Nevertheless the serious idea took deep root, and while he did not make any promises he had a half-formed resolve to follow the old ranchman's advice.
All this time the horses jogged along more and more wearily, and requiring more and more urging from the youngster on the driver's seat. The last ten miles seemed endless; it was all John could do to keep the team going, and even tireless Lightning running alongside moved unsteadily with fatigue.
They were glad enough when the ranch buildings appeared dimly in the fast-deepening gloom. The sixty-mile drive was ended at last. When the wagon entered the ranch yard John almost fell into the arms of one of the men who had come to find out the cause of this unusually late arrival. It was Mr. Baker who told what the wagon contained and the story of Jerry's death.
John dragged himself to a hastily improvised bed, and, dropping down on it, was asleep in a twinkling; the first rest for thirty-six long fatiguing hours.
Late the next day he was awakened to attend Jerry's funeral. It was a very simple ceremony, but the evident sincerity of the mourners' grief made it impressive. He was laid away on a grassy knoll where several other good men and true had been buried by their comrades. A rude rail fence enclosed the spot—the long resting place of men who had died in the performance of their duty.
For a time things went sadly at the ranch, for John (he did not rejoin the round-up) missed his cow-puncher friend, his good-natured grumbling, his ever-ready helping hand. But gradually the boy's faculty of making firm, loyal friends helped to fill the gap that Jerry's death had made, though no one could ever take his place.
Mr. Baker's talk about school and a future took deep root, and as the boy turned the idea over in his mind it developed into a resolve to try it anyway.
Life had a new meaning now for John, and he found it absorbingly interesting. The work he had to do was a means to an end, and the commonplace, every-day drudgery became simply a cog in the machinery, and therefore not only bearable but interesting.