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 stunned for the next thing I remembered I was lying up close to something and something else was on top of me. I opened my eyes and looked around. There wan't a steer in sight. I was lying on the ground close up to my hoss and Little Al was lying on top of me. Half of his ribs was broken and he was terribly battered. He had layed above my head and sheltered me. I was so stiff and bruised myself I could hardly get up but Little Al was dead.

"He was the only greaser that I ever saw that I didn't hate worse'n than the devil hates holy water but I really did love Little Al."

It was a dramatic story as Bill told it and as Larry gazed at the sun-burned, wind-tanned cowboy, he marvelled at his stoicism and the hardships he had seen. But at this point in the reminiscences a cow-puncher rode up saying it was time for a new shift. So Larry's three friends, Big Bill, Pony, and Long Tom, saddled their horses and went to keep guard. Above the sounds of the milling herd a few minutes later Larry heard Pony's clear tenor voice singing as he rode up and down his beat and he was singing that old cow-puncher hymn which Larry had heard that first night in the Crooked Creek ranch house: