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 "Texas cattle always get homesick that way," she explained to Louise, but for the benefit of the two worried young men from town.

"When the wind's in the south you've got to hold 'em," said Jim. "They can smell home, they always begin to mill around and hold their heads high. They'll buck off on a stampede as quick as you can drop your hat sometimes when the wind's in the south. Didn't the sheriff tell you that?"

"He never told us nothin'!" the clerk cowboy said. "Now they'll send us up for about seventy years."

"Yes, they will stampede when the wind's in the south," Jim said. He beat his horse's neck with his hat, doubling over his saddle-horn in a new seizure of risibility.

Louise began to see the humor of the situation, and more. She looked into Maud's audacious eyes, which laughter had pinched to little slits, understanding now that this was the result of the shrewd girl's planning, into which her equally clever brother had entered with all his keen desire to throw a trick against Cal Withers.

"It's the funniest thing!" said Louise, gratitude, and laughter, and a great uplifting of exultation and relief, setting a glow in her face like the chafing of a wintry wind.

"Ain't it?" said Maud, letting out a whoop equal to the highest-keyed cowboy on the range, riding a hilarious circle around the little group.

Tom rode slowly along the herd's trail a little way, and to the side of it, coming back with serious face.