Man of the Family by Ralph Moody

to ride him. He spooked and crow-hopped every chance he got, and sometimes I had about all I could do to stay on him. And he didn’t know any more about heading off an ornery steer than a billy goat. Ace Alexander gave me more trouble than any breachy old cow in the herd. He had borrowed a horse from one of the girls, and couldn’t even ride it at a trot. But he didn’t care. He’d grab hold of the saddle horn with both hands and war-whoop like a drunken Indian. He wouldn’t even let me fire him.
    We never did have any lunch. By the time Dutch and I got back there with the boys, there were cattle spread from Dan to Beersheba. They were scattered along the highroad for a couple of miles, and had broken fences in a dozen different places. Some of them had even climbed up on top of the hill by the railroad cuts. It was almost three o’clock before we had them rounded up and headed into town. And I was scared half silly.
    By that time the cattle were drier than road dust. The river was only a quarter of a mile from the highroad, and I knew what dry cattle would do when they smelled water. If they’d stampeded for the river before we hit town, it wouldn’t have been my fault, but I’d promised to see them safe through Littleton. It was my first chance to be a drover and I wanted to do a good job.
    After we crossed Lenheart’s bridge, we boys rode ahead, so I could put the best ones on the river side of the highroad. Just as we came into town, school let out. I saw the kids come boiling out of the schoolyard, and sent Dutch kiting down there to tell the little ones to get back from the highroad, and the bigger ones to get on the river side and help us. The girls were the best of all. I guess those cattle had never seen girls before, and they were afraid of them. All the girls had to do to head them off was to flap their skirts—and they did a good job of flapping. There were over nine hundred cattle in that herd, and not one of them got away from us on the river side of the highroad. By six o’clock we had them all through town and headed west on the River Road.
    The drive boss was waiting for me at the corner by the gristmill. I asked him if we’d done all right, and told him I was sorry about some of the boys running his cattle, and about Ace whooping like an Indian.
    The sheriff was there, too, and he started saying that Ace was full of the devil and that his father was a judge and some more things, but I don’t think the drive boss heard him. He stuck his hand out to shake hands with me. There was something hard in it, and he said, “You done all right. Some of them boys ain’t worth a damn by at least a dollar and a half, but some of ’em’s goin’ to make cow hands.” Then he winked at me, and said, “Them girls is all right, too. Bein’ you, I’d see they got a treat. Same deal for you and me in October?”
    I said, “Yes, sir.” And when I took my hand away there was a ten-dollar gold piece in it.
    I wanted to take it home to show Mother, but I couldn’t because I had to pay the boys and Eva Snow. We took it up to Shellabarger’s and broke it. When everybody had his quarter it seemed as though I had more than my share left. Some of the boys had worked just about as hard as I had, and it seemed as if they ought to get more than a quarter, but Dutch said it would only spoil them. But he did let me give him half a dollar for being my foreman, and the quarter I’d promised him that morning. After that we talked about treating the girls, and decided to spend another half dollar for candy. We looked in the candy case for quite a while, and talked about most of the different kinds, but we decided on lollipops. They were five for a cent, and that way we knew we’d have plenty to go all around. Mr. Shellabarger didn’t even bother to count them, but passed us out the whole box.
    After everybody’d had some,