Chapter 7 Cowboys and Indians Summary and Analysis

In June, spring arrives to the mountains, but it is already summer at the lower altitude in which Abbey works. He helps a local rancher round up cattle for a day. The rancher's name is Roy Scobie, a man of about seventy years who runs a combination cattle and dude ranch. He and Roy, along with a hired hand named Viviano Jacquez, a Basque from the Pyrenees on the French-Spanish border, ride out to round up cattle from the side canyons between Willow Seep and the stockyards at Moab, a distance of about ten miles.

Roy is a melancholy man. He has no real spirituality and thinks about death all the time. Abbey wishes he could cheer the old man up with quips from great philosophers, but cannot think of a way to do this...