The remuda had been brought up by the wranglers.  While the horses milled about in a cloud of dust, each puncher selected another mount.  He moved forward, his loop trailing, eye fixed on the one pony, out of one hundred and fifty, that he wanted for the day’s work.  Suddenly a rope would snake forward past half a dozen broncos and drop about the neck of an animal near the heart of the herd.  The twisting, dodging cowpony would surrender instantly and submit to being cut out from the band.  Saddles were slapped on in a hurry and the riders were again on their way.

Through the mesquite they rode, slackening speed for neither gullies nor barrancas.  Webb gave orders crisply, disposed of his men in such a way as to make of them a drag-net through which no cattle could escape, and began to tighten the loops for the drive back to camp.

By the middle of the afternoon the chuck wagon was in sight.  The ponies were fagged, the men weary.  For thirty-six hours these riders, whose muscles seemed tough as whalebone, had been almost steadily in the saddle.  They slouched along now easily, always in a gray cloud of dust raised by the bellowing cattle.

The new gather of cattle was thrown in with those that had been rounded up during the night.  The punchers unsaddled their worn mounts and drifted to the camp-fire one by one.  Ravenously they ate, then rolled up in their blankets and fell asleep at once.  To-night they had neither heart nor energy for the gay badinage that usually flew back and forth.

Night was still heavy over the land when Uncle Ned’s gong wakened them.  The moon was disappearing behind a scudding cloud, but stars could be seen by thousands.  Across the open plain a chill wind blew.

All was bustle and confusion, but out of the turmoil emerged order.  The wranglers, already fed, moved into the darkness to bring up the remuda.  Tin cups and plates rattled merrily.  Tongues wagged.  Bits of repartee, which are the salt of the cowpuncher’s life, were flung across the fire from one; to another.  Already the death of Tim McGrath was falling into the background of their swift, turbulent lives.  After all the cowboy dies young.  Tim’s soul had wandered out across the great divide only a few months before that of others among them.

Out of the mist emerged the desert, still gray and vague and without detail.  The day’s work was astir once more.  With the nickering of horses, the bawling of cattle, and the shouts of men as an orchestral accompaniment, light filtered into the valley for the drama of the new sunrise.  Once more the tireless riders swept into the mesquite through the clutching cholla to comb another segment of country in search of the beeves not yet reclaimed.

That day’s drive brought practically the entire herd together again.  A few had not been recovered, but Webb set these down to profit and loss.  What he regretted most was that the cattle were not in as good condition as they had been before the stampede.