As expected, the wagons and remudas arrived at the new ranch hours in advance of the herds.  The horse wranglers were detailed by Priest, and fitting an axle to the spool of wire, by the aid of ropes attached to the pommels of two saddles, it was rolled up to the scene of its use at an easy canter.  The stretching of the wire was less than an hour’s work, the slack being taken up by the wranglers, ever upholding Texas methods, from the pommels of saddles, while Priest clinched the strands with staples at the proper tension.  The gates were merely a pliable extension of the fence, the flexible character requiring no hinges.  “Now, when the stays are interwoven through the wire, and fastened in place with staples, there’s a corral that will hold a thousand cattle,” said one of the wranglers admiringly.

It was after sunset when the herd was penned.  Forrest, after counting the round-up to his satisfaction, detailed Dell and Joel to graze the herd in a bend of the Beaver, out of sight and fully a mile above, and taking the extra men returned to the homestead.  The trail herds had purposely arrived late, expecting to camp on the Beaver that night, and were met by their respective foremen while watering for the day.  In receiving, at Dodge, two large herds of one-aged cattle, both foremen, but more particularly Forrest, in the extra time at his command, had levied on the flotsam of the herds from which his employer was buying, until he had accumulated over one hundred cattle.  Priest had secured, among a few friends and the few herds with which he came in contact, scarcely half that number, and still the two contingents made a very material increase to the new ranch.

The addition of these extra cattle was the surprise in reserve.  Joel and Dell had never dreamed of a further increase to the ranch stock, and Forrest had timed the corralling of the original and late contingents as the climax of the day’s work.  Detailing both of the boys on the point, as the upper herd was nearing the corral, it was suddenly confronted by another contingent, rounding a bend of the creek from the opposite quarter.  Priest had purposely detailed strange men, coached to the point of blindness, in charge of the new addition, and when the two bunches threatened to mix, every horseman present except the boys seemed blind to the situation.

Dell and Joel struggled in vain—­the cattle mixed.  “Well, well,” said Forrest, galloping up, “here’s a nice come-off!  Trust my own boys to point a little herd into a corral, and they let two bunches of cattle mix!  Wouldn’t that make a saint swear!”

“Those other fellows had no man in the lead or on the point,” protested Dell dejectedly.  “They were looking away off yonder, and their cattle walked into ours.  Where were you?”

“One of my men was telling me about an old sweetheart of his down on the Trinity River, and it made me absent-minded.  I forgot what we were doing.  Well, it’s too late in the day to separate them now.  We’ll pen them until morning.”