It looked as if the short-grass country was emptying itself into Pawnee Bend for the celebration that day. Bill Dunham heard the beat of hoofs in the road before daylight as the first skirmishers, who must have left distant cow camps at midnight, passed. These were the cowboys who had leave for the day, determined to make it a long one, hastening in to prime their appetites and lay the foundation for a proper state of hilarity fitting to the big event.
By sunrise traffic began to thicken until there scarcely was a time when somebody was not in the road, a condition of marvelous activity in that vast lonely land. Later the spring wagons and buggies came rolling along, wheeling up such a dust as never was seen on that old trail except when a Texas herd went by on the end of its long slow march.
It was such an animating sight that the Moore family were constantly rushing out with things in their hands to see, and hail distant friends, and whoop farcarrying conversations, which the travelers never paused to engage in, with satisfaction and good cheer to all concerned.
Moore was at his best in those loud-shouted hails and questions after the welfare of families and general conditions on far corners of the range. He could
