"Ho!" put in Rube, "you fellows talk as if you had never before been where it was lonely. I have; and there's too much loneliness out here for me. I'm getting to be like the fellow I heard of who was riding fence down in Texas on one of those big fenced ranches. He never saw anybody from week-end to week-end, and one time when he came into a ranch to get his supplies, he said it was so darned lonely out there that he'd got into the habit of taking off his hat and saying 'Howdy' to every fence post that he passed."
"Well," laughed Mason, "he must have suffered for lack of company; but I would never have that complaint."
"Hugh tells me that you've lived up in the Piegan country," said Jack, addressing Mason. "Were you up there long?"
"Three or four years. I expect I'll go back there before long. Six or eight years ago I drifted up from the south through this country, and finally brought up among the Piegans. I've been across the line a few times to the British, and have stopped a little while with the Bloods and the north Piegans. You know that in old times, when the first treaties were made, the Piegans split up on the question of where they should live. Some of them liked the country to the south of the line, and some that to the north. Originally all the three tribes of the Blackfeet came from way up north on the Red Deer River, or maybe still farther, to the east of that. I've heard old John Monroe—maybe you know him—"
"I should say so!" exclaimed Jack. "I lived in his lodge all one summer."
"Well," continued Mason, "I've heard old John Monroe tell a mighty good story about the way the Blackfeet came down from the northeast, and how they first met the white people."
Here Rube interrupted.
"I think we had better start these cows along. A lot of 'em have quit feeding and the first thing we know they'll be lying down, and then we'll have a hard time to get them to move. Better come on and start 'em now. The longer we put it off the harder work and slower it'll be."
"That's gospel," said Jack Mason. "We've got to whoop these cows up, and we haven't any time for writing ancient history now."
"Yes," agreed Jack, "I suppose we've got to move; but look here, Mason, I want to get you to tell me that story, if you will. I've an idea that I've heard bits of it up North, but if you can give it to me in a connected fashion I wish you would."