A thickety motte of chaparral which grew back from the scattering timber on the river afforded him the shelter and seclusion he wanted, for he dared not trust himself where the grown cattle congregated for the day’s siesta.  During all his troubles his mother had never forsaken him, and frequently offered him the scanty nourishment of her udder, but he had no appetite and could scarcely raise his eyes to look at her.  But time heals all wounds, and within a week he followed his dam back into the hills where grew the succulent grama grass which he loved.  There they remained for more than a month, and he met his speckled playmate again.

One day a great flight of birds flew southward, and amidst the cawing of crows and the croaking of ravens the cattle which ranged beyond came down out of the hills in long columns, heading southward.  The line-back calf felt a change himself in the pleasant day’s atmosphere.  His mother and the dam of the speckled calf laid their heads together, and after scenting the air for several minutes, they curved their tails—­a thing he had never seen sedate cows do before—­and stampeded off to the south.  Of course the line-back calf and his playmate went along, outrunning their mothers.  They traveled far into the night until they reached a chaparral thicket, south of the river, much larger than the one in which he was born.  It was well they sought its shelter, for two hours before daybreak a norther swept across the range, which chilled them to the bone.  When day dawned a mist was falling which incrusted every twig and leaf in crystal armor.

There were many such northers during the first winter.  The one mysterious thing which bothered him was, how it was that his mother could always foretell when one was coming.  But he was glad she could, for she always sought out some cosy place; and now he noticed that his coat had thickened until it was as heavy as the fur on a bear, and he began to feel a contempt for the cold.  But springtime came very early in that southern clime, and as he nibbled the first tender blades of grass, he felt an itching in his wintry coat and rubbed off great tufts of hair against the chaparral bushes.  Then one night his mother, without a word of farewell, forsook him, and it was several months before he saw her again.  But he had the speckled heifer yet for a companion, when suddenly her dam disappeared in the same inexplicable manner as had his own.

He was a yearling now, and with his playmate he ranged up and down the valley of the Nueces for miles.  But in June came a heavy rain, almost a deluge, and nearly all the cattle left the valley for the hills, for now there was water everywhere.  The two yearlings were the last to go, but one morning while feeding the line-back got a ripe grass burr in his mouth.  Then he took warning, for he despised grass burrs, and that evening the two cronies crossed the river and went up into the hills where they had ranged as