Page:Patches (1928).pdf/141

 rest of the Crooked Creek cow-punchers thought of home.

"This is going to be pretty tough on you, Larry" saidLarry," said [sic] Uncle Henry. "I never thought what a hard day you'd have when I made the arrangements. You see, we started the chuck wagon back this morning and our camp for to-night is thirty miles up the wagon trail towards home. There is over a hundred miles to make between now and to-morrow night where our Thanksgiving dinner will be served at eight o'clock and we must all be there."

Larry groaned inwardly and a great sigh escaped him. It seemed to him that he had never been so tired before in his entire life. Every muscle in his whole body was sore and his back ached so he could hardly sit in the saddle. His wrists were red and swollen and there was a big welt on the back of one hand.

"If you think it will be too much for you," continued his uncle, "we can stay over at a hotel, but the boys will be terribly disappointed if we don't get back for to-morrow night."

Then Larry pulled himself together. It was a strenuous country in which he was living and he was doing a man's part. These cow-punchers were like iron. Fatigue that would kill an ordinary man was nothing to them. Above everything else in the