“Which herd did you come up with?” inquired Joel, fumbling through his pockets for the forgotten pass.

“With the one at Ogalalla.  It’s full thirty-one hundred steers, single ranch brand, and will run about equally twos and threes.  Same range, same stock, as your Lazy H’s, and you are perfectly safe in buying them unseen.  Just the same cattle that you bought last year, with the advantage of a better season on the trail.  All you need to do is to agree on the prices and terms; the cattle are as honest as gold and twice as good.”

“Leave me a horse and take the outfit home,” said Joel with decision.  “If an order comes for more beeves, cut the next train from the Lazy H’s.  I’ll be back in a day or two.”

Joel Wells was rapidly taking his degrees in the range school.  At dusk he overtook the cattle train, which reached the market yards on schedule time.  The shipper’s duty ceased with the unloading of the cattle, which was easily completed before midnight, when he and his employer separated.  The market would not open until a late morning hour, affording ample time to rest and refresh the beeves, and to look up acquaintances in the office.

Joel had almost learned to dispense with sleep.  With the first stir of the morning, he was up and about.  Before the clerks even arrived, he was hanging around the office of the commission firm.  The expected shipment brought the salesmen and members of the firm much earlier than usual, and Joel was saved all further impatience.  Mr. Stoddard was summoned, and the last barrier was lifted in the hearty greeting between the manly boy and a veteran of their mutual occupation.

The shipment sold early in the day.  An hour before noon, an interested party left the commission office and sauntered forth to watch the beeves cross the scale.  It was the parting look of breeder, owner, and factor, and when the average weight was announced, Mr. Stoddard turned to the others.

“Look here, Mr. Joel,” said he, “are these the cattle I sold you last summer?”

“They carry your brand,” modestly admitted Joel.

“So I notice,” assentingly said the old cowman.  “And still I can scarcely believe my eyes.  Of course I’m proud of having bred these beeves, even if the lion’s share of their value to-day goes to the boys who matured them.  I must be an old fogy.”

“You are,” smilingly said the senior member of the commission house.  “Every up-to-date Texas cowman has a northern beef ranch.  To be sure, as long as you can raise a steer as cheap as another man can raise a frying chicken, you’ll prosper in a way.  Wells Brothers aren’t afraid of a little cold, and you are.  In that way only, the lion’s share falls to them.”

“One man to his own farm, another to his merchandise,” genially quoted the old cowman, “and us poor Texans don’t take very friendly to your northern winters.  It’s the making of cattle, but excuse your Uncle Dudley.  Give me my own vine and fig tree.”