“I expect I’ll be needed to keep this bunch together,” George rejoined.

Edgar strode away, but it was half an hour later when he came back, hot and angry, with the cattle crashing through the brush in front of him.  Then the reunited herd set off at a smart pace across the plain.

“They seem fond of an evening gallop,” Edgar remarked.  “Anyhow, they’re going the right way, which strikes me as something to be thankful for.”

They rode on, and it was getting dark when they checked the herd near a straggling poplar bluff.  The grass was good, the beasts began to feed quietly, and after picketing their horses the men lay down on their blankets.  It was growing cooler, a vivid band of green still flickered along the prairie’s rim, and the deep silence was intensified by the soft sound the cattle made cropping the dew-damped herbage.

“I wonder if they go to sleep,” mused Edgar.  “I’m beginning to think this kind of thing must be rather fine when one gets used to it.  It’s a glorious night.”

By and by he drew his blanket round him and sank into slumber; but for a while George, who had paid a high price for a Hereford bull, lay awake, thinking and calculating.  It would cost a good deal more than he had anticipated to work the farm; Sylvia had no funds that could be drawn upon, and his means were not large.  Economy and good management would be needed, but he was determined to make a success of his undertaking.  At last, seeing that the herd showed no signs of moving, he went to sleep.

Awakening at sunrise George found that, except for the horses, there was not a beast in sight.  For an hour he and West hunted them through the bluff; and then, after making a hurried breakfast, they went on their way again.  It rapidly got hotter, the stock traveled quietly, and, with a halt or two where a clump of poplars offered a little shade, they rode, scorched by dazzling sunshine, across the limitless plain.  In the afternoon George began to look eagerly for the bluff that the rancher mentioned.  They had found no water, and the cattle seemed distressed.  The glare and heat were getting intolerable, but the vast, gradual rise in front of them ran on, unbroken, to the skyline.  Its crest, however, must be crossed before evening; and they toiled on.

At last, the long ascent was made, and George felt relieved when he saw a dark line of trees in the wide basin below him.

“That must be the big bluff where the well is; though I don’t see a house,” he said.

They had some trouble in urging the herd down the slope, but after a while they reached the welcome shadow of the trees, and Edgar broke into a shout when he saw a rude wooden platform with a windlass upon it and a trough near by.

“Ride ahead with the horses and water them,” said George, dismounting.

Edgar did as he was bidden, but presently the herd, attracted by the sight of water, came surging round the trough, savagely jostling one another.  The lad worked hard with the windlass, but he could not keep them supplied, and they crowded on the low platform covering the well, with heads stretched out eagerly toward the dripping bucket.  After being flung against the windlass by a thirsty beast, Edgar called to his companion.