with a fresh herd of cattle. There were so many factors to consider that he felt passive for a moment—an old feeling he knew well from his years of rangering. Often, in a tight situation, his mind would seem to grow tired from so much hard thinking. He would sink for a time into a blankness, only to come out of it in the midst of an action he had n

Call got a plate of food and went off by himself to eat. It was something he had always done—moved apart, so he could be alone and think things out a little. In the old days, when he first developed the habit, the men had not understood. Occasionally one would follow him, wanting to chat. But they soon learned better—nothing made Call sink deeper i

Dish Boggett, who had had little sleep and had not enjoyed the little, found the remark irritating.

He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men.

“I’m sure partial to the evening,” Augustus said. “The evening and the morning. If we just didn’t have to have the rest of the dern day I’d be a lot happier.”

Though he had always been a careful planner, life on the frontier had long ago convinced him of the fragility of plans. The truth was, most plans did fail, to one degree or another, for one reason or another. He had survived as a Ranger because he was quick to respond to what he had actually found, not because his planning was infallible.