"Sure!" agreed Happy Jack, who had been singing songs all day. "What's the use of workin', anyway?"
"That's me!" chimed in Poker Bill. "Let's quit and draw our pay!"
"Put these cows in the pen first," said Jack, snapping his fingers and waltzing airily in his saddle.
"Whoopee tee, yi, yo, git along, little dogies,
It's all yore misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopee tee, yi, yo, git along, little dogies,
'Cause you know my whistle is dry as a bone."
It was a new experience to Bowles, this riding into a cow town, and he viewed with wide-eyed alarm the evidences of dissolution and revolt. Even Brigham was licking his lips and gazing at the town; and when the first bottle came out he took a long drink with the rest. Bowles excused himself, and wondered what would happen; but the half-drunken cowboy who brought out the life-saver never gave him a second look. It was not so hard to dispose of whisky in those parts.
As the herd neared town, the idle and curious came riding out to see it, and Bowles was pained to notice certain painted women, who seemed to know the boys by their first names. They rode along the herd, waving handkerchiefs and shouting greetings, and a sudden distrust of frontier morality came over him as he observed the shameless response. The shipping pens were below the town about a mile—a barren square of whitewashed fencing, backed up to a side-track full of empty stock-cars—and as the weary cattle dragged along across the flats Hardy Atkins and a bunch of punchers cut off the leaders and whooped them on ahead. There was a jam at the gates, a break or two, and then the first timid dogie stepped fearfully into the enclosure. The smell of water in the troughs lured him on, the rest followed, and when the main herd came up it was artfully tailed on to the drag.
At last! The high gate swung to on the harvest of the long round-up, and the punchers raced their horses to be first at the waiting chuck-wagon. In an angle of the fence Gloomy Gus had unpacked his ovens and set up his fire irons, and now as they flew at their supper he surveyed them with cynical calm.
"Whar's Henry Lee?" he inquired at length; and Hardy Atkins pointed back to town with his knife.
"He's over lookin' up his buyer," he said. "I'm the boss now, Cusi; what can I do fer you?"
"Oh, you're boss now, are you?" repeated Gus, with heavy scorn. "Well, then, why don't you send some one out to relieve thet hawse wrangler? He'll be turnin' the remuda loose pretty soon, from the way he's been makin' signs."