sick with disappointment and indignation.




CHAPTER I

CONCERNING A STREET TWELVE MILES LONG

"I like yore outfit," Red Hollister grumbled. "You're nice boys, and
good to yore mothers--what few of you ain't wore their gray hairs to
the grave with yore frolicsome ways. You know yore business and you
got a good cook. But I'm darned if I like this thing of two meals a
day, one at a quarter to twelve at night and the other a quarter past
twelve, also and likewise at night."

A tenderfoot might have thought that Hollister had some grounds for
complaint. For weeks he had been crawling out of his blankets in the
pre-dawn darkness of 3 A.M. He had sat shivering down beside a
camp-fire to swallow a hurried breakfast and had swung into the saddle
while night was still heavy over the land. He had ridden after cattle
wild as deer and had wrestled with _ladino_ steers till long after the
stars were up. In the chill night he had eaten another meal, rolled up
in his blankets, and fallen into instant heavy sleep. And five minutes
later--or so at least it seemed to him--the cook had pounded on the
triangle for him to get up.

None the less Red's grumbling was a pretense. He would not have been
anywhere else for twice the pay. This was what he lived for.