For several days the people at the ranch kept looking for the arrival of the horse roundup, but it did not come. One morning at breakfast Mr. Sturgis said to Hugh, "Well, Hugh, instead of sitting about here any longer, you might go up to-day on to the mountain and look around to find some good strong corral poles and posts. Some of the poles in the big corral are getting pretty weak, and as soon as the roundup has passed, we may as well make that corral over. Try to find poles that are easy got out, and of course as near home as you can; and if you get a chance, you might kill a heifer or a young bull, if you should see one."

"All right," said Hugh. "I'll be glad to take a little ride; I'm getting tired of sitting round waiting for them horses. Son," he continued, speaking to Jack, "do you want to go along?"

"Yes, indeed, Hugh, I'd like to first-class," was the reply.

After breakfast they started, and began to climb the mountain behind the house, following a steep trail which led up the side of a deep, narrow valley, down which a large brook flowed. Jack had never ridden in this direction before, but he had often wondered what there was on top of the mountain, and he was glad to have a chance to go there. Pawnee followed close after old Baldy up the narrow trail, and not much was said by the riders, but Jack's eyes were busy looking at the rough mountain side and at the precipices of red rock that overhung the way. After some time they crossed a narrow side valley, where there was a little grass and underbrush and a few tall pines. As they were riding through this, Jack suddenly saw quite a large bird running along before them. It seemed to be hurt; its wings were trailing on the ground, it ran half crouched down, and every now and then it would fall over on its side, and then recover itself and struggle along a little further.

"Oh, Hugh!" he called out, "see that bird! Wait a minute, I want to catch it."

Hugh stopped his horse, and Jack, jumping down, ran after the bird and almost put his hand on it. It just managed to struggle out of his fingers and ran along before him, tottering as if it were very feeble. He followed it for twenty or thirty yards further, not quite catching it, when suddenly, with a great whirr of wings, it rose from the ground and flew off up the mountain side. Jack stopped and watched it with open mouth, and then turned to go back to his horse. When he reached it Hugh said to him with a smile:

"Where's your bird?"

"That's the most mysterious thing I ever saw," said Jack. "I almost had that bird three or four times, and suddenly it flew off as if nothing was the matter with it."

"Well," said Hugh, "didn't you ever see that before? That's an old blue grouse, and her young ones are scattered around on the ground right where we're standing. She just pretended she was hurt to lead you away from them, and as soon as we are gone she will come back to them. You'd better look out where you put your foot down, or you might step on one. They're here right close, and yet we might look for half a day and not be able to find one of them."

"Well," said Jack, "that's curious. I think I have heard my uncle tell about birds doing that sort of thing, but I never saw it until to-day. That was a pretty big bird, but not as big as a sage hen, is it?"

"No," said Hugh, "they're quite a little bit smaller than a sage hen, and still they're lots bigger than a pheasant, and they're awful good eating, too."

Jack mounted and they rode on up the trail.

After quite a long scramble up the steep mountain trail they came to a rolling, grassy plateau, interrupted here and there by clumps of pines, and occasionally by great knobs of red granite rock. They rode for several miles over this upland without seeing anything that was interesting, until, as they were approaching one of these tall knobs of rock, they heard a loud piercing whistle come from it.

Hugh stopped his horse, and when Jack rode up beside him, said:

"Now, let's watch them rocks for a little while, and see whether we can see that fellow."

"What fellow do you mean, Hugh," said Jack; "the thing that made that noise?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "that's what some folks call a mountain marmot, but I call it a woodchuck, because it looks just like the woodchucks I used to see when I was a boy down in Kentucky, only it's considerable bigger, and it's got a kind of a yellow belly. It can make more noise for its size than most any beast I know of."

They sat there for a few moments and watched the rock about which the hot air was dancing, when suddenly Hugh said, "I believe I see him; I think he just stuck his head out of that crack in the rock. Do you see there, near the top? Follow that crack along with your eye and you'll notice a little grey knob that was not there a minute ago."

"Oh, I see it," said Jack.

"Well," said Hugh, "now watch that and see if it don't move."

After a few seconds the knob moved, and, in a minute an animal came out of the crevice in the rock and sat up.

"That would be a good shot," said Hugh, "if we had not come up here to try to hunt; but your uncle wants us to try to kill him some meat, if we can; so we won't shoot at woodchuck. Let's ride on and when we get a little nearer to him he'll give one them whistles of his and then dodge into that crack in the rock."

It happened just as Hugh had said, and soon after they began to move forward, the animal gave another shrill whistle and again disappeared from view.

"There's quite a piece of burnt timber about a half mile off here to the north; let's go over and look at that, and see if we can get the fence-poles that we need; then we'll leave our horses and go afoot a little way, to see if we can see any elk."

They rode over to the timber which had been killed by fire some years before. Hugh spent some little time looking at it, but at length rode out into an open park, unsaddled his horse and tied its rope to a little tree, Jack doing the same. They took their rifles and started off along the edge of the timber on foot.

"I see some elk sign in this timber, and some of it is right fresh, but if you see any elk before I do, don't shoot. I don't want to kill any old cows now, because their calves are right young and they'd be liable to starve to death. If we can find a heifer we'll kill one; she'll be in a pretty good order, and just what they want at the ranch." They had not gone far before Jack noticed in the dirt some tracks, and just as he was about to speak of them, Hugh stopped and said:

"Now, son, I want you to look at these tracks: you see they look considerable like cattle tracks, but they ain't, they're elk. Now, look at this track here," he said, pointing to one of the largest, "that looks a good deal like the track of a two-year-old critter, but just see how long it steps; that will show you that it's an elk; the sign shows that it's a bull, but a young one. These other tracks you see here, they're cows and heifers and a yearling or two. Now, you see, these tracks are fresh; just notice how the dirt in each one seems kind of shining and polished. A big heavy animal putting its hoof down hard on the dirt makes the place where its weight rested look like that. Now, this track that I told you was a bull's, looks different; you can see that for yourself; it isn't polished but it looks kind of dull. The reason for that is that the wind has blown the dust about in the hoof mark and has partly covered it up. On dry ground like this an old track can always be told by that. Now, over there," he continued, pointing, "are some tracks made in the spring, when the ground was wet. Of course, you see that they sink in deep, as any tracks would that were made in the mud. It ain't much use for me to tell you about these things, except to make you notice quicker what the difference is in the different tracks you see. A man's got to study tracks a heap before ever he can become a good trailer. There isn't anything but experience that'll teach you what a track means, but often they tell a pretty plain story to a man who knows how to read them. It's wonderful to me to go out up in the mountains when there's a fresh snow on the ground. You can see just what all the birds and animals have been doing since the snow fell; and often from the tracks you see you can tell just what they were thinking about."

"Yes, indeed, Hugh," said Jack, "Uncle Will has talked to me about that, and he told me, too, that you were the best trailer he'd ever seen. I want to keep my eyes open and try to learn from you as much as I can."

"Well," replied Hugh, "I have been learning for a good many years, and you can't expect to pick it all up in a few months. I'm mighty glad though to tell you all I know."

From here they went on, and soon, turning to the right, followed a narrow game trail which led along the top of a deep ravine, down which flowed a brook that they could hear splashing and bubbling among the rocks. They had not gone very far when a stick cracked down below them by the brook, and Hugh stopped and stood listening. He slipped a cartridge into his gun, and Jack imitated him, and then both crouched in the trail and listened. A moment later something was heard climbing the bank toward them, and Hugh, turning to Jack, whispered, "It's a bear. Get ready." Jack cocked his gun and looked with all his eyes, and presently, not twenty yards below, he saw a brown animal step out of the bushes. "Shoot," said Hugh; and Jack, aiming at the point of the bear's shoulder, fired. The animal dropped and rolled out of sight among the bushes; but in a moment he re-appeared, galloping toward them. "Shoot," said Hugh again, and Jack threw the rifle to his shoulder and fired, but the bear kept on. "Shoot again," said Hugh; "carefully, this time." And again Jack aimed at the bear, now not ten yards from them, and fired. This time the animal doubled up and rolled down the hill again, but before it reached the fringe of bushes its motion stopped and it lay stretched out in the sunlight.

"Good boy," said Hugh, "I believe you missed him with your second shot, but the third one was all right. Did you feel like running?"

"No," said Jack, "I don't believe I did. I was too busy shoving cartridges into my rifle, and trying to hit the right spot, to think about anything else. But was he charging us, Hugh?"

"No," said Hugh, "I don't expect he was. You see, he hadn't no idea that we were 'round until your first shot hit him, and he didn't know where that came from, and was just trying to get away. He happened to run in our direction, that was all. I don't think he wanted to be mean. Well, you've killed your first bear, son, and you're surely getting to be a real old hunter. You take to it in the right way, and I'm right glad you do. If you and me could travel together for a year or two, I'd guarantee to make a hunter of you. Well now, let's go down and skin that little fellow."

They found the bear quite dead and with only two bullet holes in his hide. The first one showed that Jack's first shot had been a bad one; he had fired at the point of the bear's shoulder, but had hit it in the top of the head, just grazing the skull. There was nothing to show where the second shot had gone, but the third one had pierced his chest and had gone lengthwise through his body.

"There," said Hugh, "you see what I told you; that first shot gave him a rap on the head and sort o' stunned and dazed him, and I don't believe he knew which way he was running. I suppose you'd like to take off his hide, because he's the first bear you've ever killed, but it ain't in very good order. You see, he's partly shed off, and what's left of his old winter coat is all sunburned. Still, we may as well skin him. You can use the hide for a while, and then, if you like you can cut off his front paws, just to keep the long claws. You see, he's a little fellow, just about the size of the one your uncle killed that day we came out from town."

Jack helped to skin the bear, and found that it was hard, slow work.

"Yes," said Hugh, to whom he spoke of this, "skinning a bear is some like skinning a beaver; you can't strip the hide at all, you've got to cut every inch."

After the hide had been removed they carried it up to the trail and made a bundle of it, and then, going down to the brook, washed the blood from their hands, and Hugh sat down and smoked. As they sat there Jack noticed two or three birds fly down toward where the bear lay, and then two or three more. He asked Hugh what these were, but Hugh had not seen them. He proposed that they should go up to the trail where the bear-skin lay, and from which they could see the carcass and the birds that visited it. They climbed the bank and were hardly seated on the trail when a small grey bird pitched down out of a pine tree on to the carcass, and began to peck at the meat. It was at once followed by two or three others.

"Now, those birds," said Hugh, "are what I call meat hawks; some calls them camp robbers. I expect they're a kind of a winter bird, anyhow there's lots of them 'round in winter; they're the tamest creatures you ever see. I've seen it sometimes when I was skinning a deer, hung up, that they'd 'light on the legs of the deer and peck at the meat, and sometimes they'd flutter right down to the ground at my feet and eat the scraps that fell from my knife. They're dreadful easy caught, too, if anybody was to take the trouble, and when you catch 'em they don't seem a mite scared, but just peck and fight and claw you as if they were as big as you are. There, that one," he continued, as a large dark brown bird with a beautiful long crest flew down to the carcass, "is a kind of a blue jay, I reckon. Anyway, he looks some like the blue jays I used to see back in the States when I was a boy, except that he's kind of brownish blue instead of being light blue. Those camp robbers are afraid of him, and they leave until he gets through, but if a magpie comes along, then the blue jay leaves, and of course if a raven or an eagle comes, the magpie has to do the waiting." Just as he spoke, a queer, chippering noise was heard in one of the pines, and two beautiful magpies, with glossy black heads and tails and white under parts, came to the ground, and after hopping gracefully about for a moment or two, began to feed on the carcass.

"Well," said Hugh, "we might stop here all day, watching these birds, but we'd better be moving. We'll go back to the horses another way, and, as I've got to pack this bear hide, you'll have to kill an elk, if we see any."

Their way back was through beautiful green timber, free from underbrush, the ground being covered with a soft black mould of decaying pine needles. They had been walking briskly for some little time, and Jack thought they must be getting near the horses, when suddenly Hugh stopped and said; "Son, look around you and see whether you see anything."

Jack thought there must be something special to see, and looked carefully about. He could see only the green pines, their grey trunks, and the black earth, sometimes brightened by shafts of sunlight which came through openings in the green canopy above them. After a minute he said, "No, Hugh, I don't see anything."

"Well," said Hugh, "there's something to see, and I expect it's something that you never saw before. Let's go on a little way."

He stepped forward, turning a little to his right, and walked up to the foot of a large tree, where Jack had noticed a patch of sunlight; but when they got to the foot of the tree, to his astonishment and delight, the boy saw lying there a little bright red, white spotted animal, which he knew must be a calf elk. It looked a good deal like a very young fawn, but was three or four times as large. Jack was on his knees beside it in a moment, patting it and smoothing its skin, and declaring it was the prettiest thing he had ever seen. It lay there absolutely without motion, and as he lifted its legs one by one, and let them go again, they dropped back limp as if the animal were dead.

"Well, son, I don't know what we're going to do with this calf," said Hugh; "it's most too big for you to carry, and I can't pack both the calf and the bear hide. Do you want to take it with you or to leave it here?"

"Oh, Hugh," said Jack, "let's take it along; I think I can carry it, and we can't be very far from the horses now."

"No," said Hugh, "we ain't. I guess we'll manage to pack it to them, then it will be easy to get it down the hill. Do you think you could carry it? Take it right across your shoulders, holding the fore legs in one hand and the hind legs in the other. I'll lift it up for you, but I reckon it's too heavy for you to pack far."

Jack took the calf on his back, but, as Hugh had said, it was pretty heavy, and before long he had to put it down. Hugh left him there, watching the calf and the bear-skin, went on to where the horses were and brought them back. From behind his saddle he took a gunny sack, in which he put the calf, cutting a hole in the side through which its head protruded, and then tying the sack in front of Jack's saddle, and putting the bear-skin behind his own, they started for the house. When they came out on the trail where they could overlook the valley, they saw near the ranch a great herd of animals, and Hugh said, "Well, there's the horse roundup at last. Now we'll have plenty of work for the next few days, cutting out these horses and branding our own colts."

When Hugh and Jack reached the house, after putting the young elk in a calf-pen in the stable, they found a number of strangers there, and all the corrals seemed to be overflowing with horses. In one some men were still working, but when the supper horn sounded all hands came to the house.

The supper table that night was longer than it had been since Jack had been at the ranch. There were nine strange cowboys there, all of whom, however, seemed to be well acquainted with Mr. Sturgis and Hugh and Rube and Joe. Still, they were not very talkative at supper, but after it was over and they were sitting about outside the house, smoking, many stories were told of the daily happenings of the last two or three weeks while they had been gathering the horses. Jack would have enjoyed sitting about to listen to this talk, but when Hugh suggested that they should go down to the corrals and walk through the horses, he readily accompanied him. In the first pen that they entered the horses stood crowded so close together that it looked at first as if they could not push their way through them, but as they went on, the animals crowded to one side and made a narrow lane through which they could walk. Two months before, when Jack had first come to the ranch, it would have made him nervous to be so close to the heads and heels of these wild horses, but now he scarcely thought of it. Hugh looked the horses over and talked about them with the enthusiasm of a real horseman. He pointed out the beauties of this one and that, and called attention to one colt after another, telling which mare was its mother, and having some little story about each one.

One of the corrals seemed to be occupied chiefly by mares and colts, with some young horses, and of these a number of the mares seemed to recognise Hugh, and pushed their way up to him, reaching out their noses to be patted, and sometimes thrusting their heads over his shoulder. He explained to Jack that these were old horses that had been long on the place, and were accustomed to being brought up and held in the corral, where they were gentled and petted a little, and that they seemed not to forget this, and were always willing to make friends whenever they were brought up. He said, too, that their foals and yearlings and two and three-year olds, which often all followed the mother, themselves grew gentle and liked to be noticed by the men, and that, of course, animals that were tame were much more easily handled and broken to saddle or to harness than the wild colts that had been running on the range all their lives.

Two or three of the yearlings in this corral were cripples, with twisted, misshapen limbs, and Jack asked Hugh whether these would ever recover, and if not, what they were good for.

"No," said Hugh, "they won't never get well, and they ain't worth nothing. It's a shame to use colts so that they break down like that. That comes of running a little young colt hard for twenty-five or thirty miles on the roundup. Of course these little fellows after they get some strength can travel pretty nearly as well as an old horse, but if you run them too far or too fast in bringing in the horses, their soft, gristly little bones get bent and twisted, and they don't ever get straight again. There's a heap of good foals ruined every year, just because a lot of fool cow punchers want to get a bunch of horses into the corral in an hour and a half, when by rights they ought to take three hours to do it in. All them crippled yearlings ought to be killed, they're no good now, and they'll never be any better than they are. They just eat the grass that might support a good horse."

After an hour or two in the corrals, as it began to grow dark, Hugh and Jack went back toward the house. On the way Jack stopped in at the hen-house to look at his setting hens and put the covers on the barrels in which their nests were. As he was doing this he heard from beneath one of the hens a faint, peeping sound, and lifting up one wing he saw beneath it the tiniest little duckling that he had ever seen. It was too dark to see much, and he had to leave the hen-house without finding how many of his eggs had hatched, but he made up his mind that the next morning, no matter what happened, he must prepare a coop for this brood of ducks. When they reached the house they found that a number of the tired cowboys were already rolled up in their blankets, and sleeping. There were four in the bunk-house, three on the floor of the dining-room, and the others were just taking their blankets over to the barn, to sleep in the soft, sweet-smelling hay. Hugh said to Jack, "You'd better turn in, too, son; to-morrow will begin pretty early in the morning, and you won't have any too much time to sleep if you go to bed now."

It was not yet light next morning when Jack heard the bustle which announced that all hands were astir, and he at once got up and dressed, to find himself only just in time for breakfast. It was plain daylight by the time the meal was over, and most of the men at once went down to the corrals. Jack hurried down to the hen-house, but, on looking at his ducks' eggs, found that only a part of one setting had hatched, and putting a little food near the hen's nest, he left them, determining to postpone the building of his coop until the following day. He went on down to the corral and found that the men were busy turning out the horses on to the prairie, where they were to be herded by two riders. Some of the men had brought wood to the big round corral, and just outside it, and close to the fence, some were kindling fires, while others were chopping poles and logs into wood small enough to be used on these fires. A great lot of iron bars, four or five feet long, stood against the corral fence, and on looking closely at these, Jack saw that each had a handle on one end and an iron letter on the other. These, he supposed, must be the branding irons, and these fires were for heating them.

After a time most of the horses had been turned out, but a large number, almost all of them old mares, with their colts, had been cut out and confined in a series of pens that were connected by a gate with the round corral, outside which the fires were burning. By the time these were going well, and the various branding irons had been put in them to heat, three or four of the men drove into the big corral a bunch of thirty or forty mares, whose little colts stayed close by their sides. Many of these mares seemed quite wild, and all raced around the walls of the pen, as if very much frightened. It seemed to Jack as if these little colts, some of which hardly looked bigger than jack rabbits, must all be killed by being stepped on. Yet each colt kept close to its own mother's side, and a little bit under her, so that it was well protected from being harmed by any other mare that crowded close upon it.

Two or three men with ropes now entered the corral and, as the horses ran about them, each one threw his rope over a colt, and as soon as the rope caught a colt's neck, a couple of men quickly dragged it out into the middle of the corral, and taking hold of it, threw it down, holding it so that it should not injure itself in its struggles; then one of the men ran to the fence and called for a particular iron, bearing the brand which showed on the mother of the colt. When this was given him he ran back to where the colt lay and carefully pressed it on its shoulder or neck or hip, and held it there. The hair and skin hissed under the hot iron, a little smoke arose, the colt tried to struggle, and then, after the brand had been properly placed, it was allowed to spring to its feet and to run back to the bunch. Meantime, its mother had been whinnying, calling, and sometimes running out from the circle of the horses, almost up to the men who were holding down her colt. When it was freed and ran back to her, she nosed it all over and then contentedly took her place with the other old mares.

The work of branding went on rapidly. Now and then some man would catch a colt with too large a loop, the little animal's head and forequarters would pass through it and it would be caught around the body. When held in this way it was of course much harder to handle than when caught by the neck, and before the men got their hands on it, it would go through a series of extraordinary antics, rearing, plunging, bucking and dancing; but at last it would be caught, thrown down and treated like the others. A man who caught a colt in this fashion was much laughed at by the other cowboys and advised to take lessons in roping. As soon as all the colts in the corral had been branded, the horses there were turned out and a fresh lot of mares and colts brought in. All through the morning this went on. Jack, though at first he sat on the top rail of the corral and watched, was soon called down from his lofty perch and set to work. For some time he passed the hot irons in to the men who were doing the branding, then he was sent to get more wood, and afterwards for a bucket of water. The cowboys were all good-natured and very friendly with him, and chaffed him as he ran here and there, trying to carry out their orders.

After dinner the work continued, and one thing happened that made Jack feel badly. A little colt, frightened at something, had run a few steps in front of its mother, as all the horses were racing about the pen, and just as the rope caught its neck, it stopped. The mother, lumbering along behind it, tripped over the tightened rope and fell on the colt, and when it got up one of its fore-legs swung loose.

"There's a dead colt," said one of the men, and in a minute they caught it and threw it down.

Then one of the older men took the hurt leg and moved it backward and forward, while he held his ear close to the animal's shoulder.

"Yes," he said, "its shoulder is smashed, I can hear the bones grate. Hand me that hatchet, Jim."

The hatchet was passed to him, and he struck the little colt twice with it in the head, and two of the men carried the carcass to the fence and passed it through. Jack did not understand this, which had happened so quickly, and asked Hugh, who happened to be standing near him, why they killed the colt.

"Why," said Hugh, "when the mare fell on it she broke its shoulder, and it couldn't never have got well, in fact, it couldn't even have followed its mother around, it would just have had to suffer for a few days and then die; so of course it was better to kill it now."

"What a pity!" said Jack, as he looked at the pretty little animal lying at his feet, whose eyes were already glazing. "Wasn't there any way to have cured it?"

"No," said Hugh, "I expect not, and it would have cost more to try to cure it than it could ever have been worth; I expect it was better to kill it off right now."

When supper time had come that night, all the colts had been branded, and orders were given that after Mr. Sturgis's horses had been cut out of the bunch, next morning, the roundup should move on.

After supper that night, Jack sat down near three or four of the cowboys who were smoking their pipes and cigarettes by the corner of the house, and listened to their talk. One of them seemed to be telling a story.

"I tell you," he said, "it was about the funniest thing I ever saw. You see, we'd run the bear may be a mile and a half, and two or three of us had put our ropes on him, but he always managed to slip out. It was a pretty hot day, and his tongue was hangin' out about a yard, and toward the end he was pretty mad, and when we got close, he'd turn round and charge back on us. One time when he did this he passed pretty close to Mat, who was on a slow horse, and Mat managed to catch him by the hind leg, and the rope stayed; but when Mat tried to hold him, the bear turned round and charged, and Mat got kind o' scared, and just turned the rope loose from his saddle and ran, and the bear went on. Well, pretty quick, we came to a little pile of rocks, with three or four cedars growing around them, and the bear stopped at these rocks and wouldn't run no further. We run up pretty close to him and tried to rope him, but he was sort o' half under the rocks and we couldn't catch him. He had Mat's rope on his hind leg yet, and it was lying out on the prairie, and we commenced to make fun of Mat, and to tell him to ride in there and pick up his rope and drag the bear out, but of course we didn't expect he'd try to do no such fool thing as that, but we kept on making fun of him, and the first thing we knew he started to ride by the bear and pick up his rope. When he got right close, just as he was goin' to stoop for the rope, there comes the bear sailing out after him, and lookin' mighty savage, I tell ye. He turned his old horse and run, and the bear run, and when he looked around and saw the bear not very far off, he rode his horse under one of them cedar trees, and just reached up and caught hold of a branch and curled up over it, and his horse ran on, and he went climbing on toward the top of the tree. We just set there on our horses and laughed at Mat, so long and so hard that the bear ran on and went plumb out of the country, carrying Mat's rope, and we never see him again."

Soon after the sun rose next morning Mr. Sturgis's horses were being cut out of the bunch and turned into one of the big corrals, and by ten o'clock the horse roundup had started on its way again, and all the strangers with it.

That afternoon Hugh and Jack busied themselves making a pen for the little ducks, all of which had now hatched out. Each of the old hens was put in a coop, which stood at opposite corners of the pen, and boards standing on their sides made a fence and prevented the newly hatched birds from wandering away, yet gave them a little space of grass, over which they could walk and feed. Jack had never seen such little bits of ducklings as some of these were, and Hugh told him that he thought they must be teal. After the pen was finished he spent some little time catching small grasshoppers, which he threw to the birds, and it was comical to see the excitement which they showed and the way in which they fought over this food.

They also gave a lesson to the little calf elk. Up to this time it had paid no attention to them, but had wandered about its pen with slow steps, constantly looking for a place to get out. Now, however, when Jack reached his hand over to pat it, it caught the sleeve of his shirt in its mouth and chewed it a little, and when he put his hand near to its nose, it tried to take the whole hand into its mouth.

"Oh," said Hugh, "that fellow's getting hungry; he's about ready to drink now. Put your fingers in his mouth and I'll go and get some milk and we'll teach him how to drink."

Hugh went up to the house, and soon returned with a small pail, holding about a pint of warm milk. "Now," he said to Jack, "get inside the pen and hold the can in your left hand, and then lower the hand he's sucking until it's in the milk, so that he'll draw some milk into his mouth when he sucks." Jack did so, and as soon as the calf began to taste the milk it showed quite a little excitement, shaking its body and pushing with its head against the can, and pretty soon it pushed so hard that it almost knocked the can out of Jack's hand, and spilt most of the milk. He kept up the work until the calf had drunk all the milk in the pail, but it was not nearly satisfied, and bawled after Jack as he went out of the barn.

"Now," said Hugh, "we must give it another drink before supper, and then another just before dark. Just as soon as we can learn it to drink it will be perfectly tame, and you can turn it out to wander around the house. You'll have to watch it, though, for if it goes off a little way from the house the coyotes are liable to catch it. Fact is, I think we'd better make a little corral for it, out in the brush, and leave it out there days where it can get plenty of sunlight and learn how to pick grass a little, and then shut it up here every night where it will be safe. It will be tame though, from now on."

As they were going up to the house, Hugh said, "Well, I expect you'll be ready to see Tony go at the broncs to-morrow morning. I heard your uncle say we'd start in the first thing in the morning."

"Yes, indeed, Hugh," said Jack, "that's something I want very much to see, and I expect to have a lot of fun. Do you suppose any of those wild horses will throw Tony?"

"It's hard to say," replied Hugh; "he's an awful good rider, and I don't expect he gets thrown very often, but every man that follows bronco busting is liable to get thrown and killed every time he gets on a wild horse. I've ridden plenty of wild horses in my time, but I don't ride no more. It's boy's work, that's what it is."

"I am going up to take another look at the little ducks, Hugh," said Jack; and he went on toward the pen. In a minute Hugh heard his name called loudly, and went on up toward the duck pen.

"Oh, Hugh," said Jack, as he drew near, "something's killed three of those littlest ducks already, and here is blood on the top of one of the coops. What can it be?"

Hugh looked about and apparently saw no sign, but in a moment he lifted his finger to call Jack's attention, and stood listening. Jack heard faintly a bird's call, which sounded familiar, but at first he could not think where he had heard it.

"That's what it is," said Hugh; "them durned magpies have found these ducks, and now they'll kill them all, unless we kill them. You stop here a minute or two while I go to the house and get your uncle's shot-gun and your rifle, and we'll see if we can't ambush them fellows."

Jack felt very badly as he stood there waiting; three of these dear little ducks had gone in an hour; at this rate they would not last very long. Presently Hugh came back with the gun, and, giving Jack his rifle, he loaded the shot gun, and they sat down in the bushes not far from the pen.

"Now," said Hugh, "them magpies will be back pretty quick, and we'll have to lie here right quiet. If you get a chance at one sitting on a branch, kill him, and I'll try to take any others that may be there, as they fly away. There may be only one or two of them, and if we kill them and hang them up around the pen, that'll likely scare off any other, that may come."

They had not been waiting more than a few moments before they heard the magpies calling not far off, and presently one, almost at once followed by two others, appeared in the branches of one of the aspens close to the ducks' pen. They peered down at it curiously, and Jack, seizing a moment when one of them stood still, fired, and the bird dropped. The other two rose in the air, but Hugh, standing up, shot first one and then the other, and both fell into the bushes. Hugh got three long sticks and, sharpening an end of each, stuck them in the ground about the pen, and to each one tied one of the dead magpies, which swung to and fro in the breeze, and would be likely to act as scarecrows to any others that might come.

After breakfast next morning, Jack hurried down to the corrals and climbed up on the fence, whence he could see all that was going on. Crowded in one corner of the large corral stood the horses, most of them with heads down and dull and sleepy looks. Rube and Joe were in the stables, saddling the ponies that they were to ride, and as Mr. Sturgis and Hugh came down from the house, the two boys led their horses up near the gate of the smaller round corral and tied them to the fence. Soon all the men entered the round corral, the gate between that and the large corral was opened and two of the men went toward one end of the bunch of horses. A wild bay colt started to run away from them, and the other horses tried to follow it, but Rube ran forward, headed them off and turned them back, so that all except the bay remained huddled in the corner. This one trotted swiftly along close to the corral fence until he reached the open gate leading into the smaller corral. He turned into that and the men ran forward, passed through and shut the gate. The bay horse trotted swiftly several times about the corral and made a pretty picture. He held his head high and his ears forward; his neck was arched, his coat shone in the sun and his long black tail was spread out behind him, and almost swept the ground. He was a real beauty. Suddenly Joe stepped forward with a rope in his hand and swung the loop about his head, and as he did so the horse, frightened, broke into a gallop. In a moment the loop of the rope flew out, not toward the horse's head, as Jack had expected, but toward the ground in front of it. Joe's hand was thrown up in the air and in a moment the young horse was standing on his hind legs pawing the air with fore feet, which were held together by the rope, while Joe, and in a moment Hugh and Rube, were pulling back on it with all their might. It had all happened so quickly that Jack did not at all understand how it had been done.

If the young horse had been frightened before, he was terrified now. In vain he strove to free himself from this rope which was gripping his fore feet and holding them tightly together. He reared again and again on his hind legs, walking on them and striking with his forefeet; then he came down on all fours and tried to run, but still he was held fast. For a moment or two he flew about with his head toward the men, but at length he turned his side toward them, and as they pulled on the rope, he lost his balance and fell heavily on the soft dust which covered the ground. The men kept the rope taut, and Rube, letting go, ran swiftly to the animal's head and sat on it. The others ran around to the horse's feet, pulled back the front ones, cast a loop of the rope around the hind ones and drew them forward, and in a moment all four feet were tied together, and the men, breathing a little quickly from the exertion, stood back and looked at him.

"He's a nice one," said Hugh.

"Yes," said Rube, "he's a good 'un. He'll make you hunt timber, Tony, you bet."

"Maybe;" said Antonio, who had just come from the stable carrying on one arm his saddle, blanket, hackamore and quirt. He wore his spurs and about each thigh was tied a buckskin wrapper which enveloped the whole leg above the knee. The horse, after some ineffectual struggles, lay still, breathing heavily, and with the sweat starting from his skin.

Jack had by this time jumped down from the fence and approached the group of men.

"Keep behind him, son, and near his head; then he can't kick you, even if he does get his feet free," said Hugh.

"Why does Rube sit on his head, Hugh?" asked Jack.

"So's to keep him from getting up," was the reply. "Don't you know that if a horse is lying on his side, he can't get up unless he raises his head first. So when you throw a horse, if you don't want him to get up, just sit on his head."

While they were talking, Joe had spread the hackamore, and in a moment the horse's head had been lifted from the ground and the hackamore slipped over it. Then the blind—a strip of black leather—was tied to the cheek pieces of the hackamore on each side, completely covering the horse's eyes.

"Turn him loose now, boys, and let him get up," said Mr. Sturgis, "and we'll see if we can get him out of the gate."

The rope was quickly cast off the feet, and another put around the neck, and the horse, as soon as he felt that he was free, stood up, but as the blind entirely covered his eyes, he could see nothing and stood perfectly still. For a few moments Antonio worked about him, first going to his head and taking his muzzle in both hands while he breathed several times into the horse's nostrils, then patting him and smoothing his skin on neck, shoulders, and body on both sides. At first the horse flinched each time the man's hand touched him, but as Antonio spoke soothingly to him, and he found that he was not hurt, he seemed to grow used to the handling and to be less frightened.

Then Antonio said: "Pretty quick I goin' raise blind. Maybe you lead him out gate."

With more soothing words he worked around to the horse's head, shoved him about so that his head was toward the gate, and pushed the blind up a little so that the animal could see the ground at his feet. One of the boys slapped the horse's quarters with a rope and it made a plunge or two forward, which carried it through the gate, where it stood still again, and Antonio pushed down the blind, looking carefully at it to see that the animal's eyes were entirely covered.

"Why doesn't he move when his eyes are covered, Hugh?" said Jack. "I know he can't see, but I should think he would kick and plunge even if he did nothing else."

"Well now, son," said Hugh slowly, "I want you to think a little bit and see if you can't answer that question yourself. Of course you don't know much about this country or its ways, but I shouldn't think you would have to ask that question. Just you think about it till we git this horse started, and then I'll talk to you about it."

Meantime Antonio had again been patting the horse, and at length had taken his saddle blanket and held it under the horse's nose so that he might smell it. Then he rubbed the blanket along the neck on both sides, on the withers and flanks, laid it over the neck and pushed it down on the back. The horse flinched and snorted whenever the blanket touched him in a new place, but seemed quickly to lose his fear and stood still. Soon Antonio began to whip the horse with the blanket all over. Then he folded the blanket and tossed it lightly on the horse's back. The animal flinched again with a sidewise motion and groaned, but Antonio patted it, and the blanket remained there. One of the boys went to the off side and held the blanket in place, and in a moment Antonio came up with the saddle, which he placed on the blanket, the man on the off side letting down the stirrup and the cinch gently, so as to frighten the horse as little as possible. Antonio cautiously reached under the belly, caught the cinch, and, passing the latigo through the rings, by a slow pull drew it tightly against the belly. As the horse felt the relentless tightening of the broad band it squealed in fright and kicked viciously at first with both hind feet and then with each separately, but its fore feet did not leave the ground.

"Goin' to tie the stirrups, Tony?" said Joe.

"No, dees hawse quiet. You see;" was the reply, as Antonio gathered up the reins of the hackamore and put his foot in the stirrup. He raised himself slowly until his full weight rested on it, and though at first the horse yielded he made no move, and the rider threw his leg over the saddle and settled himself firmly in the seat. Joe and Rube ran to their horses and mounted and took a position on either side and a little behind Antonio, and so close to him that they could reach his horse with their whips. Then Antonio reached slowly forward on either side the bay colt's head, pushed up the blind, sat back in the saddle and, with a wild yell, brought down the quirt on the horse's flank. The yell was echoed by the hazers on either side, and they plied their quirts. The horse, blinded and confused by the sudden light, the noise and the pain, gave a few wild plunges, and then he realised that the first thing he must do was to get rid of the terrible weight that was bearing him down and crushing in his sides. He lowered his head, arched his back, and putting his feet together began to shoot into the air and come down stiff legged. At this the yells and the whipping of the hazers increased, and the group of onlookers by the corral shouted laughter and cheers for horse and man. The bucking lasted only for a short time, and soon the horse, forced to it by the quirting, started off in a swift run over the prairie. The hazers followed him for half a mile, to see that he was going well, and then, stopping on a little hill, continued to watch him. Meantime, Mr. Sturgis, Jack and Hugh went into the corral again, cut out another horse and put it in the round corral. Then Jack, and Hugh went outside and sat on the ground in the sun, with their backs against the corral fence, and Hugh filled his pipe and smoked. When Hugh's pipe was going, Jack said:

"Now, Hugh, I wish you'd tell me why the horse stands still when he's blindfolded. He didn't stand quite still all the time though, for he kicked like the mischief when they were saddling him, and how he jumped when Antonio pushed the blind off."

"Well now, son, ain't you thought that out yet?" replied Hugh. "I expect I'll have to tell you then. It's so that the colt kicked when he felt the cinch gripping him, but you took notice, I expect, that his front feet never left the ground. He didn't move out of his tracks, even if he did let out with his heels.

"Now, I want you to listen to what I have to say, and think about it, for it may help you some time to see for yourself other things that seem blind, and save you asking questions that might make people think you didn't know nothing. Now, here's this yer horse," he continued, waving his pipe toward the prairie, "he's a four-year-old, as I told you, born and raised on the prairie, likely never had a rope on more'n once in his life, maybe driven up here once a year with the roundup. But all his life he's been running free; he's wild. All his life he's depended on his eyes and nose to tell him what's dangerous, and on his legs to take him away from it. All this time he's been able to use these things. There never was a night so dark that he couldn't use 'em all. Now, all of a sudden his legs are tied up so he can't run, a hackamore is put round his nose so he can't hardly smell nor breathe, and his eyes are shut up so it's all black to him; he can't see nothing. He's so scared that he don't know what to do. Even when his legs is free he still can't see nothing, and he knows he can't travel without his eyes; he's had falls enough when he was a colt to know that a horse needs eyes to run with. So it is that he stands still. It's the same with an old horse. If you want to put anything on him that he don't like to carry, just blind him, and he'll stand still till the blind's taken off."

"I never thought of that, Hugh, that a horse can see in the dark, but the dark even of a dark night must be very different from a blind."

"It sure is," replied Hugh. "Hello, there comes Tony and the horse; mighty quiet too."

The horse as it drew near was seen to be white with lather on its breast and neck, and dripping with sweat over its whole body. It trotted along slowly and the fight was all gone out of it. Every now and then it would bore with its head, or would try to turn off to one side, but the firm hand of the rider always brought its head around again, and it trotted on toward the corral. Arrived there, Antonio reached forward and pulled the blind down over its eyes, and then springing from the saddle, began to take it off. One of the boys put a rope about the horse's neck and then pulled the long hair of the tail out, to show that it had been ridden, and it was led to the big corral and turned loose with the wild horses.

The boys joked Antonio about the horse, but he only smiled and answered that the horse was too gentle.

This could not be said of the next one, however, a big iron-grey, which fought from the moment it felt the rope on its forefeet. It was quiet while it was being saddled, but as soon as the blind was raised, it went into a perfect fury of squealing, bucking, kicking, and fighting. None of this stirred Antonio from his seat, but two or three times the animal reared up so straight that those who were watching involuntarily called, "Look out," and saw the rider grasp the saddle horn and loosen one foot from the stirrup, prepared to slip off if the horse fell over backward. At length, however, urged on by the hazers, it started off and ran half a mile and then stopping short, again began to buck furiously, but soon started on again and disappeared over the hills, the hazers close behind.

It was a long time before Antonio returned, with the boys still riding behind him, and horse and man both seemed tired by the fierce battle that they had been through, but, though exhausted by the struggle, the horse's eye rolled fiercely, while the rider's face was stern and set and his hand firm as he guided the big grey up to the corral gate.

"Well, Tony," called out Hugh, "that's a hard one. He'll need a heap of riding yet, before he's right gentle."

"Yes, sir," was the reply, "he big strong hawse; shake me pretty hard when he comin' down; pitch all different ways. Maybe some time he get me off."

The next horse was a contrast to both the others. After he had been blinded and untied, he would not stand up until he had been hit hard with the rope, and after being saddled and mounted he would not move, and when quirted he just stood still and grunted. After ten minutes of vain effort to start him, Antonio declared that he had never before seen a horse like this one, and that it was fit only for a pack horse. The animal was unsaddled and taken to another corral, where a pack saddle was cinched on him, and he was left to spend the day there alone.

All through the day the work of breaking went on, and all day Jack sat on the corral bars and watched it, and at night when supper time came, Antonio acknowledged to Jack, who asked him the question, that he was pretty tired.

"It's hard work," said Hugh, "almighty hard, and slow. It's slower here than most places, but we get a heap better horses, breaking 'em this way—kinder gentling 'em the way you saw before we put the saddle on. Ef there was time to do it, and there wan't so many horses, they'd all ought to be gentled from colts up. No trouble to break 'em that way, and never no horses spoiled like they is this way. Now you take that grey this morning; ef he ain't handled just so, he's going to be a regular devil. But Tony here is an awful good rider, and he's got a good disposition too, and I reckon he'll bring the grey through all right."

The work of gentling the horses went on day after day for a week or more, and Jack never wearied of watching the work. The patience shown by Antonio in handling the horses surprised him, for he had noticed that Joe and Rube sometimes got angry at the horses they rode, and swore at them and lashed them with their ropes. He asked his uncle why there was such a difference.

"I always thought Mexicans got angry easily, but Tony never seems to. I should think sometimes he'd get mad."

"Tony has good judgment," said his uncle, "and that's the reason I have him ride these colts. It is very easy to spoil any horse by fighting with him, and if he comes to look on a man as his enemy, he will never be worth much. I have these horses broken as gently as I can, and I find that people are willing to pay me more for a saddle horse than they pay people who just break their horses any way at all. It is profitable to use care in breaking horses."