“That little sorrel out in the pasture,” answered Creede laconically.
“I’ll bet ye!” blustered Lightfoot. “Aw, rats! He ain’t even broke yet!”
“He can run, all right. I’ll go you for a yearling heifer. Put up or shut up.”
And so the race was run. Early in the morning the whole rodéo outfit adjourned to the parada ground out by the pole corrals, the open spot where they work over the cattle. Hardy danced his sorrel up to the line where the gray was waiting, there was a scamper of feet, a streak of dust, and Bill Lightfoot was out one yearling heifer. A howling mob of cowboys pursued them from the scratch, racing each other to the finish, and then in a yell of laughter at Bill Lightfoot they capered up the cañon and spread out over The Rolls––the rodéo had begun.
As the shadow of the great red butte to the west, around which the wagon road toiled for so many weary miles, reached out and touched the valley, they came back in a body, hustling a bunch of cattle along before them. And such cattle! After his year with the Chiricahua outfit in that blessed eastern valley where no sheep as yet had ever strayed Hardy was startled by their appearance. Gaunt, rough, stunted, with sharp hips and hollow flanks and bellies swollen from eating the unprofitable browse of cactus and bitter shrubs, they nevertheless sprinted along on their wiry legs like mountain bucks; and a peculiar wild, haggard stare, stamped upon the faces of the old cows, showed its replica even in the twos and yearlings. Yet he forbore to ask Creede the question 98 which arose involuntarily to his lips, for he knew the inevitable answer.
Day after day, as they hurriedly combed The Rolls for what few cattle remained on the lower range, the cowmen turned their eyes to the river and to the cañons and towering cliffs beyond, for the sheep; until at last as they sat by the evening fire Creede pointed silently to the lambent flame of a camp fire, glowing like a torch against the southern sky.
“There’s your friends, Rufe,” he said, and the cowmen glanced at Hardy inquiringly.
“I might as well tell you fellers,” Creede continued, “that one reason Rufe come up here was to see if he couldn’t do somethin’ with these sheepmen.”
He paused and looked at the circle of faces with a smile that was almost a sneer.