IN May the various cattle outfits began their cow and calf round-ups. Here and there over the leased lands of the Reservation were small branding corrals; the herds were gathered near them and held, cows with calves were cut out and driven to the wide log jaws which led into it, the line of riders closed up solidly behind them, and to pitiful outcries and wailings the burning and ear-cropping went on. The calf was roped from its mother's side, thrown, branded and released; the acrid odor of burning hair and flesh filled the air, and then the bewildered animals were turned loose, to retreat once more to coulee or protected valley, there to ponder on the inscrutable ways of mankind.
The spring had been late, and the winter loss heavy. Potters' men, gathering together in the cook tent after dark for poker or conversation, were disgruntled. They had worked hard, but the calf crop was low. And their tallies showed other losses, not to be accounted for by the drought and the hard winter. Rumors of rustlers went around. The Bristols, to the north of them, claimed to have lost three thousand head out of their herd of forty thousand during the past year, but the old days of quick justice were over. The rustler moved his cattle by night and hid them during the daylight. When he got them far enough off he sweated on a new brand or reworked the old one, and if he was caught there were always shyster lawyers to get him off.
"Not enough neck-tie parties," they said among themselves. "Nowadays, unless a fellow follows a hide to Chicago or Omaha, he's got a poor chance to prove anything."
Sitting on their heels, smoking their eternal cigarettes, they threshed out the matter. And Gus would listen and grin to himself, a mysterious smile that nobody noticed. Gus was helping the cook. He had not been quite the same
