will keep an animal for an entire year. By dividing the pasture, the herd can have abundance of new feed; when they have cropped close one enclosure they can be driven to another, and by the time they have gone the round of the ranch, the first is green again. Such a stock farm has many advantages over a natural range, for the water supply is certain; the percentage of increase is greater; there is no loss from strayed or stolen ; and no herding or "rounding up" is required.

To collect stragglers from the various ranges, the annual "round up" of a grazing region is held. About May or June, or on the Pacific Slope even earlier in the season, the whole country is searched, and the cattle appertaining to a district driven together into one vast herd, from whence the different ranchmen separate their own animals, easily identified by the brands; and after a mutual exchange of stray ones, each owner takes his herd back to the home range, brands the calves, turns them loose, and does not see them again collected until the next round up.

In a large cattle district a captain for the round up is generally chosen, and under him work the stockmen and cowboys from the different ranches, numbering often fifty or more. The whole country is laid out in daily rides; if there is a large creek or stream in the distance, the water course is followed; the country for twenty or thirty miles on each side being carefully searched by the cowboys, who, all working under one head, develop great aptitude for their occupation. They are in the saddle for at least sixteen hours every day, and most of the time on the "lope." Often long after dark, they bring in, driven before them, the stock found during that day; when after watering the thirsty beasts, they add them to the main herd, which is carefully watched day and night.

A cow or small bunch of cattle overlooked in the round up, is not neces

sarily lost, for generally it will turn up on that or some neighboring range during the next year, and ranchmen may even accidentally pitch upon cattle that have been missing for a longer time. Then a cow makes her appearance with quite a little family of unbranded steers, yearlings, and calves. From seven to ten per cent per annum amply covers losses from drought, strays, and accidents.

There is a wonderful amount of animated life and vigorous rivalry about a roundup. They begin with a substantial breakfast. Sunrise finds the cowboys in the saddle, galloping over the plains in pursuit of those distant black specks on the horizon, or scrambling up the steep hills by which the higher ranges on the mesas are reached. They do not usually get back to camp before dusk, when they appear, driving before them the cattle found that day-perhaps fifty: perhaps only ten or fifteen. If a bunch, frightened at the unusual sight of man, stampede, they rush down a steep slope, tails raised high, the pursuers tearing madly after them, oblivious of the precipitous grade and the treacherous holes and treestumps that dot it. All the cowboys are wonderful riders, and on these occasions they strive to outdo each other. A spill on the hillside occasioned by a horse putting a foreleg into a gopher hole, has been known to send a rider spinning a distance of very nearly thirty-seven feet between the gopher hole and the spot where the man's shoulder touched ground first. The cowboy was only slightly stunned, and amid the unsympathetic laughter of his comrades, picked himself up, pulled out his six-shooter, and shot his disabled horse.

his right of perfect equality with all comers, and let a "tenderfoot" once get the name of being possessed by unsocial pride, there will not be a man in the cattle region who -while he otherwise would readily share his last bite or sup with the stranger-will

not for his real or supposed arrogance be eager to spite and injure him. In no business is popularity more indispensable; in no walk of life is a man so dependent upon the good will of his neighbors as in stockraising on the wild plains of the West. John Ambulo.

He was a lank, red-haired, uncouth young fellow in jeans. But people were accustomed to say in those parts that he was an overly promising lad, with a good supply of brains. He sat squarely on the wagon-seat, and swung his legs with the air with which better bred independence would have swung its cane. Judging from his manner he must have been prospering financially --and the string of plump mules that he drove rather carried out the idea.

Beside him sat a young girl in a stiffly starched calico, also swinging her feet and accompanying his jerky whistle with a merry hum. Her lap was full of fading wild flowers, and withered blossoms peeped from every wrinkle of the lad's flannel shirt and the muffler over it, where she had placed them. He stopped occasionally for her to climb down and either gather more or walk by the roadside. The wagon was littered with blossoms she had cast aside, and gathering up what he could, he threw them down, while she was standing by the road-side.

"Thar, sis-'tain't much of a way to treat friends. Tain't my way of doin'. They're no 'count now, pore things, so you'd better bury 'em. It's better than to let 'em dry up or be trampled in the mud by the next team."

She laughed. "You've got sich foolish notions, Lick. I call 'em girlish." But she took the spade that he hauled up from the depths of the wagon bed, and awkwardly

turned the sod, raked in the petals, and set the grassy earth above them. "You're a fool."

"They were worth it," he replied. "I wouldn't have gathered 'em."

"I wanted my old hat trimmed as the Prescott girls trim theirs-jist to show you, so sometime when you go to town you can get me one I'll like."

"Between you askin' for hats, an' mother askin' for tobacker, an' Lu askin' for quiltin' scraps, I'll never get ahead."

"You're always talkin' that way. do you want to get ahead for?" "You reckon I'm goin' to be pore?

What

Everybody says you'll be rich, but you're gettin' hard an' mean. You don't care anythin' about home any more."

"I

"Yes, I do, sis," he said, seriously. think of it an' you an' mother many a time when I'm travelin' in the mountains." 'Well, you like the mill better." "That's my work--my business. I oughter love it. Don't dad love his range an' his cattle most as well as he does you? Course I like the mill."

"Now, law me, Lick, I didn't mean anythin' exceptin' you was gettin' old an' business like -'

"You reckon I am?" he interrupted eagerly.

"Yes; you're as dry an' stiff-necked as the postmaster."

Lick's face fell. "Oh, he's small pertaters; but I'm agoin' to be rich, Marthy.”

Her ace grew very grave. "I'm afraid that's goin' to be your grand trouble. You want to be somebody grand."

"You gals don't know anythin' outside of stories. You don't know what a hole of a place this here is."

"Why, Lick, dad says it's the grandest place in Arizony!"

The horrified expression in her face, which dared him to disrespect her father's dictum, silenced him. What did girls and cattle men know about milling and business men-men that never wore jeans and figured up a column quicker than his best teacher? How could they understand his devotion to the business that was to make him a great man?

"G'long thar, Prunelly, an' you, Ojark ---them mules are so fat they ain't good for nothin' no more. Hold on ter yer rubbish; I'm goin' to drive."

He shied a couple of pebbles with unerring aim at the leaders' heads, and with a flourish of their spiky tails they dashed into a trot, and presently dipped into a narrow cañon, whose ever-ascending sides were gilded here and there with patches of sunshine falling through rifts in the cloudy sky. Marthy had forgotten her flowers and stared before her, while Lick, his temporary surliness having blown over, gazed at her from. under the limp rim of his soiled white hat, with an expression of fondness brimming up in his small, grey eyes, and overflowing on his face in an indulgent, loving smile. Patches of thunder-cloud were gathering on the mountain tops, while the bursts of thunder, rolling forth full voiced as it can only in mountains, with sharper peals as the sun went down, were alternated by deep silence. The birds were hushed, and the heavy air seemed to have deadened the ripple of the stream on its stony bed; the rising wind swept down a few drops and then a sheet of water.

"-than the parson himself," interpolated Lick drily.

Her eyes filled with tears. "You might be better natured than that. They all talk that way, till home's the most miserable place I know of. place I know of. I always could depend on you. I'm as much of a Hidewilder as any of you. I love 'em, I'm proud I'm one of 'em, but I ain't no better'n him.”

"Better'n he is, sis" corrected her brother. "No I ain't," she went on, not heeding him. "He's no 'count' he said, "an' his brother is a-"

"As for horse-thievin', you needn't look over the range," she interrupted hotly. "I'm miserable at home when you ain't there, an' I reckon it won't make any difference, now, whether you come or not. I won't live there. I'm going to Markle's an' you shan't bring me home with a lariat."

"I wasn't sayin' nothin' agin him," the brother began uneasily.

She laughed and rested her hands on his shoulders. "You're away off from all the folks"-coaxingly; "I reckon if you whisper it, it won't be heard. Now, don't you like him?"

"I haven't nothin' agin him," he repeated frankly.

"Why don't you say so at home?"

'Cause 'twouldn't help you any. Dad says they're horse-" Martha flung back her head and opened her mouth, but in the twilight she caught the steady gaze of her brother's eyes and stopped. "I reckon we'd better not talk about horse-stealin'," he said. "I might like you a hundred times more'n I do---though I don't reckon I could--but I can't shake hands with the parson an' say, 'Here, mister, I'll help you run off with my sister.

"Who's talkin' about runnin' away," she cried, turning scarlet.

He smiled shrewdly. "Well, that's what it would come to.

She dropped the flowers one by one into the road. She thought it a great hardship that she could not be allowed to differ from the family in opinion. Lick went on, "The boys are older'n me; they think that way, and I must foller. This is a family affair.

He pulled his hat down, buttoned his coat, and turned down its cuffs, as though to shut out further argument. The flowers continued to fall, and with them now and then a tear.

He re

Lick drew an extra coat of his own over Martha's shoulders, while the mules clattered on, and the dusk followed in a gallop, bringing in its train a sheet of a rain. marked that he reckoned they'd have a kinder wet night, but neither seemed to notice it. The drops splashed from his hat to his bared. fingers, and trickled through hers down her cheeks. It was only a shower; but when it passed on, the water was surging around the mules' feet, and the low brush at the sides broke and floated down-Lick stopped several times to pull it from his wheels-and when the mules dropped to a walk the constant purl of cataracts on the hillsides sounded like rude music. The air was laden with pungent odors; even the charred manzanita brush on one side of the road sending up a vote of thanks for the aid to the struggling young shoots among the gnarled limbs.

The night was well worn when the mules stopped on a low ridge, where the light of a house stood cheerfully forth. There was some stir inside; Martha marked it.

the rest of the family-and the little front yard was full of it-escorted Martha indoors. Lick almost immediately followed, and instinctively sought the dark corner of the chimney.

There was an under-current of anxiety in almost his first remark- a question what was doing at Red Oaks. The reply was that Red Oaks was sailing along in fine style. Red Oaks was a settlement, or rather a string of ranch houses, following the one large stream of the range, where the Hidewilders lived. When Lick heard the answer to his query, his face became more sombre. Were things the same elsewhere ? No, they were not-they were riledquite riled. Reckoned as he heard? No, he hadn't heard.

Well, some of the Longspre ranchers were in the valley near his mill.

For a moment as Lick's face whitened it lost its determined lines. The mouth that usually looked so flinty had weakened-it trembled. He was a boy again. He saw the others eagerly and sympathetically watching him-eager to discover his weakness, ready to sympathize and publish abroad their sympathy and its cause. He turned to the fire and sought refuge in its warm reflection, and then asked if that were all.

They said it was. And still he sat still. "But me an' Marthy come from thar to-day." "But thar was a man come in on the trail to warn ye."

And still he sat quiet, warming his hands. Finally he arose. "I reckon I'd better go back for a spell, Marthy. I'll take Prunelly -jist to see if Kansas is runnin' the mill all right."

"That's it, honey," chimed in the lady of the house--a gaunt woman in a gaunt wrapper, with a hungry-looking, long-stemmed pipe in her hand. "I was afeared you was

cowed."

They helped him into a dry coat, and brought out a snug array of arms, from which he hastily selected a rifle and revol

ver; and as he did so the head of the house proudly exclaimed, "I'll go on to yer dad in the mornin' with Marthy, an' tell 'em what a fight ye had and how ye cleaned 'em out."

Lick did not respond. Martha came timidly to her brother. From her childhood she had seen lights in his eyes that frightened her, a certain rigid bend of his head and tightening of the spare flesh about his jaws and mouth that awed her. She thought him terrible now--but she managed to whisper, If it's him, don't hurt him." "If

"And my mill burned ?"

"Mebbe it aint-and he wouldn't do it. "Well, then, hush with your don'ts," he answered roughly, shaking her off; but she clung to him and he dragged her to the door, where the rain splashed into both pale faces. The astonished family fell back. They had never seen the two quarrel since they fought over their Sunday "chicken fixin's"-which fixings were about the only observance of the holy day that was kept in the Hidewilder family.

"Don't hurt him, Lick," she pleaded. "He's all I have-an' all your life long you'll be sorry."

"Let me go. If the mill's burned I'm cleaned out, if you know what that means. I'll never have another sich chance."

He shoved her away, and the wind banged the door to-and she burst into tears. In his way, Lick was always kind. It was so long since he had spoken roughly that she was stunned, nor remembered anything except that he was gone—and a gun and a pistol, and a swift mule with him.

He mounted Prunelly and hurried down the road they had just traversed. Even had Even had not the Hidewilder honor-on which they seemed to pride themselves so much-been at stake, there was cause enough to speed Lick to the Verde Valley. Down in its narrow heart stood the high, whitewashed flouring mill in which the soul, ambition, and fortune of Lick were centered. He had

sold his share in the cattle (his father was sternly just to his many children), and had ventured the proceeds in the flour mill. The valley had said derisively that only a boy full of fine "'rithmetic calkylations would have thought of milling on the top of the Black Range. But there he was, and his lean face and plump mules had become familiar to nearly all Yavapai, and to every new Mormon immigrant and disgusted desert rancher, seduced to the mountains by the promise of the Great Northern Railway. Just now the mill gave promise of prospering. Just now Lick's partner, a fat little man from Kansas, indulged in the mild dissipation of mounting one of the many turnstiles of the Prescott plaza and haranguing a feeble crowd of idle teamsters and lounging gamblers on the merits of Kansas, as embodied in himself and evinced in the great establishment of Hidewilder & Co. Just now the mill had drawn the attention of the Longspres.

The elder Longspre had some cause of enmity with Joel Hidewilder; and his peaceable son, the "parson," by his efforts to patch up the trouble and get the womenfolks down to his rare sermons, had received all the superfluous wrath intended for his father, and plenty besides. The Hidewilders hated patching, except in the domestic department. The parson's brother had a bad reputation; and it was this son and the father that Lick feared-not without a shadowy outline of a more classical and clerical face in the rear of his suspicions, for no one but Marthy had any faith in the professional pretensions of the "parson."

Lick had managed so far to avoid the brawling that took place, particularly at round ups. His brothers had taught him all his life how to meet such an emergency as this, but he was glad the darkness and the mountains protected him, for he felt weak and spiritless. He urged on Prunelly, yet twisted in his saddle as though he could see home and Martha's reproachful eyes.