down, the boys swung for it, unspeaking as a pack of hounds in sight of the kill. Sleet mixed with the sleep in their eyes, and Danny lost both boots in the moss of a spring-head. They were stiff, each and each, with the saddle and with bruises; for in rough country a stockman takes falls in the work of most days; and well they know that not one man, though that man should be Buck, would hold thirteen horses when Nature was angry.
Down the acre-wide yard swept the horses, like ghosts without sound or shape. Behind, Buck was mad as the grey mare he straddled. The swing of her body and the smell of wet hair made him drunk with the joy of it, and he brought his mob to the gate with the longing for freedom clutching him too.
The gate swung in the wind, and Lou caught it as Ike’s cob struck it full with his chest. The rebound cast Lou three yards down the track where the pack-horse pinched his arm with a hind-shoe as it jumped him. Lou twisted; snatched at a mane that blew in his face, gripped the nostril; the mane; forced the bridle he carried between the teeth and over the ears, and came up astride, with the check-strap flapping. The men were gasping and giddy as they saw, and Tod spoke for them all when he said:
“Sure the divil is a swate kind frind to Lou.
