They climbed down to the little flat, where a thin wisp of gray-blue smoke rose straight up in the still air from the remnants of the cook fire. The boys fell on the ham and corn cakes and coffee ravenously, batting off the four dogs, who were most oppressively sociable, trying to gobble morsels of food right out of their masters’ mouths. The stars came out while they were eating. Then Big John and the Arizonans fell over on their backs and lit indolent cigarettes; the Colonel and the boys sought their lookout rocks, to feed on the desert, shrouded in its impenetrable gloom under a glory of western stars.
After a time the sharp night chill drove them under the shelter. Huddled forms out in the sage told of the cowmen fast asleep where they lay. Rolling in their blankets, the boys voted to call it a day. Sid lay awake, listening to the rustlings of a pack rat which had come foraging into camp, and enjoying the wild howl of the coyotes barking in shrill chorus from the mesas all about them. It was all wild, lonely and beautiful—too beautiful for anyone but outers and very honest men, he decided, as he dozed off to sleep, with the sweet tang of sage in his nostrils.
Next morning before dawn the whole party was awake, the boys shivering and glad enough to warm their hands before the fire. Bacon, flapjacks and coffee were in progress, and, downing them, the horses were unpicketed and fed and the whole cavalcade started for Hinchman’s. The sharp, bracing air was good for horses and men alike. They were full of oats and bacon and high spirits. Sid raced along with Scotty beside him, giving their ponies full rein to run off the first enthusiasm of a new day. Big John brought up the rear, singing a cow song at the top of his lungs, the meter chiming in with the jolt of his horse.
“Whoo—pee,—de—I—yaho! Git along lit—tle dogie,
For ’tis your misfortune an’ none of—my own!
Whoo—pee,—de—I—yaho! Git along lit—tle dogie,
For I know that Wy—O—ming will be your new home,”
he sang, in a monstrous shout, bawling out the I’s and O’s in a blare like a foghorn. The boys giggled with joy as verse after verse of the cowman’s riding song roared out.
“They sing that song to soothe the cattle when riding around the herd at night,” laughed Sid. “It sure carries well! The cows are perfectly contented so long as they hear a human voice. Otherwise they are apt to get nervous about wolves, and stampede.”
“What’s a ‘dogie,’ Sid?” asked Scotty, posting as his pony changed gait to a trot.