So, as they rode along, Bill swung across a little draw toward the water hole they had seen the day before. He picked up the blue-roan, who, with her young son beside her, trotted off, following the rest of the cattle already working down the trails toward the round-up grounds. The two animals fell in with more of their kind as the trails converged until, by the time the roundup ground was reached, there were more than fifteen hundred cattle of all ages and sexes gathered in one great bunch.
The blue-roan's baby kept close to his mother's side; the dust that settled over the herd like a pall, choking him, while the constant bawling of the cattle, fairly deafened him.
Once, when two huge bulls, fighting fiercely, drove through that portion of the herd where he and his mother were, and separated the little family, he added to the din by raising his voice in pitiful outcry for his protector.
Outside of the herd the cowboys rode slowly around, turning back into the center any stragglers that tried to escape.
Gradually the bunch began to stop "milling" and as cow after cow found her calf, the bawling stopped. In half an hour the herd was fairly quiet and the wagon boss dropped off his horse to "cinch up" a little, preparatory to the work of cutting out.
Having reset his saddle, the boss mounted again and, calling to two other men near him, said, "Jack, you go out there a ways and hold 'em up, and Charley and I will get out the cows and the calves." So Jack rode off about one hundred yards from the herd in readiness to receive the "cut" as they came out; while the boss and Charley rode slowly into the mass of cattle.
"What you want out?" he asked of the boss. "The old man wants every Hashknife cow and calf that will stand the trail trip to Arizony," he replied. "We got to get two thousand for the first herd if we can, so cut 'em close."
"There's that ole blue-roan we seen yistiday," the boss remarked, "let's throw her out first thing, she's a good one to start a bunch on."
Now starting a "cut" is always some little trouble until you get half a dozen head together, because the instinct of the animal is to endeavor to either get back into the herd or to run clear off on the range. In starting a cut, if possible, they pick out some old, sedate cow, and in this case the blue-roan was known to be a good one for the purpose.
So our youngster found himself being followed up by a great fierce-looking man mounted on a small wiry "Paint" pony that kept right at his mother's heels, no matter which way she turned or twisted.