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 add anything to Barrett's comfort. He had found the rifle there when he mounted, accepting it without question or comment as part of his equipment.

Nearing had said nothing about side arms, neither had Barrett ventured to reveal the entirely dependable, many-times proved pistol of man-size caliber concealed in his blanket roll. Perhaps pistols were not permitted recruits; maybe a man must progress to them, as to the tools belonging to advanced knowledge of the craft.

Nearing's easy-going pace held the travelers long on their way. While they were still several miles from Eagle Rock camp the sun dipped behind the hills, purple shadows came reaching across the plain like an incoming tide. They were mounting to this ridge which hid the sun, a long, grassy, upheaval, gray ledges breaking from its sides like the bones of a faminedead range beast. Gray-boled, stunted cedars grew along its summit, a thousand years of torture by drouth, fire and storm recorded in their twisted trunks and knotted branches.

"This is winter pasture, we keep the cattle out of here after the spring months to let the grass grow and cure where it stands," Nearing explained. He halted on the eminence, sweeping his hand to include the merely incidental hundreds of square miles which stretched brokenly into the west.

"It's a better looking country than any we've crossed, it looks better to me, anyway," Barrett commented, scanning the grazing lands with a certain proprietary interest which perhaps was out of place, he thought, considering his subordinate state.