Cowpunchers usually rode in couples. Bob learned next morning that he was paired with Dud. They were to comb the Crooked Wash country.
CHAPTER XIX
DUD QUALIFIES AS COURT JESTER
It was still dark when Dud Hollister and Bob Dillon waded through the snow to the corral and saddled their horses.
They jogged across the mesa through the white drifts.
Bob’s pony stumbled into a burrow, but pulled out again without damage.
In the years when cattle first came to the Rio Blanco the danger from falls was greater than it is now, even if the riding had not been harder. A long thick grass often covered the badger holes.
“How does a fellow look out for badger and prairie-dog holes?” Bob asked his companion as they jogged along at a road gait. “I mean when he’s chasin’ dogies across a hill on the jump.”