Cow-Country | Page 7

knew were not stars but camp-fires.
Quite unexpectedly he trudged into the firelight where Step- and-a-Half was stirring delectable things in the iron pots and stopping every minute or so to stare anxiously into the gloom. Buddy stood blinking and sniffing, his eyes fixed upon the Dutch ovens.
"I'm HUNGRY!" he announced accusingly, gripping the toad that had begun to squirm at the heat and light. I kilt a snake an' I'm HUNGRY!"
"Good gorry!" swore Step-and-a-Half, and whipped out his six-shooter and fired three shots into the air.
Footsteps came scurrying. Buddy's mother swept him into her arms, laughing with a little whimpering sound of tears in the laughter. Buddy wriggled protestingly in her arms.
"L'kout! Y' all SKUCSH 'im! I got a HAWN-toe; wight here." He patted his chest gloatingly. "An' I got a snake. I kilt 'im. An' I'm HUNGRY."
Mother of Buddy though she was, Lassie set him down hurriedly and surveyed her man-child from a little distance.
"Buddy! Drop that snake instantly'"
Buddy obeyed, but he planted a foot close to his kill and pouted his lips. "'S my snake. I kilt 'im," He said firmly. He pulled the horned toad from his waist-front and held it tightly in his two hands. "An's my hawn-toe. I ketche'd'm. 'Way ova dere," he added, tilting his tow head toward the darkness behind him.
Bob Birnie rode up at a gallop, pulled up his horse in the edge of the fire glow and dismounted hastily.
Bob Birnie never needed more than one glance to furnish him the details of a scene. He saw the very small boy confronting his mother with a dead snake, a horned toad and a stubborn set to his lips. He saw that the mother looked rather helpless before the combination--and his brown mustache hid a smile. He walked up and looked his first-born over.
"Buddy," He demanded sternly, "where have you been?"
"Out dere. Kilt a snake. Ants was trailing a herd. I got a HAWN-toe. An' I'm hungry!"
"You know better than to leave the wagon, young man. Didn't you know we had to get out and hunt you, and mother was scared the wolves might eat you? Didn't you hear us calling you? Why didn't you answer?"
Buddy looked up from under his baby eyebrows at his father, who seemed very tall and very terrible. But his bare foot touched the dead snake and he took comfort. "I was comin'," he said. "I WASN'T los'. I bringed my snake and my hawn-toe. An' dey--WASN'T--any--woluffs!" The last word came muffled, buried in his mother's skirts.

CHAPTER TWO
: THE TRAIL HERD
Day after day the trail herd plodded slowly to the north, following the buffalo trails that would lead to water, and the crude map of one who had taken a herd north and had returned with a tale of vast plains and no rivals. Always through the day the dust cloud hung over the backs of the cattle, settled into the clothes of those who followed, grimed the pink aprons of Buddy and his small sister Dulcie so that they were no longer pink. Whenever a stream was reached, mother searched patiently for clear water and an untrampled bit of bank where she might do the family washing, leaving Ezra to mind the children. But even so the crust and the wear and tear of travel remained to harass her fastidious soul.
Buddy remembered that drive as he could not remember the comfortable ranch house of his earlier babyhood. To him afterward it seemed that life began with the great herd of cattle. He came to know just how low the sun must slide from the top of the sky before the "point" would spread out with noses to the ground, pausing wherever a mouthful of grass was to be found. When these leaders of the herd stopped, the cattle would scatter and begin feeding. If there was water they would crowd the banks of the stream or pool, pushing and prodding one another with their great, sharp horns. Later, when the sun was gone and dusk crept out of nowhere, the cowboys would ride slowly around the herd, pushing it quietly into a smaller compass. Then, if Buddy were not too sleepy, he would watch the cattle lie down to chew their cuds in deep, sighing content until they slept. It reminded Buddy vaguely of when mother popped corn in a wire popper, a long time ago-before they all lived in a wagon and went with the herd. First one and two-then there would be three, four, five, as many as Buddy could count-then the whole herd would be lying down.
Buddy loved the camp-fires. The cowboys would sit around the one where his father and mother sat--mother with Dulcie in her arms--and they would smoke and tell stories, until mother told him it was time little boys were