He saw, presently, why it would take all of them, why he must strive, in his awkward and unready fashion, to “make a hand.” The young steers were timid, suspicious, quarrelsome; stupid, quick to get into a blind and unreasoning panic—brown streaks of speed when they broke away from the bunch. Ginger was here, there, everywhere, swallow-swift on Diablo, darting after a fugitive—up a sheer bank, down a steep cañon, hanging low out of her saddle, Indian-fashion, to dodge a dangerous branch. Estrada had had to give up his duties as guide; he was in the thick of the job. Dean rode alone, and Snort, who, by some miracle of mercy, had been mild and tractable earlier in the day, now developed temper and temperament. Any sort of riding, after the long hours in the saddle, was active discomfort; riding Snort was torture.
A dog ran out of a ranch house and barked; the herd, which had settled down for half an hour into something like order and calm, started milling; round and round, like an eddying whirlpool, trying to turn, to start back; there was the sharp sound of a fence giving way—they were into the rancher’s orchard, they were into his field, and then over his hill—they were off and away.
Thundering hoofs; shouts, curses; Ginger went by him in a furious flash. “Dean! What’s the matter with you? Make a hand, can’t you? Make a hand!”
He made a hand, of sorts. He was part and parcel of the noisy, breathless chaos. He was never to know by what magic he remained in or near the saddle; certainly there was little left of power or volition in his racked and tired body. They were back at last upon the road; they were moving steadily forward again. ’Rome Ojeda came up to him. “Well, you sure are makin’ a hand,” he said, genially. Dust had settled thickly on his face; it made his smile whiter and more flashing than ever by contrast. “But we got’a watch ’em, still! They’re sure one wild bunch! They—” he broke off abruptly at Ginger’s cry—
“Dean! Dean! Head him off! Get him! Get him!”
A lone young steer had sneaked away from his side of the herd, from under his inattentive nose, and was galloping clumsily off across a field.
“’Atta boy!” said ’Rome Ojeda, loudly. “Go get ’em! Dig in your spurs! Ride ’em, cowboy!”
Doggedly, bitterly, he struck his spurs into his horse: they cleared the edge of the road at a bound, they were after the steer, up with him, beyond him, turning him: he was loping back to his fellows. Dean’s head felt light and strange; it had ceased to belong to his body.
“’Atta boy!” sang out Ojeda.
Estrada was smiling: Ginger was smiling, too. It was the first time she had smiled at him, in that fashion, all day. He was going to fall off of Snort presently, any moment now, simply because he couldn’t sit him any longer, but, meanwhile, he’d turned the steer. He was making a hand. By some convulsive and involuntary motion of his aching leg muscles he dug the spurs into Snort once more. Instantly the horse, snorting, trumpeting, had bolted with him. He didn’t care, especially; let him take him fast and far, away from the dissembled scorn of Ginger’s world, away from ’Rome Ojeda’s cool appraisal, away from Ginger. He would hold on a little longer; then he would let go. He would hold on; he couldn’t stop Snort—there was nothing left in his arms to stop him with—but he would hold on. Hold on ... hold on.... He thought, presently, that he must be saying it aloud, but it was Ojeda’s voice.