Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/14

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX several years he had been content to hire a couple of men to represent him in the roundups of the larger outfits — men whom he could trust to watch fairly well his interests. By that method he avoided much trouble and hurry and hard work — and escaped also the cares which come with wealth.

But this spring was not as other springs had been. Something — whether an awakened ambition or an access of sentiment regarding range matters, he did not know — was stirring the blood in Applehead's veins. Never, since the days when he had been a cowpuncher, had the wide spaces called to him so alluringly; never had his mind dwelt so insistently upon the approach of spring roundup. Perhaps it was because he heard so much range talk at the ranch, where the boys of the Flying U were foregathered in uneasy idleness, their fingers itching for the feel of lariat ropes and branding irons while they gazed out over the wide spaces of the mesa.

So much good rangeland unharnessed by wire fencing the Flying U boys had not seen for many a day. During the winter they had been content 2