant hills; the band of yuccas along their flanks; and then the soft, moulded summits, now green, now yellow, now creamy white as shrubs and bushes and bunch grass caught the light. It was very beautiful, but lonely. Yes, it lacked color—a vigorous girlish figure in the foreground to give it the last poetic touch.
The only men who can stand the monotony of day-herding are those who are not overburdened with brains, and so have the ability to turn off the thinking-machine entirely until they need it again. Smoking helps, and singing long-drawn songs; but Bowles turned back to Wordsworth, the poet of nature. Stray snatches of poems and sonnets rose in his mind, and he tried to piece out the rest; then he gazed at the quivering mirage, the plain, the straying cattle, and wondered how Wordsworth would see it. He was engaged in this peaceful occupation when, on the second day, he noted a moving figure, far away; dreamily he watched it as it emerged from the barbed-wire lanes of the nesters, and then, like a flash, the words of Brigham came back to him: "I knowed her four miles away by section lines." It was Dixie Lee, and she was coming his way!
There were three other worthless cowboys like himself on the day-herd, and they had seen her already. Like Brigham, they knew her by the way she rode, miles and miles away. Steadily she pounded along, keeping the rangy bay at an even lope, and then she turned toward the ranch. The long wire fence of the horse pasture had thrown her from her course, but now she was on the barren prairie and could skirt the north fence home. A series of muttered comments marked this sudden turn to the west, and the tall, cigarette-smoking youth who had been rubbing the sleep from his eyes lopped down beneath his salt-bush again. But he had returned to Morpheus too soon, for almost immediately after he had laid his hat over his eyes the distant rider changed her course, and the boys held up their hands for silence. Dixie Lee was going to make them a visit, after all, and they would let her catch him asleep.
Swiftly the tireless bay came loping across the flats, winding in and out to dodge the dog towns, and soon the queen of the cowboys was up to the edge of the herd.
"Hello, Uncle Joe!" she hailed, riding over toward the old-timer. "How's your head?"
"All right, Miss Dix," replied the puncher amiably. "Cain't hurt a cowboy in the haid, you know."
"No, but you can spoil his looks, Uncle," retorted Dixie May playfully. "You want to remember that—I heard a lady down here inquiring for you mighty special. What's the matter with Slim over there?"
A whoop went up at this, and the sleeper sat up guiltily.