When A Mans A Man | Page 9

shame and tinsel show--lights that hid
the stars. The man on the Divide lifted his face to the stars that now in
the wide-arched sky were gathering in such unnumbered multitudes to
keep their sentinel watch over the world below.
The cool evening wind came whispering over the lonely land, and all
the furred and winged creatures of the night stole from their dark hiding

places into the gloom which is the beginning of their day. A coyote
crept stealthily past in the dark and from the mountain side below came
the weird, ghostly call of its mate. An owl drifted by on silent wings.
Night birds chirped in the chaparral. A fox barked on the ridge above.
The shadowy form of a bat flitted here and there. From somewhere in
the distance a bull bellowed his deep-voiced challenge.
Suddenly the man on the summit of the Divide sprang to his feet and,
with a gesture that had he not been so alone might have seemed
affectedly dramatic, stretched out his arms in an attitude of wistful
longing while his lips moved as if, again and again, he whispered a
name.
CHAPTER III.
IN THE BIG PASTURE.
In the Williamson Valley country the spring round-up, or "rodeo," as it
is called in Arizona, and the shipping are well over by the last of June.
During the long summer weeks, until the beginning of the fall rodeo in
September, there is little for the riders to do. The cattle roam free on the
open ranges, while calves grow into yearlings, yearlings become
two-year-olds, and two-year-olds mature for the market. On the
Cross-Triangle and similar ranches, three or four of the steadier
year-round hands only are held. These repair and build fences, visit the
watering places, brand an occasional calf that somehow has managed to
escape the dragnet of the rodeo, and with "dope bottle" ever at hand
doctor such animals as are afflicted with screwworms. It is during these
weeks, too, that the horses are broken; for, with the hard and dangerous
work of the fall and spring months, there is always need for fresh
mounts.
The horses of the Cross-Triangle were never permitted to run on the
open range. Because the leaders of the numerous bands of wild horses
that roamed over the country about Granite Mountain were always
ambitious to gain recruits for their harems from their civilized
neighbors, the freedom of the ranch horses was limited by the fences of

a four-thousand-acre pasture. But within these miles of barbed wire
boundaries the brood mares with their growing progeny lived as free
and untamed as their wild cousins on the unfenced lands about them.
The colts, except for one painful experience, when they were roped and
branded, from the day of their birth until they were ready to be broken
were never handled.
On the morning following his meeting with the stranger on the Divide
Phil Acton, with two of his cowboy helpers, rode out to the big pasture
to bring in the band.
The owner of the Cross-Triangle always declared that Phil was
intimately acquainted with every individual horse and head of stock
between the Divide and Camp Wood Mountain, and from Skull Valley
to the Big Chino. In moments of enthusiasm the Dean even maintained
stoutly that his young foreman knew as well every coyote, fox, badger,
deer, antelope, mountain lion, bobcat and wild horse that had home or
hunting ground in the country over which the lad had ridden since his
babyhood. Certain it is that "Wild Horse Phil," as he was called by
admiring friends--for reasons which you shall hear--loved this work
and life to which he was born. Every feature of that wild land, from
lonely mountain peak to hidden canyon spring, was as familiar to him
as the streets and buildings of a man's home city are well known to the
one reared among them. And as he rode that morning with his
comrades to the day's work the young man felt keenly the call of the
primitive, unspoiled life that throbbed with such vital strength about
him. He could not have put that which he felt into words; he was not
even conscious of the forces that so moved him; he only knew that he
was glad.
The days of the celebration at Prescott had been enjoyable days. To
meet old friends and comrades; to ride with them in the contests that all
true men of his kind love; to compare experiences and exchange news
and gossip with widely separated neighbors--had been a pleasure. But
the curious crowds of strangers; the throngs of sightseers from the, to
him, unknown world of cities, who had regarded him as they might
have viewed some rare and little-known creature in a menagerie, and

the brazen presence of those