And so there were turned loose in the Coldwater Pool, one of the large pastures in the Strip, fifteen strays.  That night, in a dug-out on that range, the home outfit of cowboys played poker until nearly morning.  There were seven men in the camp entitled to share in this flotsam on their range, the extra steer falling to the foreman.  Mentally they had a list of the brands, and before the game opened the strays were divided among the participants.  An animal was represented by ten beans.  At the beginning the boys played cautiously, counting every card at its true worth in a hazard of chance.  But as the game wore on and the more fortunate ones saw their chips increase, the weaker ones were gradually forced out.  At midnight but five players remained in the game.  By three in the morning the foreman lost his last bean, and ordered the men into their blankets, saying they must be in their saddles by dawn, riding the fences, scattering and locating the new cattle.  As the men yawningly arose to obey, Dick Larkin defiantly said to the winners, “I’ve just got ten beans left, and I’ll cut high card with any man to see who takes mine or I take one of his poker steers.”

“My father was killed in the battle of the Wilderness,” replied Tex, “and I’m as game a breed as you are.  I’ll match your beans and pit you my bar-circle-bar steer.”

“My sire was born in Ireland and is living yet,” retorted Bold Richard.  “Cut the cards, young fellow.”

“The proposition is yours—­cut first yourself.”

The other players languidly returned to the table.  Larkin cut a five spot of clubs and was in the act of tearing it in two, when Tex turned the tray of spades.  Thus, on the turn of a low card, the line-back steer passed into the questionable possession of Dick Larkin.  The Cherokee Strip wrought magic in a Texas steer.  One or two winters in its rigorous climate transformed the gaunt long-horn into a marketable beef.  The line-back steer met the rigors of the first winter and by June was as glossy as a gentleman’s silk tile.  But at that spring round-up there was a special inspector from Texas, and no sooner did his eye fall upon the bar-circle-bar steer than he opened his book and showed the brand and his authority to claim him.  When Dick Larkin asked to see his credentials, the inspector not only produced them, but gave the owner’s name and the county in which the brand was a matter of record.  There was no going back on that, and the Texas man took the line-back steer.  But the round-up stayed all night in the Pool pasture, and Larkin made it his business to get on second guard in night-herding the cut.  He had previously assisted in bedding down the cattle for the night, and made it a point to see that the poker three-year-old lay down on the outer edge of the bed ground.  The next morning the line-back steer was on his chosen range in the south end of the pasture.  How he escaped was never known; there are ways and ways in a cow country.