to go the limit if the old man set the pace.  That night, when the others trooped off to bed, he detained Chuck Evans and Plug Oliver and Dave Terril for a brief conference.  To them he gave in what detail he could his latest plans.  Also, since they were friends as well as hired hands, he told them frankly of his difficulties and of his success with Engle.  When the men left him they had accepted his fight as their own.

The first man in the saddle the next day was Howard.  He ordered the tally taken of every head of stock on his ranch.  This alone, since his acres were broad and since his stock grazed free over thousands of acres lying adjacent to Desert Valley on three sides, was a big task.  Already, during his absence, a number of the best of the beef cattle had been moved to the meadowlands.  He set a man to close-herd there; he sent other men to bring in still other straying stock; he himself judged every single head, cutting out those he deemed unfit; finally he saw the growing herd driven down into the choicest of his meadow grazing land to fatten.

All of this required days.  Between breakfast and supper every man with the outfit changed his horse several times; Howard, the hardest rider of them all, changed horses five times the first day.  He and his men showed signs of the strain they put upon their bodies; they were a gaunt, lean-jawed, wild-eyed lot.  There was little frolic left in them when night came; they were short-spoken, prone to grow fierce over trifles.  But there was not a sullen or discontented man among them.  They took what came; they had known times of stress before; they could look forward to a day to come of boisterous relaxation and money to be spent in town.  Though the subject had never been mentioned, they fully understood that there would be a bonus coming and a glorious holiday.  They would see the old man through now:  later he would square the account.

Eat, sleep and work; there was nothing else in their schedule.  The times when Howard had a few moments over a cigarette to think quietly of Helen were times when he could not go to her:  in the dimness of the coming day when he was going out to saddle and she would still be asleep; in the dark of the day ended when she would be going to bed.  But he held grimly to his task here, saying to himself that in a few days he would ride to her and with something to say; wondering how she would listen; sometimes aglow with his hope, sometimes fearing.  And, as he thought of her, so did he think often of John Carr.  He did not know if Carr had gone East or if still he were a daily guest at the Longstreet home.  Not a man of his riders had been beyond the confines of the grazing lands; no one had come in from the outside.  There was no news.