Benito, wet, dusty, and tired, rode up to his employer to report progress.

“Dios!  This is hot work for an old man.  We will never finish by dark,” said he, whereupon Law promptly volunteered his services,

“Lend me your rope, Benito, till I get another caballo.”

“Eh?  That Montrosa is the best cutting horse on Las Palmas.”

But Dave shook his head vigorously.  “I wouldn’t risk her among those gopher-holes.”  He slid out of his seat and, with an arm around the mare’s neck, whispered into her ear, “We won’t have any broken legs and broken hearts, will we, honey girl?” Rosa answered by nosing the speaker over with brazen familiarity; then when he had removed her equipment and turned away, dragging her saddle, she followed at his heels like a dog.

“Diablo!  He has a way with horses, hasn’t he?” Benito grinned, “Now that Montrosa is wilder than a deer.”

Alaire rode into the herd with her foreman, while Dave settled his loop over a buckskin, preparatory to joining the cowboys.

The giant herd milled and eddied, revolving like a vast pool of deep, swift water.  The bulls were quarrelsome, the steers were stubborn, and the wet cows were distracted.  Motherless calves dodged about in bewilderment.  In and out of this confusion the cowboys rode, following the animals selected for separation, forcing them out with devious turnings and twistings, and then running them madly in a series of breakneck crescent dashes over flats and hummocks, through dust and brush, until they had joined the smaller herd of choice animals which were to remain on the ranch.  It was swift, sweaty, exhausting work, the kind these Mexicans loved, for it was not only spectacular, but held an element of danger.  Once he had secured a pony Dave Law made himself one of them.

Alaire sat her horse in the heart of the crowding herd, with a sea of rolling eyes, lolling tongues, and clashing horns all about her, and watched the Ranger.  Good riding she was accustomed to; the horses of Las Palmas were trained to this work as bird dogs are trained to theirs; they knew how to follow a steer and, as Ed Austin boasted, “turn on a dime with a nickel to spare.”  But Law, it appeared, was a born horseman, and seemed to inspire his mount with an exceptional eagerness and intelligence.  In spite of the man’s unusual size, he rode like a feather; he was grace and life and youth personified.  Now he sat as erect in his saddle as a swaying reed; again he stretched himself out like a whip-lash.  Once he had begun the work he would not stop.

All that afternoon the cowboys labored, and toward sundown the depleted herd was driven to the water.  It moved thither in a restless, thirsty mass; it churned the shallow pond to milk, and from a high knoll, where Alaire had taken her stand, she looked down upon a vast undulating carpet many acres in extent formed by the backs of living creatures.  The voice of these cattle was like the bass rumble of the sea, steady, heavy-droning, ceaseless.