calves the summer before Within a week, at a lake which both well remembered, they met their mothers face to face.  The steer was on the point of upbraiding his maternal relative for deserting him, when a cream-colored heifer calf came up and nourished itself at the cow’s udder.  That was too much for him.  He understood now why she had left him, and he felt that he was no longer her baby.  Piqued with mortification he went to a near-by knoll where the ground was broken, and with his feet pawed up great clouds of dust which settled on his back until the white spot was almost obscured.  The next morning he and the speckled heifer went up higher into the hills where the bigger steer cattle ranged.  He had not been there the year before, and he had a great curiosity to see what the upper country was like.

In the extreme range of the hills back from the river, the two spent the entire summer, or until the first norther drove them down to the valley.  The second winter was much milder than the first one, snow and ice being unknown.  So when spring came again they were both very fat, and together they planned—­as soon as the June rains came—­to go on a little pasear over north on the Frio River.  They had met others of their kind from the Frio when out on those hills the summer before, and had found them decently behaved cattle.

But though the outing was feasible and well planned, it was not to be.  For after both had shed their winter coats, the speckled heifer was as pretty a two-year-old as ever roamed the Nueces valley or drank out of its river, and the line-back steer had many rivals.  Almost daily he fought other steers of his own age and weight, who were paying altogether too marked attention to his crony.  Although he never outwardly upbraided her for it, her coquetry was a matter of no small concern with him.  At last one day in April she forced matters to an open rupture between them.  A dark red, arch-necked, curly-headed animal came bellowing defiance across their feeding-grounds.  Without a moment’s hesitation the line-back had accepted the challenge and had locked horns with this Adonis.  Though he fought valiantly the battle is ever with the strong, and inch by inch he was forced backward.  When he realized that he must yield, he turned to flee, and his rival with one horn caught him behind the fore shoulder, cutting a cruel gash nearly a foot in length.  Reaching a point of safety he halted, and as he witnessed his adversary basking in the coquettish, amorous advances of her who had been his constant companion since babyhood, his wrath was uncontrollable.  Kneeling, he cut the ground with his horns, throwing up clouds of dust, and then and there he renounced kith and kin, the speckled heifer and the Nueces valley forever.  He firmly resolved to start at once for the Frio country.  He was a proud two-year-old and had always held his head high.  Could his spirit suffer the humiliation of meeting his old companions after such defeat?  No!  Hurling his bitterest curses on the amorous pair, he turned his face to the northward.