"
"Yes," Dave agreed. Then more gravely: "I'm sorry I let him go
across the river." There was a pause. "If anybody harms him I
reckon I'll have a feud on my hands, for I'm a grateful person."
"I believe it. I can see that you are loyal."
"I was starved on sentiment when I was little, but it's in me
bigger than a skinned ox. They say gratitude is an elemental,
primitive emotion--"
"Perhaps that's why it is so rare nowadays," said Alaire, not more
than half in jest.
"You find it rare?" Dave looked up keenly. "Well, you have
certainly laid up a store of it to-day."
Benito and his men had rounded up perhaps three thousand head of
cattle when Alaire and her companion appeared, and they were in
the process of "cutting out." Assembled near a flowing well which
gave life to a shallow pond, the herd was held together by a half-
dozen horsemen who rode its outskirts, heading off and driving
back the strays. Other men, under Benito's personal direction,
were isolating the best animals and sending them back to the
pasture. It was an animated scene, one fitted to rouse enthusiasm
in any plainsman, for the stock was fat and healthy; there were
many calves, and the incessant, rumbling complaint of the herd was
bloodstirring.
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