CONTENTS
COW-COUNTRY
CHAPTER ONE: AN AMBITIOUS MAN-CHILD WAS BUDDY
CHAPTER TWO: THE TRAIL HERD
CHAPTER THREE: SOME INDIAN LORE
CHAPTER FOUR: BUDDY GIVES WARNING
CHAPTER FIVE: BUDDY RUNS TRUE TO TYPE
CHAPTER SIX: THE YOUNG EAGLE MUST FLY
CHAPTER SEVEN: BUD FLIPS A COIN WITH FATE
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE MULESHOE
CHAPTER NINE: LITTLE LOST
CHAPTER TEN: BUD MEETS THE WOMAN
CHAPTER ELEVEN: GUILE AGAINST THE WILY
CHAPTER TWELVE: SPORT O' KINGS
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE SINKS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: EVEN MUSHROOMS HELP
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: WHY BUD MISSED A DANCE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: WHILE THE GOING'S GOOD
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: GUARDIAN ANGELS ARE RIDING POINT
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE CATROCK GANG
CHAPTER NINETEEN: BUD RIDES THROUGH CATROCK AND LOSES MARIAN
CHAPTER TWENTY: "PICK YOUR FOOTING!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: TRAILS END
In hot mid afternoon when the acrid, gray dust cloud kicked up by the listless plodding of eight thousand cloven hoofs formed the only blot on the hard blue above the Staked Plains, an ox stumbled and fell awkwardly under his yoke, and refused to scramble up when his negro driver shouted and prodded him with the end of a willow gad.
“Call your master, Ezra,” directed a quiet woman voice gone weary and toneless with the heat and two restless children. “Don't beat the poor brute. He can't go any farther and carry the yoke, much less pull the wagon.”
Ezra dropped the gad and stepped upon the wagon tongue where he might squint into the dust cloud and decide which gray, plodding horseman alongside the herd was Robert Birnie. Far across the sluggish river of grimy backs, a horse threw up its head with a peculiar sidelong motion, and Ezra's eyes lightened with recognitio