With the advent of spring comes a rush of duties to those whose interest are centered in the breeding of cattle. The Foss River Settlement is already teeming with life. For the settlement is the center of the great spring "round-up." Here are assembling the "cow-punchers" from all the outlying ranches, gathering under the command of a captain (generally a man elected for his vast experience on the prairie) and making their preparations to scour the prairie east and west, north and south, to the very limits of the far-reaching plains which spread their rolling pastures at the eastern base of the Rockies. Every head of cattle which is found will be brought into the Foss River Settlement and thence will be distributed to its lawful owners. This is but the beginning of the work, for the task of branding calves and re-branding cattle whose brands have become obscured during the long winter months is a process of no small magnitude for those who number their stocks by tens of thousands.
At John Allandale's ranch all is orderly bustle. There is no confusion. Under Jacky's administration the work goes on with a simple directness which would astonish the uninitiated. There are the corrals to repair and to be put in order. Sheds and out-buildings to be whitewashed. Branding apparatus to be set in working order, fencing to be repaired, preparations for seeding to commence; a thousand and one things to be seen to; and all of which must be finished before the first "bands" of cattle are rounded up into the settlement.
It is nearly a month since we saw this daughter of the prairie garbed in the latest mode, attending the Polo Ball at Calford, and widely different is her appearance now from what it was at the time of our introduction to her.
She is returning from an inspection of the wire fencing of the home pastures. She is riding her favorite horse, Nigger, up the gentle slope which leads to her uncle's house. There is nothing of the woman of fashion about her now—and, perhaps, it is a matter not to be regretted.
She sits her horse with the easy grace of a childhood's experience. Her habit, if such it can be called, is a "dungaree" skirt of a hardly recognizable blue, so washed out is it, surmounted by a beautifully beaded buckskin shirt. Loosely encircling her waist, and resting upon her hips, is a cartridge belt, upon which is slung the holster of a heavy revolver, a weapon without which she never moves abroad. Her head is crowned by a Stetson hat, secured in true prairie fashion by a strap which passes under her hair at the back, while her beautiful hair itself falls in heavy ringlets over her shoulders, and waves untrammelled in the fresh spring breeze as her somewhat unruly charger gallops up the hill towards the ranch.
The great black horse was heading for the stable. Jacky leant over to one side and swung him sharply towards the house. At the veranda she pulled him up short. High mettled, headstrong as the animal was, he knew his mistress. Tricks which he would often attempt to practice upon other people were useless here—doubtless she had taught him that such was the case.
The girl sprang, unaided, to the ground and hitched her picket rope to a tying-post. For a moment she stood on the great veranda which ran down the whole length of the house front. It was a one-storied, bungalow-shaped house, built with a high pitch to the roof and entirely constructed of the finest red pine-wood. Six French windows opened on to the veranda. The outlook was westerly, and, contrary to the usual custom, the ranch buildings were not overlooked by it. The corrals and stables were in the background.
She was about to turn in at one of the windows when she suddenly observed Nigger's ears cocked, and his head turned away towards the shimmering peaks of the distant mountains. The movement fixed her attention instantly. It was the instinct of one who lives in a country where the eyes and ears of a horse are often keener and more far-reaching than those of its human masters. The horse was gazing with statuesque fixedness across a waste of partially-melted snow. A stretch of ten miles lay flat and smooth as a billiard-table at the foot of the rise upon which the house was built. And far out across this the beast was gazing.
Jacky shaded her eyes with her hand and followed the direction of the horse's gaze. For a moment or two she saw nothing but the dazzling glare of the snow in the bright spring sunlight. Then her eyes became accustomed to the brilliancy, and far in the distance, she beheld an animal peacefully moving along from patch to patch of bare grass, evidently in search of fodder.
"A horse," she muttered, under her breath. "Whose?"