“Stop there, Dalhart! We got to tally in the findings. Knot your rope. The boys’ll set ’em through.”
The two wheeled apart. Slowly the herd was dribbled through between them, while the crude but efficient art of handling cows went on. Each sat his horse, facing the other. At each hundred he advanced a knot under his thumb. When the last steer had passed the two did not vary five head in the tally of the crowding mob of cattle.
“Eleven forty-six!” Nabours called. Dalhart nodded.
“I can’t be sure. I made her eleven fifty.”
Nabours grumbled. “It’s a start, no more. Go back and help the other boys, Dalhart. There’s a big holding yon way, about five mile toward the hills, besides this one. Bring ’em in.”
Del Williams rode to the cook fire and had a tin cup of coffee before he roped a fresh horse and changed his saddle. Before leaving he turned to Nabours.
“Was any of our boys off north, about three mile, Jim?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The run was mostly east.”
“Well, I seen sever’l men riding over towards the hills where I was at, about sunup.”
Nabours growled his own suspicions.