“It’s funny,” said Dave, patiently, “you can’t get the hang of it.  Maybe it’s born in a fellow.  Now handling a gun seems to come natural for some fellows, and you’re one of them.  If only you could get the rope away as quick as you can throw your gun!”

Jack kept faithfully at it, unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he missed some easy opportunity.  Not improbably he might have failed altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try roping from a fiery mustang.  But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was beautiful and fleet.  The horse learned rapidly the agile turns and sudden stops necessary, and as for free running he never got enough.  Out on the range Silvermane always had his head up and watched; his life had been spent in watching; he saw cattle, riders, mustangs, deer, coyotes, every moving thing.  So that Hare, in the chasing of a cow, had but to start Silvermane, and then he could devote himself to the handling of his rope.  It took him ten times longer to lasso the cow than it took Silvermane to head the animal.  Dave laughed at some of Jack’s exploits, encouraged him often, praised his intent if not his deed; and always after a run nodded at Silvermane in mute admiration.

Branding the cows and yearlings and tame steers which watered at Silver Cup, and never wandered far away, was play according to Dave’s version.  “Wait till we get after the wild steers up on the mountain and in the canyons,” he would say when Jack dropped like a log at supper.  Work it certainly was for him.  At night he was so tired that he could scarcely crawl into bed; his back felt as if it were broken; his legs were raw, and his bones ached.  Many mornings he thought it impossible to arise, but always he crawled out, grim and haggard, and hobbled round the camp-fire to warm his sore and bruised muscles.  Then when Zeke and George rode in with the horses the day’s work began.  During these weeks of his “hardening up,” as Dave called it, Hare bore much pain, but he continued well and never missed a day.  At the most trying time when for a few days he had to be helped on and off Silvermane—­for he insisted that he would not stay in camp—­the brothers made his work as light as possible.  They gave him the branding outfit to carry, a running-iron and a little pot with charcoal and bellows; and with these he followed the riders at a convenient distance and leisurely pace.

Some days they branded one hundred cattle.  By October they had August Naab’s crudely fashioned cross on thousands of cows and steers.  Still the stock kept coming down from the mountain, driven to the valley by cold weather and snow-covered grass.  It was well into November before the riders finished at Silver Cup, and then arose a question as to whether it would be advisable to go to Seeping Springs or to the canyons farther west along the slope of Coconina.  George favored the former, but Dave overruled him.